I bought this when it first came out and there were NO reviews on Epinions, Amazon, or anywhere else that I could find, so I just took the "plunge". I have just read all of the reviews for the D-NE300 (which I use), D-NF400 (which I bought for my daughter) and the D-NE500, at Epinions and Amazon and am amazed at the WRONG comments some folks make. I assume it is because they don't sit down and READ the manual.

It has a parametric equalizer with five settings (off, soft, active, heavy, and custom). As is obvious, the first three are "set" by Sony, and the fourth is customized by the user. This is very nice because when you use different headphones and/or music styles, you will want to set up the sound to your personal likes.

It has every playback option one could want (a group is a folder):
repeat play
group play
single play
shuffle play
group shuffle play
m3u playlist play
bookmark track play
auto ranking play
auto ranking shuffle play
program play

The center control button is a large rocker-style button that can be used to play/pause, skip forward a track, skip backward a track, fast forward w/i a track, fast reverse w/i a track, move up a level in the options menu, move down a level in the options menu. The small button to its left moves you to a previous group/folder and the small button to its right moves you to the next group/folder. The small button on the far right is the menu/display button button (a short push gives 4 different ways to display info and a long push takes you to the menu options). The button on the far left is the stop button (stops play immediately, but the display takes a few seconds turn off).

There is a small slide button on the back for "hold" which prevents you from accidentally pushing any of the other buttons (I store mine in hold).

The headphone jack is on the lower right side, the "open" slide button is on the right side (to insert/remove your CD), and the +/- volume buttons are on the upper right side. The 2-AA batteries are inside, under the CD. They last about 80 hours! Get some NiMH batteries and a smart charger.

The display is amber with black letters and is a little small, but easy to read in daylight. I REALLY wish it were backlit though!

I have noted some negative comments from other users about the SonicStage software that comes with the unit. It actually works just fine to convert your CDs to ATRAC. I use 48kbps for audiobooks and 64kbps for music. There have been comments that it is very slow to convert MP3 files...I haven't used it for this. Just remember, Atrac is a Sony proprietary format and will not play on any subsequent device (other than Sony) that you may get down the road.

I generally use MP3 file format, however. I set up my files so that they will play in the proper order-

For Music:
ARTIST
ALBUM
01-Song Name
02-Song Name
etc

For Audiobooks:
AUTHOR
Book Name
01-Book Name (first CD)
01-Track 01
02-Track 02
etc
02-Book Name (second CD)
01-Track 01
02-Track 02
etc

It plays in filename order and displays MP3 tags; plays VBR and CBR...no problems.

It resumes wherever you stopped it, mid-track, which is very important for those who want to use it to listen to audiobooks, lectures, etc.

I use AudioGrabber for audiobooks (32kbps, 20,050Hz, mono) and Exact Audio Copy for music (128kbps, 44,100Hz, stereo), because I don't want to have to reconfigure when I switch from audiobooks to music. There are many good ones like CDex, etc. The trick is getting the files and naming system set up correctly.

The "g-protection" is wonderful and I have never had any problems with skipping, although I have not tried jogging.

There is a sleep timer that you can set for 1-99 minutes.

If you encode using Atrac, there is a setting for seamless play for live concerts.

If you want AM/FM/TV/Weather get the D-NF400 for about $80.

If you need a remote (no display, just controls) get the D-NE500 for about $100.

I think these Sony CD/MP3/Atrac players are a GREAT VALUE. If you encode MP3s at 128kbps, you can get 10-11 hours on a single CD (700MB CD). And you will be hard pressed to find anything that will play this long (up to 80 hours) w/o a recharge. I also like the fact that you can use AA batteries and can easily change them out as needed.

I prefer to use CD-RW discs. I recently discovered that you can use packet writing! What does this mean? If you have Roxio, it came with DirectCD (I haven't tried this one). If you have Nero, it came with InCD (this is what I use). You can format the CD-RW and use it like a big floppy, to drag/drop, copy/paste, delete files...pop the disc into your CD player and play! This will limit the usable size to about 500MB, however. I believe the iRiver CD/MP3 players have this capability also.

I think that you can also use multisession when burning, but I haven't tried it. This is because, if using Atrac, you can put some files on, take the disc out, then add more later. I am guessing it will work when burning MP3s too.

I use the Sennheiser MX-500 earbuds with mine, and it makes for a good combination.