Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony D-NE700S Silver ATRAC/MP3 CD Walkman 

The D-NE700S walkman is about the best bargain sony cd walkman around, not least because of its great price. The Atrac facility on the walkman allows one to compile upto 30 albulms onto one cd-r, saving space and very convenient when travelling. No longer do you have to worry about losing valuable or special cd's because they're all on one disc. The 30 albulm facility is very useful, however it has on slight drawback and that it is the sound quality. In order to get 30 albulms compressed onto one disc the bit rate is 64kbps, but the software included, SonicStage, allows compression of upto 256kbps, but this restricts you to 10 albulms. Still, 10 albulms is more than enough storage, and many people may only need one or two cd-r's. The cd player itself is packed with very good features as well as being sleek, light-weight and slim. The battery compartment is cleverly loacted in under the cd in order to save space, and the battery life is an amazing 55 hours on normal cd's but increases to 86 hours when playing an ATRAC cd, and can use the supplied rechargable batteries or regular AA's. The buttons are ergonomically placed and the buttons easy to press, with the feeling of good quality plastic. The display is detailed in a dot matrix window, allowing one to see the song name, artist, albulm and track number and time. A press of the buttons, guided by the manual at first, allows you to scroll through the track list of normal and ATRAC cd's. There are preset sound features such as extra bass and/or high, or u can create your own EQ'd sound. The next little features included are the remote and earphones. The earphones are y-shaped and fit snugly and the remote has all the features that are on the cd player itself. The only downside to the remote is that there is no back-light so you'll have to know memorise the remote to use it in the dark. The remote also has a handy cliip to attach to clothes but dont lose it because only the supplied remote works with this model, so an exact replacement is needed. Well this cd walkman is, all-in-all, a very good buy because there is a lot of "bang for the buck" and the build quality is re-assuring, not to mention its fashionable as well.

Not much I can really add to the previous review, but here are the positives and negatives I have experienced with this player.

Firstly the battery life is amazing. You really will get a superb number of hours out of the player - although I am not convinced it goes that long with the supplied rechargable battteries, the figure is probably with alkaline batteries which you don't need to use. Even so the battery life is a major positive and gives the D-NE700S a massive advantage over other players.

Secondly the remote control is simple to use and isn't an eyesore like some others I have seen - it is slim yet strong. However, without a good knowledge of the layout of the controller it would be very difficult for those with poor eyesight to really see the controls. The buttons do not stand out from the main body of the remote meaning they can occasionally be difficult to find, although I still rate it as very easy to operate after the controls have been learnt. Additionally the beauty of the controller is that you can really access everything to do with the player from it, meaning you can safely store the main player in a bag/pocket and operate all menus using the remote. Again this takes some practice and is not really useful for those who aren't interested or competent with the technology.

I personally don't like the sonicstage software - although simple in interface it does seem to slow you down in comparison to other burning software, and conversion to ATRAC formats does take some time (almost a minute per song - at least 2 hours for a full disc). ATRAC is a plus but often I find it easy just to quickly burn an mp3 cd - and add a folder for a new artist in windows xp using drag and drop when I get new music using a cdrw. But even if you don't use the ATRAC, the battery life still makes MP3 a great alternative even if you do need to use more than one cd.

In summary you know you are getting quality with sony, and this is quality. Unlike with some players this player's minor pittfalls can be easily negotiated and are no reason to hesitate buying it. It really does give you everything you need - bookmarks to your favourite tracks (easier than wading through 300 songs) aswell as reassuring build quality. CD MP3 is the best alternative for those who really don't want to shell out for IPOD or the like, and this sony player is one of the best available.

I acquired a brand new one for £50 from E-Bay (sorry Amazon!) a few weeks ago and have been most impressed with the product i received. It's solidly built and although it looks a bit plasticky (it is made of plastic after all) it is generally aesthetically pleasing as well as being relatively small and light.

The sound quality is excellent with nice rich bass, although it could generally do with being a little louder apparently that's bad for the ears so i suppose i will thank Sony in my later years when I don't require a hearing trumpet to listen to The Archers.

The player has many features to play with through a dissappointingly unintuitive menu system (I am ashamed to say I had to read the manual!) but performing the usual functions is very straight forward and can be performed either using the remote or the buttons on the unit itself. The remote is fairly small and light but still annoying if you are wearing a t-shirt and therefore have nowhere to clip it as it pulls the earphones out. The same problem applies to every other player with a remote though so i guess you just have to put up with it or buy new head phones.

The battery life is excellent, I have charged the included pair once since receiving the player and used it everyday since on my way to and from work and the battery indicator still shows three quarter full. Futhermore a full charge took less than an hour.

I have no problem reccommending this player to anyone interested in a mid/high quality discman with MP3 capability (i have yet to test the atrac function but from what i've read it's not worth the bother)

The Sony D-NE700 is a wonderful piece of hardware. However, SonicStage is awful to use. My advice is buy the kit but rather than using SonicStage, use Nero with CD-RW discs. Result: excellent hardware, excellent software and cheap to use.

This is far and away the best digital music CD player I have ever bought. With the Sony name, you are getting quality merchandise.

If you'd have asked me yesterday, however, I would have given you a different opinion - the reason being that the SonicStage software was giving me severe grief. I seem to have overcome the majority of my issues, and when you work out how it does what it does, then you will probably find that it is quite a decent piece of software. However, my advice would be as follows: wherever possible, in order to create your ATRAC, ATRAC3 or ATRAC3plus format music, do so directly from your original CD. There is a file conversion aspect to the software (so your legal downloads can easily be converted - though this did kick up a few issues with permissions and rights), which does the job but if I were you only convert a small number of files at a time, and keep an eye on it, as my computer was tending to crash with a large workload.

Direct from CD - no problems. And you'll then have your music in a format which will play on the new Sony 20GB HD-walkman - maybe Christmas!!!!

The player itself is a good looking item, with lots of functionality. In ATRAC playback you can have seamless transition from track to track. Great in-line remote. Could do with display backlight though. Many other features are at your disposal. Howeverm what impressed me most was the battery life. It seemed like one charge lasted for a good couple of weeks of daily trips to the gym, in the car for work, etc. Ipod = 8 hours, NE700 = I lost count after the first week!!!

Highly recommended if you are looking for a CD/mp3/ATRAC player.

And did I mention how diddy it is? Carefulit doesn't slip down the side of you sofa.