Rating: 
Summary: Sorely disappointed
Review: I got this player this morning (from Amazon). Since it was my day off, I've spent almost the entire day trying to get it to work right. Still no luck.Biggest problem--getting the player to reproduce decent sound! I've experimented with three types of CD Media (Kodak, TDK, and generic CompUSA CDRW), and different burn speeds, and I still have annoying and _very_ noticable "burps" in the music every 5 seconds or so. I can come close to masking these burps if I downsample a track to ~64kbps. Though I could pack a ton of music on a CD at that rate, the quality sacrificed is not worth it! At 128 or 192kbps (where most of our mp3s are recorded), the player simply does not effectively reproduce sound. My Rio does a far better job, despite its tiny storage. I was very enthusiastic about getting an MP3-CD player. Now? I'm very enthusiastic about trading in my MP3-CD player. I haven't had experience with the Phillips model, but it couldn't be any worse. As it sits, buying this Memorex unit was a waste of money. It might be suitable if you used it only occassionally for mp3 playback (it does have good CD audio reproduction), otherwise, Memorex has a long ways to go before they're going to convince people that they can market a good mp3 player....
Rating: 
Summary: Ugh...
Review: How disappointed am I with this product? In a word: extremely. I read the few reviews that were posted here and can't help but wonder if maybe I got a bad unit. Let's break this down into the 4 days that I had it. Day 1: It finally got here! After a week of waiting here it is, the moment I've been waiting for. I already have a few CDs full of MP3s, I'll test one out. Stick in CD #1. Okay, it takes a while to load (approx 20 sec), that's cool, I can deal with that. Okay, now let's press play, just to see if it works. Yeah! There it goes! Sweet! Let me search around. Okay, I can't figure this search feature out... not a big deal, I know where things are. Stick in CD #2. Cool, it works. Let's figure out where everything is. Wait, why is this song playing in the root directory, it should be in its own subdir. Okay, its finding files multiple times. Why is it doing this? How can this file be in two places? I didn't burn it that way... okay, not a big deal, I plan on playing random tracks anyway. Day 2: Can't wait to try this thing out in my car. Here goes. Okay, is sound only coming out one speaker? What gives... maybe its a bad file... yeah, it was, okay, here we go. <Driving> Cool, it works, not bad... <5 minutes later> what the hell? why is it skipping? Maybe its a bad file... <new track> no, this one is skipping too <new track> Ok, now I'm REALLY getting upset, everything is skipping, screw it, I'll listen to the radio. Day 3: Nothing, trying to figure out if I should return it. Day 4: To school, a new CDRW with clean files, no subdirs, lets see how it goes. Still skips... School's out, lets go home. <skip> song <skip> <skip> what's going on here? Hit a pothole. Silence... more silence.. even more silence... what the heck is going on? Can't see, its dark, no back light.. must wait until a red light. Red light comes, look down, its OFF. The thing turned itself off. I have a CD player that doesn't even skip when I hit a pothole, this thing turned itself OFF. That's it, its going back. That's pretty much a summary of what my 4 days were like with this thing. I can't help but wonder, who tested this thing? A chimp? Seriously, anyone listening to this thing for more than 5 minutes should wonder why there are frequent skips in the music and why their CDs aren't being read correctly, if at all. If this is one of the better CD-MP3 players on the market, I'd HATE to see what the rest of them are like. Maybe the MPD8505CP II will have better results. Pros: Light, cheap(er than other MP3 players on the market anyway, as far as flexibility is concerned), comes with car kit and headphones. Cons: Reads files multiple times when in subdirectories, no back light (can't see what you're doing in the dark), small and difficult to read display (even the Game Boy and TI calculators have switched from blue to black text), too many buttons that are difficult to figure out when driving, SKIPS CONSTANTLY AND RANDOMLY, very picky about which files it wants to read, long access and load times, doesn't remember settings (such as play mode) when powering off (unlike my CD player), impossible to use search feature (still can't figure it out, the manual makes it seem so simple, but its not).
Rating: 
Summary: The little player that could
Review: ....I picked one up and have been very happy with it. Yea, it's got some quirks to it, but come on, it's a Memorex product. I just wish you could have bought the player alone (w/o the car kit), and saved even more money! I did have some problems with mulit-session CD's, so I just reburned a fresh CD all in one sitting, and it works great. I didn't even bother with the stock headphones and used my trusty Sony MDR-84's. Sounds great!!
Rating:
Summary: Memorex MPD8505CP Portable MP3/CD Player with 45 Second
Review: Kind of pricey, now have to wait for months for my monthly allowances to build-up. Avg. sound quality. Only gripe is that it plays up to 192kbps. Wish it would play beyond 192 kbps i.e. No AM or FM tuner built in. No Ni-MH battery, had to ask to buy some, Ni-MH extends play time, and cheaper than buying alkaline batteries over time. Sound quality is above average. Need easier way to search or browse through directories or a more user friendly menu....
Rating:
Summary: Great buy!
Review: I just got my Memorex MPD8505CP player tonight and I LOVE it! I had an old back up disc of mp3's and tried it first and it worked great! Then I coudn't sleep so I made another MP3 disc and am listening to it right now. (At 1:00am) Like the other reviews, I agree it could use a bigger backlit LCD display but that it really about the only complaint. The search feature is very cool. Random works in MP3 mode. (I've read that some don't like the Apex DVD/MP3 player) Overall, I would recommend this product highly. In the car I will just set it for random. Then I don't need a backlight:) Buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Decent instructions would get it 5 stars!
Review: Once you get used to how to use it, it's great! But the instructions are cryptic to a fault, besides being written in "Chinglish." And do take the comments by "An electronics fan from Olympia, WA USA" regarding the software to use to burn the CD to heart. Thank you, whoever you are; I was about to throw it through the window (or Windows 98!). Oh, and if you have long file names, you might as well pre-edit them in Windows Explorer down to under 64 characters, 'cause you'll have to anyways to burn the disc. The button design is the usual difficult compromise among clarity, comprehensive functionality, and intelligent use of very limited real estate. Once you get used to them, they become reasonable -- but, with the instructions that come with the device, you will experience significant frustration getting comfortable with them. For example, page 14 tells you that an album search (by which they mean a search for a single file or track, not an "album" which is cited on page 13, and by which they mean a directory, or "DIR" as it's called on page 14, . . .) in any case, if the album search (first 6 characters max) finds more than one file, the display will blink. Buried back in the list of controls (19 of them) on page 3, you'll find an 8 word phrase that, if read very carefully, tells you how to skip through these selections -- once you figure out that, to hear the first one, you have to press Play, which you don't have to do if the search had found just one file. You get the idea. (By the way, I'm CTO of a high tech company. If I have trouble, what about Aunt Milly?) This posting has my email. If you come up with a cheat sheet of decent instructions, please send them. Maybe we should form a Memorex MPD8505CP User's Group, exchange tips and tricks!
Rating:
Summary: Some Extra Info...
Review: Overall, I agree that this is a really good buy, but since the manual is worthless I think I should clarify a few things for people who need details. Memorex includes a small 15 page pamphlet, 12 pages of which are worthless. 1. I haven't had much luck in using the 80min (700mb) CD-Rs. I've also heard that they might not be compatible with most mp3/cd players. The manual doesn't say anything about this. On the other hand, using only the first 650mb of those 700mb cd's seem to work fine. 2. Just like another user posted, DON'T use Direct CD, use a program like Adaptec EasyCD Creater. Many of the files burned using Direct will not read properly for some reason. 3. On that topic, the manual says to use the "ISO9660" format when burning your data CD. The "Juliet" format DOES NOT work. This means (as far as Easy CD Creator tells me) that you are limited to using only 8 letters, numbers and/or the "_" symbol. The manual shows a picture to illustrate this, and all of their files only have 8 characters. This is REALLY annoying. Although the CD program will most likely rename the file for you...having 10 songs named RKELLY_1 through RKELLY10 is a pain. I've actually put in a mp3 cd of the wrong format, and had filenames longer than that (and they included spaces and lower-case letters). The downside is that not all of the mp3's played... If someone has any other information on filenames and different burning methods, please post. The Memorex website is even worse than the manual and I've learned most of this through trial and error and wrecked cd's. 4. Even though it has 11 buttons, the file browser is still bothersome to use. On the bright side, the search feature works well. You might consider using more "albums" (folders) when you burn your mp3's. I started out by filling a cd with 140 or so mp3's of the same genre and having NO folders. This will inflict great pain to your thumb, unless you know the track number or name of a specific track, you'll have to punch through all of them to get to the one you want. 5. The quality of the headphones rival that of the manual. You won't feel bad if you step on them. They're not bad...just not anything special. 6. Batteries. I bought a set of 4 AA Kodak rechargable NiMH's (with Charger) recently for my digital camera. They have more the paid for themselves...over and over... I've gotten at least 5-8hrs of playback from them (mp3 mode). CD mode uses more... 7. The manual states that it supports anything from 32-128kps encoded mp3's. I've got some at 190kps that playback nicely. So what makes me give this 5 *'s?: The value is insane. At this price and also the cheap price of CD-R's, you can have your whole collection portable (I have over 6 gigs). The accessories that it's bundled with would cost you another $35+ if your bought them individually. The 45sec anti-shock system works well. I keep it in my backpack and walk at a fairly brisk pace and the mp3's rarely skip on me. Working out with it isn't a problem, but I doubt you could take this jogging with you. I don't know what quality problems the another reviewer had, but I can't find any. I get the same quality playback as if it's coming straight from WinAmp. The extra functions are nice. The 12 character, 2 line display (although not backlit) scrolls the title/artist of the song as it is being played. The line-out turns your car stereo, home stereo, or beach boom box into a mp3 juke box. All in all, it is a standard cd/mp3 player. It includes a few features that you would expect from any CD player (bass boost, ESP etc) but can use help in other areas (better file browser, backlit display). Considering the price though, it's still a steal! I would definitely recommend this.
Rating:
Summary: Low cost complete mp3/cd player!
Review: This is a great alternative to the other mp3/cd players out there. First of all, this supports id3 tags which show song title and author info ect. I burned a cd yesterday with over 115 songs on it and it picked up every signle one! It plays beautifully and is a complete package. It includes ac adapter and car kit which is very helpful. One of the only drawbacks to this player is that it does not support multi-session burning. Even with that said this is still an awesome player. When esp is on (all the time in mp3 mode), I cannot even force it to skip! With esp off with a regular cd I can make it skip but only if I'm rattling it around. Great cd player and well worth the money!
Rating: 
Summary: A dream come true? Not yet.
Review: The Memorex CD/MP3 player is nearly a dream come true. It's inexpensive. Accomodates tags. Will play ISO9660 or Joliet (but doesn't display Joliet filenames properly). Has random mode. Handles up to 192 kbps (manual only claims to handle up to 128 kbps). With 2 rechargeable AA batteries, was working about 6 hours plus (Ni Metal Hydrides probably have a longer lifetime). The anti-skip definitely works as is claimed. Several problems have forced me to return this product. The player has a firmware problem that results in 1-2 second pauses occuring approximately every 20 minutes or so. Sometimes, more frequently. No remote (was able to live without one). Does not play CBRs >192kbps and can't handle VBRs (could live with that too). Does not play last 50 MB on a 700 MB CD (oh well). Sound quality with car kit was just fine. Sound quality using $20 Sony headphones was poor: constant background noise, tinny sound. The signal-to-noise ratio is improved at higher volumes and less noticable with environmental noise (hence the fine sound quality using the car kit). Played same spoken word and music CDs on standard Panasonic portable CD player to compare--the sound quality on the Panasonic was orders of magnitude better. The resume feature doesn't function properly, since it loses that memory after powering the unit off. Also switches back to normal mode from random mode after powering off the unit. Those are small, but inconvient, problems. Pros: inexpensive, tags, good anti-skip, sounds fine using the car kit. Cons: annoying interrupt, poor sound quality at low volume using headphones. Conclusion: holding out for a better-developed product. Could have lived with less than perfect sound quality to play MP3 CDs. Can't live with 1-2 second interrupts every 15 minutes or so. Just too annoying and makes one worry about the quality of the product and potential problems associated with long-term usage. Bottom line: I couldn't live with the interrupts. Can you? Or will you hold out longer too?
Rating:
Summary: Memorex mp3 player
Review: This is a great mp3 player. I can't get it to skip and i don't get any wierd sounds that where reported. (clicks) Getting the id3 system to wrok was easy. IT scrolls the name of the song then the artist then the Album name. I also was able to listen to songs at 192k no problem. Here is what i did not like about it 1st the lcd does not light up 2nd the button don't light up 3rd there are to many buttons 4th it's hard to figure out the way to get throught the songs with the search method. 5th Lcd could be a little bigger Good product for the price! Enjoy
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