Review on 🎧 Sony D-NE710 ATRAC3/MP3 Portable Disc Player CD Walkman by Joe Vazquez

Let me start by saying that this player is the best I've had. Well that doesn't mean anything unless I explain that I've had about 8 portable CD players and this is my third MP3 CD player. or Atrac so I don't have to change CDs.) So I often push the limits of compression and sometimes I have over 400 mp3s on one CD. I've found that you can really tell a lot about how well made a player is by using it in these edge cases, so here's the list of features and my thoughts on each feature. Batteries are a definite plus. If you have regular CDs this player will last around 30 hours and with mp3/atrac you will get around 100 hours of playback on 1 set. Yes, and using NiMH batteries works great with this player. I highly recommend adding the kit and 1 hour charger. It took a week for the battery indicator to drop a notch, but it went down pretty quickly after that. In addition, it should be noted that this player incorporates energy saving technology by using a spinning CD to charge the internal battery. Really great to show your friends. Atrac: It was a surprise for me. Atrac is a proprietary format (used with minidiscs) and offers better compression than mp3. The software that comes with this player converts mp3 to atrac but it is very slow. On the other hand, if you are ripping a CD for the first time, converting to Atrac is 1.5 times faster than ripping to mp3. What was disappointing was that you couldn't save your CD and add more files later, you had to do everything at once. The sound quality is the same and honestly my advice is this; If you already have MP3s, just burn them to CD. However, if you want to burn multiple (10 or more) CDs onto one CD, use Atrac (but remember that it's only compatible with Sony players). Another thing to consider is that there is no equivalent tool for Linux users. which is really a shame. Surely if Sony supported Linux, there would be easy ways to reconfigure the software to better suit these power users. Overall, I rate this feature as mixed. Quite surprising as my MP3s often have variable bitrates and high compression ratios. Other players have issues with the compression level I use as they don't know when the track actually ends, this player worked great. An annoyance, sometimes there is a 1-2 second pause while loading the next mp3. Random Mode: Good algorithm. I had players play the same song three times in a row because they didn't have a good method of picking a random song. This player doesn't do that at all. Another plus for Sony developers. file system. If you're like me you like a nicely organized filesystem to keep things organized. This player works great with folders and the like. The only downside is sometimes folder names are truncated due to display, so specify the drive number first if you want to see it with the jump wheel. It is also sorted alphabetically and is case sensitive. So don't be surprised if a zebra stands in front of an aardvark. Finally, since I add leading zeros automatically, I don't know how this player will work without them, so make sure you leave them on (not required for Atrac). And one more thing, because I could have hundreds of files. With a CD, I expected the CD to take a long time to load. However, this player loaded it fairly quickly, which is a very pleasant surprise. Reset/resume mode: This is another annoyance with this player. From time to time it resets and you lose your disc space. However, this happens so rarely that you shouldn't worry about it. On the other hand, this player remembers where you left off, so you can always pick up where you left off (even in the middle of a track). Very cool. Another plus. Durability: This player is built to last. I'm not worried about it breaking like my Panasonic. It's fairly durable and requires serious handling. Remote control: The remote controls on these types of turntables are built into the headphones, so you don't have to fiddle with the device to skip a track or anything like that. This player has a place for a remote control, but it is not included. I contacted Sony to look for it as they would make this player even better but got no response. I would really like a remote control for this player, that's the only thing missing about it. A remote control is included in the next step, but this version doesn't have any controls on the player itself. Summary: If you've got the money, this player will satisfy even the pickiest user. I've been using it for two months and I love it. The only thing that could be improved is the remote control and some improvements in the software. Overall definitely worth the money and a +5 score.