The onboard equalizer is great with four individual presets: classic, jazz, pop, and extra bass. The D'Music's LCD display, compared to other players, is relatively small. Despite having such a small size, the screen is able to display quite a bit of information on the song such as track, song title, and other things all taken from the ID3 tag of the MP3. Sadly, Pine made a mistake by not allowing the LCD display to be backlit. This can be a major pain if you plan on using this device on that late night flight, or anywhere else where there is a shortage of light.

All of the D'Music's main function buttons are located nicely on the front of the player below the LCD, while volume and recording controls are located on the side of the player. The headphone jack is located on the top of the player above the LCD, with the microphone situated to the upper left hand corner of the LCD. The SmartMedia card slot resides on the top of the player as well, and simply slides and locks when in use. Oddly, the card slot has no covering preventing dust or other particles from getting in.

Software

The software bundle consists of what you might expect from most portable MP3 players. There are demo versions of MusicMatch 4 and AudioCatalyst. The easy to use D'music Manager is also included, and supports most major operating systems, win95, 98, and NT. Unfortunately, I was unable to test it under windows 2000 at the time of writing this, but I would assume it is supported since there is support for winNT. The Manager is very simple to use, and has only the most basic features, MP3 uploading to the player, and MP3 downloading from the player.

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