Being the informed shopper that I am, I made sure to do my homework before sending my husband out to by my under-the-cabinet CD/radio for my Christmas present. There wasn't a huge selection, and I couldn't decipher much difference between the units so I told my husband to listen to them and pick the one he thought sounded best. That happened to be this GE Spacemaker unit.

I wanted a unit to use in my kitchen while I cooked and cleaned. I didn't want it to take up counter space and I couldn't really keep blasting the living room stereo without driving my family nuts.

I read reviews on the different models and came to the conclusion that the writers must have higher expectations than me as to the quality of the systems. I didn't expect to rock out, just wanted some tunes to clean by.

I also read about CD skipping but assumed that the users must have just bought a broken unit and that the odds were mine would work properly.

I mounted the unit easily. Required drilling 4 screws through the bottom of my kitchen cabinet. The unit also came with a remote control, which works fine. However, if I'm in the kitchen doing my work, I am right there and don't see the need for the remote control. Honestly, the unit doesn't play loud enough for me to leave the room to hear it.

But the radio stinks altogether. I predicted it would. The static is intolerable and it's just impossible to get a station in. Sounds like an AM only radio. So, it's a given that you can't listen to the radio. No biggie.

However, given that I was willing to pay for a product, already correctly predicting the failure of one of it's most vital features, I assumed the CD would work. Afterall, you can buy boom boxes for pennies on the dollar. If it hadn't been for my obsessive desire to have this thing mount under my cabinet, I would have just bought a boom box.

Sure enough, it skipped. Regardless of the CD, within the first 5-10 mins. of listening to a song, it will skip. Then the skips will get longer and more frequent until you are ripping your hair out from the frustration of having bought this stupid thing, having drilled holes in your cabinets, having mounted it, and having been so stupid as to read what a piece of electronic manure it is and buying it anyway.

I haven't taken it down yet. I don't use it though. I'm too frustrated, at the moment, to expend the energy to dismount it from my cabinet, repackage it, fill out countless return forms, drive to the post office and pay to ship it back to the manufacturer.

My advice: Forget it. Buy a boom box, an attractive one, and stick it somewhere. Even put it in the cabinet while it's not in use if necessary. These things are a complete waste of money. It's an insult to the times when a company can't produce a basic CD player to mount under a cabinet. In the age of iPods, XBoxes, and cable internet, this is completely lame.

But it is what it is. And I'm just passing along my experience in the hopes that I can prevent someone else from making the informed, but incorrect, decision of buying this unit.