Sony D-NE715 Blue ATRAC/MP3 CD Walkman

Good points:
+ 330 tracks on one ATRAC CD
+ Accesses ATRAC and MP3 tracks quickly
+ HUGE battery life
+ Bombproof G-Protection (you cannot make it skip)
+ Looks cool
+ JOG dial and ID3 tags

Bad points:
- Low(ish) headphone volume
- In ear headphones
- Small noise from unit inbetween MP3/ATRAC tracks

This is a great little player. Open the box and you'll be pleased to see it looks so much better than the picture. I'll skip over the fact it's a CD player and move onto MP3 and ATRAC which is why you would buy it.

MP3 discs can be made up easily using Nero or any other writer software. You can put around 150 MP3 tracks onto one CD. The ATRAC discs can be made using the SonicStage software supplied. An incredible 330 tracks can be put on one disc using ATRAC (60kbps). The quality is very good. Ever so slightly lacking in the very top end of the treble, but it's still very good. The ATRAC CDs can be made up from audio CDs or MP3 files on your PC. The compression does take some time though. My poor old 500MHz PC takes around 9 hours (yes HOURS!) to compress and write one ATRAC CD of 330 tracks from MP3s.

Once made up though the use of the discs is great. 75 albums on three discs. Navigate through the albums and tracks using Jog dial, even while the player is still playing. There's a three line display that shows all the track information.

G-Protection - I've had the player one week, it's not skipped once. This includes 6 hours driving a minibus around country roads. The player loads the MP3/ATRAC track into the memory and then plays it from there. The CD stops spinning. So there's nothing moving that can skip.

Battery life - Very good. The player comes with two AA 700mAh NiMH rechargable batteries, a power supply and a built in recharge circuit. The batteries last for ages. I've (rather needlessly) replaced them with 2100mAh batteries that should last 3 times longer.

There are only three small negatives. First of all the volume. It's not going to blow your head off, but it is okay. Second, the headphones. I've never been a fan of in ear headphones. The sound quality is good, but I find they hurt my ears and fall out if I'm moving around. I can't imagine why a player that would be great for jogging would come with these. I'm going to replace them ASAP. The stick remote is useful though. Finally, There is a slight noise from the unit in between MP3/ATRAC tracks as the CD spins up to speed and the lens moves to read the track. Not a big problem, but a little irritating when listening to quiet tracks.

Overall this is a great wee player and I would certainly recommend it.

Only bad point in the world - no carry pouch- easy come easy go - buy a cheap one which will probably be better quality than sony's recent thin, garbagey cd pouches.