Buy Sony D-NF400 ATRAC Walkman Portable CD Player with Digital AM / FM / TV / Weather TunerSony D-NF400 ATRAC Walkman Portable CD Player with Digital AM / FM / TV / Weather Tuner Product Description:
- Portable CD player compatible with MP3 files and Sony's ATRAC3plus compression technology; 2-line display with ID3 tag recognition
- Built-in FM, AM, TV, and Weather Band radio with 51 station presets
- Includes SonicStage CD Simple Burner software to facilitate ATRAC3plus CD burning from MP3 files and from other CDs
- Skip-free G-Protection technology eliminates or reduces skipping during many active uses
- More than 85 hours extended playback with 2 AA batteries (not included)
Product Description
SONY D-NF400 -- Whether you're commuting, working at a desk, or working out at the gym, the D-NF400 CD Walkman(R) Portable CD Player will keep you entertained and informed right up to the moment. 2-Line Dot Matrix Display Supports ID3 Tagging and CD Text Customizable Equalizer Up To 80 Hours Continuous Playback with 2 AA Batteries (Not Included) for ATRAC3plus Playback -- Up To 50 Hours CD Audio Playback Off Timer Auto Shut Off Feature to Conserve Battery Life Skip-Free G-Protection(TM) Technology CD-R/RW Playback 18 Playback Modes Auto Ranking Playback Function Bookmark Playback Function for Easy Programming Digital Mega Bass(R) Sound System Digital Volume Control Heat Resistant Lid 2 Position Automatic Volume Limiter System ( AVLS ) Color - Silver
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
112 of 112 people found the following review helpful.
Good price, great product
By Asimovian
Strengths:Feature-rich, Sony quality, surprisingly decent headphones, excellent skip-free technology, long battery lifeWeaknesses:Slightly awkward button placement, sluggish (at best) SonicStage softwareSummary:I spent quite a bit of time in the week or so before I bought this product researching the main players in the MP3-CD field. While my favorite based on everything I'd read was the iRiver iMP-550, I decided that I could get everything I wanted out of a player for less than $100. The features that I sought the most were:1) an AM/FM tuner2) the ability to fast-forward within an MP3 song, which I found many of the lower-end players could not do; and,3) a jog dial or other implement that made navigating through songs and folders fairly simple.I ended up narrowing my search to Sony and Panasonic products, and eventually went with Sony because I was curious about their ATRAC technology, which I'll get into in a bit.STRENGTHS:For the most part, Sony is going to put out decent products, and this player seems to be no exception in terms of quality and workmanship. I don't have any complaints yet, having owned it for about four months. The D-NF400 has every feature I had looked for in my initial research, and then some. The TV and weather bands have turned out to be more entertaining than I would have guessed.I didn't spend any time actually listening to other MP3-CD players, so I don't have a basis for comparison when it comes to volume output. I can say, however, that with all of my 192kb songs and most of my 128kb music, I can get plenty of sound at about 3/4 volume capacity even while commuting by train. At home or in my quiet office, I'm often only at about 1/2 the volume capacity. Although I've replaced the stock headphones with a set of Sony MDR-V150s (ear-muff style), the stock headphones are nearly as loud and reasonably clear except at very high volumes. They also let in a lot more outside noise, however, so if you really love your music, you're better off replacing them.So far, I've not heard a skip from this player. As I said, my most frequent usage in on the train, which isn't the smoothest ride in the world. I've also hooked it up to my car stereo via a cassette tape adapter and driven all over the mean streets and freeways of LA without a hiccup. And, of course, since I commute, I do a fair amount of walking with it between the train and subway. So I'm impressed that I haven't had any issues at all here.I haven't had the player long enough to truly comment on battery life except to say that I've put in approximately 20-25 hours of active play time, and the battery indicator still looks full. Certainly nothing for me to complain about. (Update: the first set of batteries lasted approximately 85 hours split between listening to ATRAC CDs and the FM radio -- I'd say it exceeds expectations.)WEAKNESSES:I'll start with the biggest weakness, which is the SonicStage software. I've read reviews from several other people who have used it who have called it completely useless, and I can understand why. This software is designed to allow you to compress your music even beyond MP3 compression while still maintaining high-quality sound. Sony claims that at 48kbps, you can have up to 490 songs on one CD.Now, let me start by saying that when the software does work, it does an excellent job. Using the default setting of 64kbps, I've recorded several CDs with over 300 songs on them. There is something very pleasing about being able to store your entire library of certain genres of music on a single CD. And although I'm no audiophile, I haven't noticed an appreciable difference in quality in my music, most of which was ripped at 192kbps.The software operation itself leaves a lot to be desired, though. My main complaint is that it is e x t r e m e l y s l o w . The conversion from MP3 to Sony's ATRAC format is painful. The first CD I burned, which had 283 songs on it, took over 5 hours just for the conversion process. Thankfully, in this day of 100GB+ hard drives, SonicStage will keep the converted files on your hard drive so that if, for some odd reason, you ever needed to burn the same songs on to another CD, you would not have to repeat this tedious process.SonicStage is also buggy (it crashed on me after almost four hours of a conversion job because I had managed to exceed the space limit for the CD I was trying to burn -- something it would have been handy to know *beforehand*). Also, I wish that Sony had allowed you to convert your proprietary SonicStage files to MP3s. Be warned that if you use SonicStage to rip your CDs, you're stuck with the music in that format. If you use MP3s for anything else (such as on your computer at work or perhaps an MP3 CD player in your car), you're better off ripping to MP3s first and then letting SonicStage convert them for you. All in all, though, when the software works, it does a decent job.The only other issue I've had with the D-NF400 is with the design of two of the buttons. The jog dial for navigation consists of the left, right, up and down directions, with a play/pause button right in the center. Because the buttons are so small, I've often found myself trying to skip to the next song and instead pausing the current song inadvertently. The other odd button is the one used for switching between FM/AM/TV/Weather Band. It's a flimsly-feeling thin rubber bar, and it just adds a cheap feeling to the player when everything else is so solid.SUMMARY:Overall, I have had a great experience with the player, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who prefers this format to the stored memory MP3 players. Good job, Sony!
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful.Composed and Sleek
By Karthik
I recently bought this CD-Walkman. Sony has again maintained its standards. The player runs for few seconds and loads the song into its memory and then plays from it for 3 mins, the motor stops for this time, this helps the CD player to be skipfree and conserves the Battery. This is a excellent idea implemented by Sony. Several reviews remarked about its usability, playing-software etc., but being a software professional I find this software excellent. The buttons are bit tricky to use mainly the radio button. Believe me I was initially searching them badly but when I found it I couldn't control laughing myself. And once you are used to it you will realize why they have designed this way. Its really skip free I even wagged it and the song was playing uninterrupted. Regarding MP3 it even goes into folders inside a CD. I'm giving 4 stars, as non-technical user will find the usability bit hard.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.Awesome player and software
By Lenny
I won't bother describing the various functions, as others have covered same very well. Suffice it to say that the player works very well indeed. Skip protection is very good, but not perfect though since any really bad shocks can cause skipping. When I go hiking up mountains, the walking pace doesn't cause skipping at all, for instance. But if I am running, then skipping can occur. The screen display isn't as good as it could be, since it is small and therefore it scrolls disc info and you have to press buttons to get the next piece of info. Hence, I did deduct one star here. The battery life is superb, up to 50 hours on CD and 80 hours on ATRAC, the instructions say and I can't say for sure that it performs as advertised but it sure seems like it. The software is excellent. It does not take five hours to burn an ATRAC CD. After ripping your CD's to the ATRAC3PLUS format (I use 64 kbits per sec since Sony's listening tests said that it sounds as good as or slightly better than MP3 at 128 kbits/sec and I can only say that it sounds every bit as good as MP3 indeed, and can fit 20 CD's into one), it takes maybe only 1/2 hour to burn the compilation ATRAC3PLUS CD. You can't play the ATRAC3PLUS CD on your computer but slide it into the DNF400 and it works perfectly.In summary, compared with an iPOD, the DNF400 is bigger, with a longer battery life, 20 CD capacity, and a cheaper price. I'm happy, and so will you.
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