Kenwood DPC-MP727 Personal CD Player
Out of stock |
Similar in Portable CD Players
- CD-R/CD-RW Playback: CD-R/CD-RW
- Bass Boost: With Bass Boost
- Anti Skip Buffer: 40 sec.
- Supported Formats: WMA MP3
- Overview
-
Reviews
-
Compare Prices
User ReviewRead All Reviews »
You get what you pay for
Pros
Cheap unit does the basic job of playing audio CDs, and MP3 and WMA CD-Rs
Cons
Hold switch is also your eject. No battery indicator. File names a problem
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
You get what you pay for. The Iriver looks like it does more for around the same price though.
I?ve heard that this model has been discontinued but I thought I?d just pop a review up for you ebay bargain hunters and anyone who just likes reading reviews.
This is perhaps the cheapest unit of its type on the market (I live in Japan and it set me back 10,000 yen ? about $80 with basic remote and AC Adaptor. By comparison the Rio Volt 90, costs 11,000 yen without either of these and nearly 16000 yen ? about $130 ? with them). Understandably there are going to be a lot of cons with a product this cheap so I?m going to break these down into two categories: ?unforgivable at any price? and ?nitpicks.?
Pros: If you organize your songs into folders you can find, listen (and repeat) by folder (as if you?re listening to a number of ordinary albums) or do random play on all the songs available.
Cons (unforgivable at any price):
The Hold switch is the same lever that opens the lid. Accidentally flipping the lid cuts the power and cutting the power means having to ?reboot? (you have to wait about 60 seconds while the player rereads the table of contents. The bass boost and play mode also reset to default.)
No battery indicator on the display; no warning of your batteries? imminent death.
I discovered something very important about this machine the other day that was not part of my original review. The manual says the machine can display file names up to 32 characters in length. What it doesn't say is that if the file name is over 32 characters in length, it won't even recognize the file. I didn't notice at first, but then I started to realize that I wasn't seeing or hearing some of the tunes I'd burned. I did a test: I burned a CD-R with 8 tracks, ranging from 64 characters right down to the wire at 33 characters. I put the CD-R in the machine; "No files" How big a problem is this? Pretty big. For example, even a relatively innocuous file name like "Stereophonics - A thousand trees.mp3" is too big and will have to be changed to some kind of short hand. On my computer, I have to do this manually. Easy CD Creator will automatically shorten file names over 64 characters (standard for CD-Rom drives) but I can't seem to set it for less than this. This is a pain in the butt. I don't know how other products measure up against this but I definitely wouldn't have bought the unit had I known.
Cons (nitpicks):
Clunky, ugly design ? like a CD player from 10 years ago.
No pause switch on the remote.
Awkwardly positioned headphone jack (sticks out the side) adds a centimeter to the width and makes it catch in your bag and pocket.
Long time to read TOC at start up.
Just for your reference:
8 hour battery from a six hour charge (slow by today?s standards).
40 sec anti-skip. 110 sec for MP3. It skips fairly easily; about the same as my old CD Walkman.
Headphones are earbuds but actually really quite good ones.
Remote has play/skip forward, stop and skip backward buttons and a hold switch only. No display on it.
No backlight on unit display.
Will not play copyright protected WMAs. No surprise there. I don?t really use the format myself but every now and then I accidentally download one.
Three days after I bought this I noticed Iriver ChromeX and SlimX products on the shelves. Looks like the ChromeX can do more for the same price and looks slightly cuter and the SlimX can give the Rio Volt 250 a run for its money.
This is perhaps the cheapest unit of its type on the market (I live in Japan and it set me back 10,000 yen ? about $80 with basic remote and AC Adaptor. By comparison the Rio Volt 90, costs 11,000 yen without either of these and nearly 16000 yen ? about $130 ? with them). Understandably there are going to be a lot of cons with a product this cheap so I?m going to break these down into two categories: ?unforgivable at any price? and ?nitpicks.?
Pros: If you organize your songs into folders you can find, listen (and repeat) by folder (as if you?re listening to a number of ordinary albums) or do random play on all the songs available.
Cons (unforgivable at any price):
The Hold switch is the same lever that opens the lid. Accidentally flipping the lid cuts the power and cutting the power means having to ?reboot? (you have to wait about 60 seconds while the player rereads the table of contents. The bass boost and play mode also reset to default.)
No battery indicator on the display; no warning of your batteries? imminent death.
I discovered something very important about this machine the other day that was not part of my original review. The manual says the machine can display file names up to 32 characters in length. What it doesn't say is that if the file name is over 32 characters in length, it won't even recognize the file. I didn't notice at first, but then I started to realize that I wasn't seeing or hearing some of the tunes I'd burned. I did a test: I burned a CD-R with 8 tracks, ranging from 64 characters right down to the wire at 33 characters. I put the CD-R in the machine; "No files" How big a problem is this? Pretty big. For example, even a relatively innocuous file name like "Stereophonics - A thousand trees.mp3" is too big and will have to be changed to some kind of short hand. On my computer, I have to do this manually. Easy CD Creator will automatically shorten file names over 64 characters (standard for CD-Rom drives) but I can't seem to set it for less than this. This is a pain in the butt. I don't know how other products measure up against this but I definitely wouldn't have bought the unit had I known.
Cons (nitpicks):
Clunky, ugly design ? like a CD player from 10 years ago.
No pause switch on the remote.
Awkwardly positioned headphone jack (sticks out the side) adds a centimeter to the width and makes it catch in your bag and pocket.
Long time to read TOC at start up.
Just for your reference:
8 hour battery from a six hour charge (slow by today?s standards).
40 sec anti-skip. 110 sec for MP3. It skips fairly easily; about the same as my old CD Walkman.
Headphones are earbuds but actually really quite good ones.
Remote has play/skip forward, stop and skip backward buttons and a hold switch only. No display on it.
No backlight on unit display.
Will not play copyright protected WMAs. No surprise there. I don?t really use the format myself but every now and then I accidentally download one.
Three days after I bought this I noticed Iriver ChromeX and SlimX products on the shelves. Looks like the ChromeX can do more for the same price and looks slightly cuter and the SlimX can give the Rio Volt 250 a run for its money.
