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RCA RP2458 Portable CD/MP3 Player

RCA RP2458 Portable CD/MP3 Player

List Price: $109.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not Good For MP3s
Review: After following the instructions to the letter (followed instruction manual), and then trying quite a few other configurations in the provided software, and wasting many many cd-r discs, I've found that on my system I can only put one song on a cd-r or it locks up the rp-2458 when you go to play the cd. Sort of defeats the purpose of buying an mp3 player if you can only put one mp3 song on a cd, anything more makes the player lock up! Wish there was any kind of online help or tips or feedback, don't look for a quick answer to tech support questions...

It does seem to read commercial cd's and cd-r's that are recorded in regular audio format, but that is a far cry from having a cd with 100's of songs on it.

The sound is excellent with the bass boost mode. Surround sound mode seems to increase treble, decrease bass, and add an echo, not good surround sound at all. The provided headphones are now the "over-the-neck" kind, but they are tight on my big wide head and cause pain.

All in all, if you have a small head (or alternate headphones) and if you only want to play commercial cd's, this would be an excellent buy for the money. If you're looking for an mp3 player that is user friendly and can successfully record more than one song at a time, look elsewhere. I'm keeping mine, but I'm completely disappointed in the mp3 features.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Damn good machine
Review: Construction: Once you hold it in your hand you'll be amazed at both how light and well constructed this player is. The top half of the player is a beatiful brushed aluminum and when it closes you can barely see a seam. If you've ever owned a CD player that has had the top part break off get loose or the plastic securing clasps snap, you'll appreciate how the unit is made. The door is connected to the top part of the unit by a thick bar and metal hinges that are part of the unit's top. The unit has two clasps that are also made out of metal and are part of the top. In other words there are no plastic parts on the door part of the unit that can break. This unit is made to last a good long time.

Sound Quality: Excellent. Nuff said.

Cool Feature #1: Built in battery recharger. Go to Radio Shack, get 3 AAA rechargeable batteries and stick them in the unit. Hit the charge button and in a few hours you're ready to go. No more batteries to buy. Plus the thing holds a charge for a good long time. The unit comes with its own AC charger, which isn't always the case for players in this price range.

Cool Feature #2: Built in DSP effect button for MP3's. Sound too high? Hit the bass effect. Too bassy? Hit the Surround effect. Sound ok? Leave it on normal.

Cool Feature #3: Push button volume (no silly wheels). It also has a secondary Line Out jack that pushes out the sound at a low but steady volume in case you want to plug the unit to a tape adapter in your car. The reason this is cool is since the volume is controlled and low, you actually conserve battery life. The unit should play alot longer hooked up to your car than with headphones.

Cool Feature #4: Adjustable backlit display. Adjustable in that you can set contrast as well as the time (from 3-10 seconds) it takes to shut itself off. The 'Enter' button triggers the backlit display when the unit is playing. If you've ever tried to find a particular song while driving at night you will appreciate this feature.

Cool Feature #5: Ease of physical navigation. Someone at RCA took an ergonomics class and kept good notes. The unit is designed to be easily operated with one finger. All the buttons are clearly marked and arranged in a small crescent around where you're thumb would be if you were holding the player. No need to hunt around for buttons hidden in strange places on the player.

Cool Feature #6: Ease of file navigation. Whatever way you saved and organized your mp3 files on the disk is how you'll find them on the player. It also uses the SmartTrax system to sort the files by album artist and genre irregardless of how the files were saved on the disk.

Overall, for the price that Amazon is selling it for, this is a steal. The unit is easily worth twice as much just on sound qulaity and construction alone.

Is the player perfect? Close. The minor annoyances I have with the unit are:

* The Headphones suck. Toss'em. They're that bad. Hey RCA had to hold costs somewhere. I'm glad they skimped on the headphones rather than the unit.

* Screen scrolls up and down, but not left to right. If you are not going to use the SmarTrax system and just plan to drop mp3 files onto a disk, When you make your CD's, make sure that you name the file with the name of the song first and create folders to organize your songs.

* At first I thought it would be great if it had a remote, but after playing with it I stopped wishing it had one. Since the thing is so light and can be operated by my thumb it doesn't really need one.

Basically RCA sacrificed the remote and the headphones to give you a superior player with an AC adapter and built in battery charger. Smart move on their part.

PS - I've already purchased three of these. One for myself and the other two for jealous family members. Yes, its that good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: great product
Review: Excellent cd player, very high quality. The sound is great, with a nice bass and treble boost and high volume controlled by buttons instead of a wheel, which is nice. The battery life is amazingly long, and all you have to do is buy 3AAA rechargeables because it recharges them itself when you plug it in. It is very lightweight and thin, easy to carry around. It is a bit larger than the size of the cd, though. The buttons are all right in one area where your thumb goes, so they are easy to find and operate.

It has good mp3 capabilities, and an easy navigation system that displays the track info from ID3 tags embedded in your mp3s. The navigation is a bit slow, though. The software(MusicMatch) is [aweful], get a different program, I recommend 'TagScanner'(download.com) for ID3 tagging your songs. There is also a noticable pause between mp3 songs, up to about 5 sec sometimes.

The display is nice, only song names that are too long get cut off so put the song title first when naming your songs. It has a very nice backlight that can be turned on by pressing any button. It also has a nice options menu that you can navigate through while listening your music.

The headphones are also [aweful], but you can easily buy a better pair of those.

The only problem I've had with it is this: When I first burned an mp3 cd and played it, It would play part of the way through the song, then cut off and skip to the next song. It also would occasionally take a 3 sec segment of a song and switch it with another 3 sec segment of the song later in the song. When I played one of my mom's cd's, i realised that it was the type of cd i was using that caused this. So if you are having problems like this, buy a higher quality brand of cd like Memorex and it should work.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great Buy!
Review: First of all, if your looking to buy this item look no further than Amazon.com. You wont find a better price anywhere if you are looking to buy it new, not even offline in any store (I checked). Secondly, I consider this to be the best personal CD/MP3/WMA player on the market. I think it is superior even to MP3 players, due to the fact that the disc im listening to right at this moment has just over 10 hours of music on it, thats 197 tracks! I want to see an MP3 player pull that off for only 60 bucks. Plus, they are on a CD/RW, so i can erase it and put new music on any time I want. It is thin and stylish, light, and the animations will attract a crowd. I have been offered more money than I paid for it on the spot quite a few times, but i would never give it up. This is a great buy, and well worth the incredibly low price Amazon[.com] offers for it. Thanks Amazon[.com]!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Hmmm...
Review: First of all. I was looking for the best CD/MP3 player out there. I came up to this (because this was the one that the worker there said was the best)... I checked it out, and I was happy that it had easy navigation but the bad stuff about it is that it is slow at changing songs.... There is no controller!!! and finally there is no light! How are you going to tell which songs or albums you wanna play next?!?!?!?!?! You gotta use a flashlight or something...... I recommend getting the newest SlimX player, cuz its the best. I bought the Slim X a day after I bought this RCA (really crappy appliance) player. I do not recommned this!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Sound
Review: Great sound and battery life! Just get some rechargeable batteries and you are off to the races. I put a lot more thought into this $60 investment than I should have but ended up happy. It is a very good product...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Sound
Review: Great sound and battery life! Just get some rechargeable batteries and you are off to the races. I put a lot more thought into this $60 investment than I should have but ended up happy. It is a very good product...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Product....
Review: has everything you ever wanted in an mp3/cd player. If you buy good batteries you can get 20+ hours on it. The backlight it awesome, and so is the display. The display is 4 lines and can only show 13 letters each line, which is good enough. I highly recommend it. The price is unbeatable...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best CD/MP3/WMA Player!!
Review: I finally got it, and when I got it out of the box I knew it was a winner. Sound quality with audio cd's and mp3 cd's is superb. The interface is easy to use, even without reading the manual I figured it out. The screen is well lited and shows everything you need, it even has animations! The player has a sturdy feel and it weights very little. The headphones sound good too, but I replaced them for the Sony MDR - G51 streetstyle over-the-neck headphones because I feel thay are a bit superior from the ones you get. An outstanding product over-all, I highly recommend it.
Buy it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Slim, backlit, great product
Review: I have gone through about 5 mp3 players and this is the best yet, smaller than most regular cd players, feels strong, goes through songs fast, great sound, best mp3 player i have ever owned. For 50 buckos its the best cd player on the market. better than sony and phillips. I am a huge sony fan so its hard to say that. The only con is the headphones but you can easily get a better pair for 20 bucks or so.


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