Rating: 
Summary: I really, really want to like this player, but....
Review: I really, really want to like this player. It's small, it's cute, it's got "unlimited" memory via cheapo SD cards, it's got really neat accessories and an amazing battery life... but tomorrow I'm returning it to the store where I bought it.Why? Simple. The UNBELIEVEABLY stupid "anti piracy" features they put into it. No, You can't just copy your mp3 files to the player and listen to them. The player only wirks with specially encrypted files. To use it with an mp3 file you have to use the special software to "check" the files into and out of your hard drive And yes, the files on your hard drive ARE MODIFIED for some evil reason when you check them out. Don't ask me why or what happens if I stick the card in my camera and format it without "checking" the mp3 files that were on it back into my hard drive. I don't know, and I'm not waiting to find out. And OF COURSE the upload software is horrible to use, and YES it fails to install properly until the tenth try. Even then it took me ten minutes to get it to recognize the special SD card writer they supply. I mean, what else could it do? What on earth were they thinking? They took this beautiful little gadget that somebody had designed and totally ruined it. Their hardware guys must be crying right now. Did they think this system will somehow keep me from "pirating" the mp3 files THAT ARE *ALREADY* ON MY HARD DISK?? Whatever. Tomorrow I'll go and swap it for something by Creative or iRiver or something. Anything but Panasonic.
Rating:
Summary: I really, really want to like this player, but....
Review: I really, really want to like this player. It's small, it's cute, it's got "unlimited" memory via cheapo SD cards, it's got really neat accessories and an amazing battery life... but tomorrow I'm returning it to the store where I bought it. Why? Simple. The UNBELIEVEABLY stupid "anti piracy" features they put into it. No, You can't just copy your mp3 files to the player and listen to them. The player only wirks with specially encrypted files. To use it with an mp3 file you have to use the special software to "check" the files into and out of your hard drive And yes, the files on your hard drive ARE MODIFIED for some evil reason when you check them out. Don't ask me why or what happens if I stick the card in my camera and format it without "checking" the mp3 files that were on it back into my hard drive. I don't know, and I'm not waiting to find out. And OF COURSE the upload software is horrible to use, and YES it fails to install properly until the tenth try. Even then it took me ten minutes to get it to recognize the special SD card writer they supply. I mean, what else could it do? What on earth were they thinking? They took this beautiful little gadget that somebody had designed and totally ruined it. Their hardware guys must be crying right now. Did they think this system will somehow keep me from "pirating" the mp3 files THAT ARE *ALREADY* ON MY HARD DISK?? Whatever. Tomorrow I'll go and swap it for something by Creative or iRiver or something. Anything but Panasonic.
Rating: 
Summary: So small, so cute
Review: I've spent the last hour trying to install software so that my boyfriend can use my computer to put music onto his MP3 player. While the SV-SD85 is small, cute, has good sound quality and is relatively tough, the software is proprietary and if you're disorganized, like he is, then you will loose the install drivers. Well, don't because it has a version of realplayer on it that has coding specific to panasonic. If you try to drag and drop files, you will be sorely disappointed (like I was). Don't try to go to the Panasonic website to download the drivers either, they're not there.
Rating: 
Summary: Exceptional hardware, bad software.
Review: It's tiny, it's easy to use, has excellent battery life, and it sounds great. They had to spoil it someplace. The software, as usual.
Instead of letting you copy MP3/WMA/AAC files directly from Windows explorer, you are required to encrypt them and use their proprietary software. You can't even use your own SD card writer; the software won't recognize other than the one supplied.
I don't get it. Who at Panasonic could have made such a terrible decision, allegedly to "procect music copyright". Stop the BS... if I want to, I can pirate those songs even using the supplied SD Card reader. It's just that they won't play on the SV-SD85 if thet are not encrypted with the software.
Hopefully a better software will come out (if it were at least integrated into Windows explorer, I wouldn't complain so much).
Don't get me wrong; it's still a great buy. Besides, it seems that all players use some kind of proprietary software.
Rating: 
Summary: Awsome little MP3 Player
Review: This thing is really small but excellent for a person that is on the go. The footprint of the unit is so small that you forget you have it on while working out at the Gym or running. It has a lot of nice features and good software that lets you rip your CD's to MP3 for use with the unit. Another advantage that people don't really make use of is that with a cassette adapter you can use this thing in your car and get the same high quality sound in you car or truck. Without having to buy $600 or more in car audio equipment.
Rating:
Summary: WARNING: Can not use protected music files, even leaglly pur
Review: WARNING: The Panasonic SD-80 does not allow any protected files to be uploaded, legally purchased or not. It a great little player, the right size and lots of functionality BUT, if you can't upload your favorite music its not very functional. Since the future trend is to purchase songs rather than albums, more and more music will be purchased off Internet sites. None of these songs will be useable on the SD-80 and Panasonic has stated it has no intention of revising the software to allow the upload of legally purchased protected files. Great little player, BUT A WASTE OF MONEY.
Rating:
Summary: WARNING: Can not use protected music files, even leaglly pur
Review: WARNING: The Panasonic SD-80 does not allow any protected files to be uploaded, legally purchased or not. It a great little player, the right size and lots of functionality BUT, if you can't upload your favorite music its not very functional. Since the future trend is to purchase songs rather than albums, more and more music will be purchased off Internet sites. None of these songs will be useable on the SD-80 and Panasonic has stated it has no intention of revising the software to allow the upload of legally purchased protected files. Great little player, BUT A WASTE OF MONEY.
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