Sony D-E 330

....Not good!
The Sony logo is embossed on the middle of the player, in small silver writing, which looks quite classy. Below this is Sony's Walkman logo, a bubble-style W with a full stop. Below this it says Walkman in a futuristic looking blue font, again which looks quite classy. Then below this are the words ESPMAX and the model name, boasting the fact it plays CD-R's and CD-RW.
The player is in a round style obviously, as ...
...to see. For some reason Sony have labelled the screen, underneath it with the words Track, Min, Sec/Vol and Batt. I'm not too sure why they really bothered as it is incredibly simple to realise yourself what is going on, even on your first look at the screen.

Buttons
The buttons are located nicely, all in positions where they are unlikely to get knocked accidentally. They all have a nice feel to them, and click in when pressed. ... more

(sorry about the title!)
I brought this CD-player a few years back, before embarking on a long drive up to Scotland with my family for a holiday, to save me from having to put up with my parents' choice of music. For only about £40 at the time, I'm really glad I did.

Looks
The CD-player itself looks really smart, finished with silver and white giving It an aluminium style yet is made of plastic. Though it isn't weak - the player feels really solid, but I have managed to scratch the top of mine. This is probably down to my own fault though, bundling it in my schoolbag in a pocket which is far too small, where I also kept my house keys .Not good!
The Sony logo is embossed on the middle of the player, in small silver writing, which looks quite classy. Below this is Sony's Walkman logo, a bubble-style W with a full stop. Below this it says Walkman in a futuristic looking blue font, again which looks quite classy. Then below this are the words ESPMAX and the model name, boasting the fact it plays CD-R's and CD-RW.
The player is in a round style obviously, as it needs to fit a CD inside it, and this is the same style of all portable CD players. It's quite a nice size as it's hardly much bigger than a CD, just by half an inch or so at the front where all the buttons and the screen is located.
The LCD screen is very clear, positioned centrally at the front of the player, and is a nice size too. Everything on the screen is very clear and well laid out. The bass option is in the top left corner, in the center is the track number, being the most important part. The track duration is next to this, followed by the ESP sign in the top right hand corner (not sure why this is really needed on screen) and the battery sign is below this, which is again important to be able to see. For some reason Sony have labelled the screen, underneath it with the words Track, Min, Sec/Vol and Batt. I'm not too sure why they really bothered as it is incredibly simple to realise yourself what is going on, even on your first look at the screen.

Buttons
The buttons are located nicely, all in positions where they are unlikely to get knocked accidentally. They all have a nice feel to them, and click in when pressed. The only two that are different are the sound and menu buttons, which are located lower down near the front of the player which means they might be able to get knocked easily. This isn't the case though as these buttons aren't very big, and it's really hard to press these by accident due to their size. These two buttons are used less frequently and have a lower priority, and such is probably the reason they are located at the front, either side of the screen.
The open case button is located above the headphone connector, out of the way so it doesn't get knocked easily. This button is designed so that it is hard to press down by accident, which is a nice touch as it would be incredibly annoying if you were to press it by accident.
Thankfully a hold button is included in this player, which is a great feature, but is expected nowadays with any portable music devices. This is located below the volume, and you have to slide the button across left or right to hold or turn off the hold feature. The hold feature basically prevents any other buttons being pressed whilst you are listening, as you are likely to do accidentally whilst in transit. Though I doubt many people have pockets big enough to fit the player in.
The play/fast-forward, skip-back/rewind and stop buttons are located on the right hand side of the screen, in a nice position as these are likely to be the most used buttons. A nice feature of the Play and Back buttons are that if you hold them down they will also fast forward, or rewind, which is nice to have on a CD-player, giving the ability to skip through to your favourite part of a song.
The Sound button mentioned before allows you to alter the Bass effect on a song, and has 3 levels to it - off, low and high. This makes a great difference to the sound on the player, and personally I always have it on high now whatever song I am listening to, as 'off' makes it sound completely flat, and I tend to listen to music where bass is quite important so I just keep it on 'high.'
The Menu button has 4 different features, which are a variety of shuffle/repeat/repeat all, etc. I don't actually find these much use, when listening to albums at least as you like to listen to the songs in the order the artist has decided to put them. But on the other hand when you listen to compilations or CD's you have created yourself (thanks to the CD-R/CD-RW feature) it can be quite handy to shuffle the order especially when you start to get bored of the CD.

Sound quality & Headphones
Now onto the most important part for any CD-player - the sound quality. This is probably the best thing about this player. It delivers such crisp and high quality sounds, which is helped by the Sony headphones included with the player. No matter what songs you listen to, from Britney spears to 50 Cent, they all sound incredible on this CD-player. The above transition which the Sony D-E330 is able to manage so easily is mainly thanks to the Bass-level adjust option, which allows for the user to listen to a wider array of music styles without either suffering.
The black headphones included look really simple and cheap, ones which you feel are just there to complete the package, yet give incredibility clear and precise sound. The headphones use the in-the-ear style, which can give best results but after a long period of use (3 or more hours) can start to get a little uncomfortable.
When turned up to a high level, one of my headphones does start to crackle a tiny bit, but I feel I have damaged mine somehow, and I'm ninety-nine percent sure this isn't a fault on Sony's part. It is most likely to be just down to me and my lack of care.
These headphones have lasted incredibly long still, and I haven't even considered upgrading, though this can no-doubt be done quite cheaply if I wish, but I am perfectly happy with the sound these offer.

Features & the rest
The Sony D-E330 boasts the fact that it offers ESP MAX protection, and again this is a great feature which improves this already great walkman to a much greater height. From my recollection I cannot remember a time that a CD has ever skipped or jumped, no matter what I was doing (fair enough, mainly sat down listening to this on the bus or in the car!) but upon doing a few tests, shaking the player around whilst listening doesn't affect the walkman at all. This is thanks to the technology Sony has implemented in this, with its 40 second sound-cache which uses the player's memory. This means in theory you can go jogging or do physical jobs whilst listening, and the D-E330 should be able to keep up with you.
As mentioned earlier on in this review, the walkman also has the ability to play CD-R's and CD-RW's. This means you can create a CD on your PC and burn the WAV files to a CD-R, and listen to it on the walkman. Or if you like you can burn them to a CD-RW, and listen that way. Though you won't be able to add more songs to that CD, unless you delete everything on it and then re-do the process, which is the delight of using CD-RW discs. Listening to these doesn't harm the walkman in any way, and the quality isn't at all affected.
The player has a 4.5V adapter socket, allowing the player to be used from mains. Don't get too excited however, as Sony haven't actually included an adapter to use. Though these only cost a few pounds in the shops, it would have been nice if this had been included with the player. That said, the 2 AA Batteries required are enclosed well in the underside of the walkman and do last surprisingly long - 33 hours according to Sony, and this is probably about right. Rarely have I ever changed batteries in the player, it seems to last forever. This is another great feature on the D-E330, as it is very annoying using a walkman that eats up batteries like there's no tomorrow, especially considering how much money this can add up to after a while.

Overall
Well-done if you have managed to survive reading this far in, and hopefully I have covered just about everything!
I have to say this is the best CD-walkman I have seen, and had to pleasure to have used. Having the ability to play cd-r/cd-rw, cope with old and scratched CD's, and to still play-away during a violent shaking-session makes it stand out from the rest and at an affordable price too. There are no real downsides to this walkman, maybe it would have been nice to have a mains adapter included, but you can't have everything. I recommend this to anyone after a cheap CD-walkman, who aren't happy with investing over-the-top money for a newer mp3 player, which is rare nowadays.
 

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