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Panasonic SL-MP70 Portable CD/MP3 Player

Panasonic SL-MP70 Portable CD/MP3 Player

List Price: $59.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Great in some ways, terrible in others
Review: This could have been a great CD player. The most noticable thing about this CD/MP3 player is the skipping. I have thrown it against a tree and even banged it on the wall with no slight showance of skipping or damage. This is a very sturdy CD player. This CD player also is very small (though not the smallest in this competition). A few problems with it, however, is that the sound quality is not even up to par, the LCD screen is very small (making it difficult to find which track you want/are on if you are on an MP3CD), and just in my opinion, I think it is ugly.

Trust me, audiophiles look elsewhere. This is a very dismal sounding player.

Fasionists, look elsewhere. You can get an iRIVER with much better looking paintjobs and much better overall looks to them.

Overall, I can only recommend this player to people that want music that do a lot of laboring work or are very active people. But then again, wouldn't you want better searching when you want to play an Mp3 out of the 300 you can have on one CD? And wouldn't you also want something smaller if you were that active so it wouldn't be a pain to drag around? My point is made.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Broken after a few months
Review: This device went haywire after a few months. When it was working, the volume was too soft for my taste. If you do buy it, definitely keep the receipt;P

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great CD player with added MP3 functionalities
Review: This inexpensive portable CD player from Panasonic combines an excellent basic CD discman with MP3 capabilities. You can play regular CD's and CD-R or CD-RW discs burned with audio CD content (i.e., "CD-DA" Compact Disc Digital Audio format), just like any CD player. When playing CD's it has two anti-skip modes, one 10-second and the other 45-second. The single sheet of user's guide says the 10-second memory mode gives better sound quality. There are two EQ settings in addition to the plain "none" level: XBS and "Live". As you would expect, as a CD discman the SL-MP70 delights with its light weight and good looks.

But you can also play MP3 files burned onto CD-R or CD-RW discs. You can burn MP3 files to CD-R/RW discs in two ways: use a program like Windows Media Player or iTunes to convert MP3 back to CD-DA, and burn the disc as an audio CD. Then what you get is exactly a regular audio CD. Or, to save time and effort -- and remember that since MP3 is a lossy format, converting an MP3 file back to CD-DA does not improve the audio quality, i.e., "garbage in, garbage out" -- you can simply drag and drop the MP3 files to a CD-R or CD-RW disc and burn them. When viewed in Windows, the CD-R/RW looks like a regular folder with the MP3 files. Then you can play these files on the SL-MP70. The player recognizes the files gracefully. (The slightly more expensive SL-MP80 model can also play WMA files -- that's Windows Media Audio format, developed by Microsoft.)

Unlike another, cheaper Panasonic discman, this one can display MP3 tags, basically information embedded in each MP3 file that has the track name, album name, artist name, etc. The SL-MP70 displays the track name and album name if they are available. If you download music in the MP3 format, chances are the guy who ripped it already put in the tags, also known as "ID3." If not, you can use a program like Music Match to edit the tags yourself.

Note that, if you buy music Apple iTunes-style from sites like Walmart and Music Match, they only sell the music in the WMA format, not MP3, so you'd need the SL-MP80 player to play them.

Some other observations:

Good - the player remembers the last track or MP3 file you played, so when you turn it back on, it resumes from the point it left off. I don't think you can turn this off with this model.

Puzzling - you cannot fast search within an MP3 track, although you can do so within an audio CD track. This is not a problem unless you are like me and carry audio books encoded in MP3. These books tend to have chapters that last more than 15 minutes. Luckily for me, my commute is 1 hour each way, so I have no problem with this. Also, most music MP3 tracks are no more than 4 minutes, so this shouldn't be a major problem.

Good - Long battery life. I run this off 2 AA NiMH batteries (1800 mAh each) and I've run on the same set for over 20 hours of play and I still see three full bars on the battery indicator. And yes, the battery indicator has three bars and goes to none when the batteries are near exhaustion. This is really energy efficient, and is one thing that sets this apart from the cheaper/lesser-brand products from Classic, Samsung, Memorex, iriver, etc.

Could be better - more volume for those nearly hearing-impaired thanks to their 24x7 listening on earphones habit, easier to get to the last of 1000 MP3 files (as if you'd do that often), backlighting (but that'd surely raise the price), remote control (ditto). Really, for this price, I think we are already getting a lot of bang for the buck, and the build quality of Panasonic players is just top-notch. And no, I don't work for Panasonic or any of its agents or distributors, and nobody in my family or circle of friends does, either!

Tip - to get around the "press forward 99 times to get to the 100th song or 999 times to get to the 1000th song" problem, put a dozen songs in each folder. The Panasonic automatically designates each folder an album, and you can skip to the next album by holding down the fast-forward button.

In summary, the SL-MP70 is a stylish and very dependable CD/MP3 player. Highly recommended for those who don't need a separate MP3 player like iPod or RCA Lyra.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great CD player with added MP3 functionalities
Review: This inexpensive portable CD player from Panasonic combines an excellent basic CD discman with MP3 capabilities. You can play regular CD's and CD-R or CD-RW discs burned with audio CD content (i.e., "CD-DA" Compact Disc Digital Audio format), just like any CD player. When playing CD's it has two anti-skip modes, one 10-second and the other 45-second. The single sheet of user's guide says the 10-second memory mode gives better sound quality. There are two EQ settings in addition to the plain "none" level: XBS and "Live". As you would expect, as a CD discman the SL-MP70 delights with its light weight and good looks.

But you can also play MP3 files burned onto CD-R or CD-RW discs. You can burn MP3 files to CD-R/RW discs in two ways: use a program like Windows Media Player or iTunes to convert MP3 back to CD-DA, and burn the disc as an audio CD. Then what you get is exactly a regular audio CD. Or, to save time and effort -- and remember that since MP3 is a lossy format, converting an MP3 file back to CD-DA does not improve the audio quality, i.e., "garbage in, garbage out" -- you can simply drag and drop the MP3 files to a CD-R or CD-RW disc and burn them. When viewed in Windows, the CD-R/RW looks like a regular folder with the MP3 files. Then you can play these files on the SL-MP70. The player recognizes the files gracefully. (The slightly more expensive SL-MP80 model can also play WMA files -- that's Windows Media Audio format, developed by Microsoft.)

Unlike another, cheaper Panasonic discman, this one can display MP3 tags, basically information embedded in each MP3 file that has the track name, album name, artist name, etc. The SL-MP70 displays the track name and album name if they are available. If you download music in the MP3 format, chances are the guy who ripped it already put in the tags, also known as "ID3." If not, you can use a program like Music Match to edit the tags yourself.

Note that, if you buy music Apple iTunes-style from sites like Walmart and Music Match, they only sell the music in the WMA format, not MP3, so you'd need the SL-MP80 player to play them.

Some other observations:

Good - the player remembers the last track or MP3 file you played, so when you turn it back on, it resumes from the point it left off. I don't think you can turn this off with this model.

Puzzling - you cannot fast search within an MP3 track, although you can do so within an audio CD track. This is not a problem unless you are like me and carry audio books encoded in MP3. These books tend to have chapters that last more than 15 minutes. Luckily for me, my commute is 1 hour each way, so I have no problem with this. Also, most music MP3 tracks are no more than 4 minutes, so this shouldn't be a major problem.

Good - Long battery life. I run this off 2 AA NiMH batteries (1800 mAh each) and I've run on the same set for over 20 hours of play and I still see three full bars on the battery indicator. And yes, the battery indicator has three bars and goes to none when the batteries are near exhaustion. This is really energy efficient, and is one thing that sets this apart from the cheaper/lesser-brand products from Classic, Samsung, Memorex, iriver, etc.

Could be better - more volume for those nearly hearing-impaired thanks to their 24x7 listening on earphones habit, easier to get to the last of 1000 MP3 files (as if you'd do that often), backlighting (but that'd surely raise the price), remote control (ditto). Really, for this price, I think we are already getting a lot of bang for the buck, and the build quality of Panasonic players is just top-notch. And no, I don't work for Panasonic or any of its agents or distributors, and nobody in my family or circle of friends does, either!

Tip - to get around the "press forward 99 times to get to the 100th song or 999 times to get to the 1000th song" problem, put a dozen songs in each folder. The Panasonic automatically designates each folder an album, and you can skip to the next album by holding down the fast-forward button.

In summary, the SL-MP70 is a stylish and very dependable CD/MP3 player. Highly recommended for those who don't need a separate MP3 player like iPod or RCA Lyra.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Be careful
Review: This player does not come with a USB connection for downloading music. I'm sending mine straight back because of this, though the sound quality seems okay.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: it was good for the price
Review: well, i bought this cd awhile ago, and like with most electronic purchases, there are pros and cons. One thing i liked not about the machine, but about amazon, is that i ordered this with the free shipping option and got it in about 5 days, 4 days less than the minimum amount of days they said it would take to ship. For starters, this machine as with many other mp3 cd players dont order the tracks correctly. The way they were layed out on your computer for burning will not be the order they will be played on the cd. A pro about this machine is its battery life. 36/48 hrs. of battery life is kinda pushing it, but it does get very good battery life...however it sacrifices power to do so. as a mostly classical music listener, the music is a little softer than rock or rap, and therefore the machine would have to be turned up a couple of more knotches. However, this machine simply cannot provide that much volume. Even when i had the volume cranked all the way up in a quiet environmen (with out eq on, to save battery life), the softer parts were completely inaudible. and even with the bass boost eq level, there was basically no sound. Even worse, i use this machine on the train, so it does not give much sound over the tracks. now, u may ask, why did i give this machine a 4 if i dont like it that much? well, there are some other pros. It is not much wider or taller than a compact disk, and even though almost an inch in depth, it is still pretty compact, and very light. plus, it has a cool design. but i gave it the 4 over the 3 for me, not for you. ... And once again, consider that it gives little volume.


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