Rating: 
Summary: Premature MP3-culation!
Review: Short design-to-market product development cycles are not new in today's fast-paced world of GadgetNology. This mp3 player is a perfect example of such fast cycles. I wrote "design-to-market" as opposed to "design-to-test-to-market" for a good reason. This player couldn't have spent virtually any time in a Memorex test lab. It skipped thru about half of my albums burned on a 2 identical CD-Rs without an apparent reason. As a matter of fact it skipped thru different albums on those 2 CD-Rs. I accomodated some of Memorex's tantrums by spending a couple of hours seeking out a batch filename manipulation software and then renaming songs and albums and removing all (and I mean all!) special characters. It continued behaving like a spoiled brat and reading only about 70% of my songs. This is about when my patience expired for the evening. I would also suggest any decision-making executives from Memorex to employ fewer interns on their design team. This player's control panel and digital screen are outrageously illogical and user-unfriendly. I strongly recommend holding out on this one. Memorex lost a big one in my view.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Price... Good Idea...Bad Interface
Review: Okay, I'm not going to get all "techie" on you. I opted for the Memorex MP3/CD player for a few reasons, 1)the price was unbelievable 2)Memory sticks and Smart Cards cost way too much vs. CD-R's 3)I can listen to a ton of music w/out carrying around a load of CD's or tapes. This is the third week I've had the player, and I've become positively flustered with the array of buttons on the player. I can't use the "file search" button at all, and I've read the user's manual three times! The "resume" button doesn't resume play. Altogether, it's a pretty in-efficient navigation system. Say you want to go to track 100.... well, you can click the "skip" button a hundred times, or you have to call Memorex for clear instructions on how to do it, because the user's manual stinks! There's no button guard or lock, so when it's powered-off and put away in your bag, you run the risk of turning it on accidentally and wearing out your batteries before the evening commute home. The 45 seconds of Anti-skip, feature is a blessing. And the adapter sounds great in my stereo at home & in my car. I think Memorex needs a little more "fine-tuning" for this product, and it would be ideal.
Rating: 
Summary: Not that good as expected
Review: I bought this from Amazon and I am sorry to say that this unit did not perform as expected. It Skips Mp3 songs at random. It is not that It skipped because it was subjected to shock, But it skipped at random. It does not have support for lower bit rate Mp3 files and does not support VBR that quite well, The unit lacks proffessional design as in EXPANIUM from Philips. This unit does have some plus points like better LCD display and ID-3 tag display to track file names in Alpha-numeric characters, but overall this unit did not perform well, It is cheap and this unit requires some serious Design changes may be some firmware problem? for random skipping. The sound quality is okay. I can rate this with 2 stars. Wait for better MP3 players, if you have the money and urge to buy something that plays does not skip then Buy Expanium from Philips and buy yourself a good headphones too as Expanium's headphones are crap. Buy Headphones from KOSS (SPortaPro) the ideal headphones for this unit Cheers!
Rating: 
Summary: Needs more work back at that lab
Review: First off I could not find the product in stores or online. It was almost like they could not make them fast enough. I finally ordered it online and was so excited to have it I requested next day delivery. Problem #1: The lighter interface is bulky and would not fit my ford ranger ash tray. I had to buy a special adapter. Problem #2: As promised above every 15 or so minutes you get a empty pause. I can almost live with this since I'm more interested in quantity over quality. Problem #3: If I burn a cdr and then attempt to tack on more mp3 files these files (apparently) can't be read by the player. Problem #4: I have been unable to get it to read cd-rw cds. It spins and spins and finally says error. If I can't resolve this I will return the product. I'm running a Pacific Digital Corp mitsumi cr-4802te with NTI pro 3.5.8 software. Newer CD readers have no problems reading my CDRWs.
Rating:
Summary: Great Idea, But It Needs Work
Review: It can't handle variable bitrate mp3's (even low bitrate ones), it can't handle high bitrate mp3's (>128 kbit). The shock protection doesn't work very well; it constantly pauses when I use it in the car. I do like that it handles multiple directories. I do wish the random function did not stop after playing each song once. I do like that the display shows the mp3 tags, such as artist, title, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome! No skips for lower bit rates
Review: I had been looking for a long time for something better (read as cheaper) than the AIWA indash mp3 player. it is truly awesome. Had some nervous times at the beginning when I got skipping in the songs..but then I reburned the CD and found that the skipping went away (try 1X or 2X burning). Also, found that the higher the bit rate, the more it will skip because it has more data to process in the given 45 second antishock. Keep it at 128K like the manual says and you won't have problems. Haven't tried the player with a regular audio CD yet, but hey, who needs to - 200 songs on a single CD is good enough for me. Buy it! Its the best buy your going to find in MP3s for at least a 16 months!
Rating:
Summary: It's going back
Review: Not having much confidence in Memorex products, I decided to read through all the helpful reviews on this site before I decided to open the package. So, taking everyone's feedback into consideration, I thought it was worth opening to see if I had the "Suffix A" version. GREAT, I did! I was really looking forward to listening to all my CDR's and MP3's in the car now. Plated up the new Aimee Mann, plugged the power jack into the lighter, slid the cassette adapter into the player and backed out of the driveway. Skip. Music. Skip. Skip. What's this? I have the "Suffix A" version, this shouldn't be happening. Tried an MP3 CD, same thing. My assessment- This thing doesn't like to ride in the car, plus it doesn't like the cold. I left it in a cold car overnight and tried to fire the unit up in the morning and it wouldn't even power up. Thinking it might not be able to brave the elements, I waited to tried it again when the cabin of the car got nice and toasty. It ran, but it skipped wildly, clicked and skipped some more. Sure, it will play 98% of the music without skipping, it's that annoying 2% that's forcing me to return it. When powered in the home by electricity or walking with batteries powering the unit, MP3's and CDR's work fine. Not one skip- even when provoked! It could be the power adapter for the car or it could be the cassette adapter. I've experimented jostling around both with little success in getting the unit to skip. Maybe it's one of the terminals inside the unit, I don't know. What i do know though, is it's time for it to go back. I purchased this unit primarily to sit shotgun as I drove to and from work. It's failed the test miserably. Even as I sat idle at a stoplight it skipped on occasion. Something hasn't been perfected with this unit yet. It's a great idea whose time has come, but it still has bugs. My suggestion to those who are considering purchasing this unit: * Look for the "Suffix A " sticker. * If you don't plan on using it in your car- KEEP IT! * Use the advice of the other reviewers when it comes to setting up your MP3's files and you'll be fine. * As far as the other little nits about backlighting, buttons and instructions, don't let that affect your decision. All that stuff is minor unless you want to wait for other manufacturers or other models to surface. Bottom line- you should be able to hear the music the way it was meant to be heard! If I want to hear music skip, I'll pull out my collection of '45's.
Rating:
Summary: Best MP3 CD-R/RW player for the price
Review: 10 hours of music on a single CD, this thing makes flash memory MP3 players seem like kids' toys. The only problem I have had, as other reviewers have said, this player sometimes experiences a 1-second audio dropout sometimes. It seems to be related to the quality of the CD-R, as it happens a lot on my cheap Samsung discs but almost never on the Imation and TDK ones so YMMV. The bundled headphones are weak - give them to a friend you don't like much and get a set of Koss KTXPros. Through good headphones, this player has very good audio quality and excellent bass response. The treble feels a bit flat - an EQ feature would have helped to fix that. There is an undocumented feature about this player - when you are stopped at the "Welcome MP3" screen, you can press "DISPLAY" once and you'll be in a mode that will allow you to use "SKIP +" and "SKIP -" to select a folder to start in. Pressing "PLAY/PAUSE" will start playing the selected folder. Since I organize all my MP3 CDs into Genre and Album folders, this is the quickest way for me to find a song. Like most other CD players, if you're using Alkaline batteries - you'll end up paying more than the cost of the player in batteries. If you don't already own one, it is a VERY good idea to get a NiMH charger and a set of batteries with this unit.
Rating:
Summary: Decent for the money, but not good enough
Review: I purchased the Memorex 8505 after reading several rave reviews and also received a Genica MP3 cd player for christmas. I much prefer the ID3 Tags and directory searching in the Memorex, but the player lacks the ability to play mp3's as well as it should. I have been successful in playing a 256kbps MP3 cd with no problems, but still do get the drop outs every 10-20 min, which is rather annoying. It tends to stop playing on VBR's in the middle also and skipped on occasion with a CD-R. The genica doesn't seem to have much problem with vbr's but is limited to it's 192kbps max nor hav I experienced drop outs. Overall I think I'm going to return the Memorex and hope they improve their product as it is a fine start for a wonderful product the value with the car kit almost is making me consider keeping it, but I think I should hold out for the next revision.
Rating:
Summary: Not quite mature yet. - non-skip playback gaps
Review: (1) Like other reviewers, I am getting 1-second gaps. One of the other reviewers said "every 20 minutes". I am getting gaps less than a minute apart in some songs. It seems to depend on the song. This defect may be a killer -- I may yet return it. I have the "suffix A" version. (2) I find that stashing it vertically between the seats in my microcar overloads the anti-skip despite the supposed 45 second lead. I don't know if any CD could stay on track in that situation. It does OK on the passenger seat when my wife isn't in the car. (3)One of the other reviews said that Easy-CD from Adaptec was stuck with 8-char names. That is wrong. I used Easy-CD and it truncates to 64-char names which this player displays correcctly. (4)I would have preferred a 10-key keypad as either the phonekey layout or the calculator layout to this circle. (5)The fake-cassette in this unit's car kit works in my Sony car deck. My previous Radio Shack fake-cassette does NOT work in that deck. I don't know what Memorex does better in this one. (6)A friend bought an Emerson unit which appears to be the same unit with different colour cover and without the car kit. Its price point was comparable. (7)The headphones LOOK good, but I find them seriously uncomfortable after an hour or so. The foam is too thin. (8)I would have preferred to have the headphone plugs and volume on the hinge end. (I have large pockets).
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