Sony CD / MP3 player > Reviews (3)

I got sucked in by the advertising on this one - Sony say that using the ATRAC software supplied with their new CD player range, you can fit up to 30 albums on one CD.

I'd looked at iPods and the various digital alternatives, but this option was both cheaper and more convenient. I buy CD's not MP3's, and I listen to bought albums and home burned CD's. The idea of being able to fit my whole music collection onto maybe 20 CD's, for less than £60 was very appealing.

The DNE300 is the entry level product in the ATRAC range, and is packaged with Sony's Sonicstage software for compressing and recording tracks onto a standard CD-R/RW.

The software was easy to install (and is available for Windows (98/ME/XP) and very simple to use. You can set it up to record the whole CD or select certain songs, and there is a choice of compression rates. I used the highest setting of 132kbp; I suspect you would need to use the lowest setting to fit in the claimed 30 albums, but I got 175 tracks on an 80 minute CD-R, so I'm not complaining!

You can burn tracks into groups to enable navigation on the player, or just go for a random mass and use the shuffle function as I do. The navigation and the display on the player are clear and easy to use, and if you use the CDDB when recording all your tracks are named on the CD you create.

The only problem I found with this product (and it is a very minor issue) is that it feels very light and a little insubstantial. That said, this is my first personal CD player after years with a Walkman, so I'm used to something a bit heavier.

Overall, I would highly recommend this player to anyone. It's easy to use, good quality sound and much better value for money than some of the MP3 players on the market. You get a nice design, good battery life and a very useful piece of software for a very reasonable price..if you are thinking of getting an iPod, take a look at this first..