Product Description

Get ready to groove on the move with Sony's D-NF610 ATRAC3 /MP3 CD Walkman Portable Compact Disc Player with AM/FM/TV/Weather Digital Tuner. Features include Digital Volume Control, a Heat Resistant Lid, a 2 Position Automatic Volume Limiter System (AVLS), Digital Mega Bass Sound, a Built-in AM/FM Digital Tuner with TV/Weather Bands, and a 51 Station Preset Memory. ATRAC3Plus, ATRAC3 and MP3 Format Playback along with the supplied SonicStage Simple Burner Software allow you to create and listen to your own music mixes and get up to 490 songs on 1 CD-R/RW disc @ 48kbps. Additional features are a 2 Line Dot Matrix Display, CD Text and ID3 Tagging Capability, and Over 75 Hours of continuous Playback with 2 "AA" batteries for ATRAC3Plus playback and 48 Hours for CD Audio Playback. The D-NF610 - making on the go listening a pleasure wherever.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59943 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sony
• Model: DNF610

Features

• Portable CD player compatible with MP3 files and Sony's ATRAC3plus compression technology
• Includes SonicStage CD Simple Burner software to facilitate ATRAC3plus CD burning from MP3 files and from other CDs
• Built-in FM/AM/TV/weather-band digital tuner with 51-station preset memory
• Skip-free G-Protection technology eliminates or reduces skipping during many active uses
• 40 hours long playback with 2 AA batteries (not included)

Amazon.com Product Description
Get the most from digital music with Sony's DNF610 portable CD player, which includes SonicStage CD Simple Burner software so you can take advantage of ATRAC3plus, Sony's proprietary music-compression technology when making custom MP3 CDs on a computer. The DNF610 puts the best of the broadcast world at your fingertips, too, with its FM/AM/TV/weather-band digital tuner. Using its 51-station preset memory, favorite stations are never more than a button away. The player also includes Sony's popular Jog Dial control for easy folder navigation, a two-line dot-matrix display, and achieves up to 40 hours of continuous playback on two "AA" type batteries (not included).

ATRAC3plus is a high-quality audio-compression technology that reduces the size of digital audio files while preserving much of a track's original sound quality (similar in concept to MP3 or Dolby Digital sound formats). With ATRAC3plus, music can be burned and compressed at 132, 105, 66, 64, or even 48 kbps (kilobits per second), letting you select the right balance between fidelity and storage space (you'll get around 490 songs per disc at 48 kbps). The player comes bundled with Sony's SonicStage CD Simple Burner software. Compatible with ID3 tagging and most CD burners, this application transfers songs from CDs or MP3 music files from a PC's hard drive and burns them to a CD using ATRAC3plus compression.

Skip-Free G-Protection technology boosts the laser pickup's shock protection to minimize read errors that would otherwise interrupt your music, providing quick recovery from both horizontal and vertical shocks. Bookmark playback lets you program favorite songs from multiple CDs and play them back at the touch of a button, and CD Text support displays artist and title information with compatible commercial audio CDs.

Customer Reviews

Pros and Cons
After using this device for one month+, this is a small list I gathered here for good/bad things about this little mp3 player.

Pros:
- You set your favorite radio stations, and it is still there after you change the battery.
- Good sound output quality and can deliver high sound levels
- Two level dynamic bass (although, i dont like to use)
- Your old MP3 CD's will suddenly make sense.
- Long battery life. I bet if they put some kind of solar cell on this devices, it would run with them perfectly without battery nor main power.
- some of other sony cd mp3 players has much successful (harder to break) control buttons. But D-NF610 looks smooth and beautiful with its radio.

Cons:
- My reason to give it 4 star (canceling 1 star) is its poor quality buttons. Especially the CD OPEN button is a stiff plastic, when you bend it by pressing, CD door is open. Someday either it will loose its speciality of keeping the cd door close, or it will be broken.
- Sometimes when I try to change radio channels, CD starts playing. Because of tooo compact and joint button desings. I have small fingers.

- Poor quality radio, especially when I compare to my old sony walkman radio. Too much noise and no MONO/STEREO switch.
- There is a USA/Europe shortwave radio BW (9KHz or 10KHz) switch to make you choose. But No switch for NTSC/PAL/SECAM systems. So TV Tuner does not work in Europe. I guess, you will need to buy D-NF611 for Europe.
- You will need a cd player bag.

- Japans and I have opposite intuitive direction feeling. When I use Jog Dial button, it does the opposive of what I thought. (That had happened to me with my Sony CMD Z5, I guess this is something to do with japaness culture)

- You cannot register this item, if you are not living in USA/Canada.

- No built in battery charger. This seems a logical decision to remove such a charger, because it is a very simple and cheap circuitry to do that. Would only increase its cost of production say 1 cent for sony, but would made our life easier.

YAAAYYYYY!!!
I've been through numerous CD/MP3/Radio players including by Panasonic & Classic. Sony finally got it right. It's realitvely slim, got G-shock skip protection, great batttery life, MP3 tags, really fast searches, and a decent radio (AM & FM, not that common). It even has NOAA weather which I've never seen on any other player. Sound quality is excellent (the Panasonic had low headphone levels and the Classic had chronic hiss), and you don't even need the included software to burn a MP3 with Mac computers (take that, Bill Gates!). The only drawback I could find was that if you wanted to use the jog shuttle, it always starts at the top of the disc, not from where you are at the moment. It's a minor drag. But for the money, it's the best player I've seen, PERIOD.

Great portable CD player
Sony's D-NF610 slim CD "walkman" is an excellent personal audio companion. It's similar to its sibling D-NF510, except the NF610 has a digital tuner that pulls in AM/FM/TV and special weather channels, all in a compact, stylish form factor. Assembled in Malaysia (a country known for its anti-American politics -- hence one star deducted from my rating), the player seems pretty reliable. The weird shape is not as cool as Sony's perfectly round models, but it does allow for a larger, 2-line LCD display which, yeah!, can show MP3 tags. Another impressive feature is the 75-hour playback on two regular AA batteries.

Sound quality is good if nothing to get overly excited about. As always, you may want to replace the included headphones with your own favorite. On a good pair of earphones, the "digital mega bass" boost adds a pleasant and clear boom to the music, so you know this is not a phony, irritating bass system typically found on the Coby's and Samsung's.

The player also plays CD-R/RW discs burned with MP3 files or Sony's proprietary ATRAC3 files. Sony makes all kinds of claims regarding ATRAC3, but since 95% of the world uses MP3 and another 3% uses WMA and the rest probably AAC, I see little reason to burn ATRAC3 discs.

Finally, the price is right for a high-quality portable CD player.