Memorex MD5687-02 Personal CD Player
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Similar in Portable CD Players
- CD-R/CD-RW Playback: CD-R/CD-RW
- Anti Skip Buffer: 45 sec.
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OH YEAH! I DEFINITELY Remember This One
Pros
Only $30 for a brand name CD player with anti-skip and radio
Cons
Wow...read on...
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
It's only $30 but it surely isn't worth it.
I'm still trying to accurately remember when I got this one... All I know is at least I had it for the early part of 2004, that's for sure. All I clearly remember is how much I had to put up with this SOB. At the time my four-year old DEJ360 was finally dead so it was time to go look for another personal CD player. At the time a lot of people at my school had ones with tuners built-in to them. And of course the envy pours in and I want one with a tuner built-in. Sony had a model but it was about $60 which is quite expensive despite the features. I browsed Amazon a bit and found this. A Memorex Electric Blue (despite Epinions picture) CD Player With Radio--$29.99. I wanted it so bad...so bad exactly one hour from then I finally had scissors in my hand and started cutting open the box. Having experience in owning products, one good thing to do is to actually read reviews before you open something, especially music since you can't take it back. I didn't read any reviews but Amazon had two, one bad and one good so I just decided to try it.
Memorex MD5687 CD Player
This annoying SOB of a CD player has more features than any $30 I've seen on the market, even today. First thing that most players, even generic ones don't have at this price is a radio. That's right, only $30 and this thing comes with an AM and FM tuner built right in. It plays CD, CD-R, and CD-RW discs. It has a 45-second skip protection. It's fully programmable. It comes with a bass boost system. It comes with stereo headphones. $30, that's it. Seems way too good to be true doesn't it. Well it surely is. It's true this player has a ton of features in it but these features are of low-quality. The tuner sucks. The skip protection sucks. The bass boost sucks. The headphones suck. So, in reality, you are paying for what you would pay for a $30 Sony.
Design
I wasn't too impressed with the design on this one folks. First off, the buttons on the top, besides the pause/play/stop/skip buttons, are really similar. This can make it really hard to see what's going on in the dark or if it's placed in a bag. The mode/program play/esp-band buttons are really close together. I also found it very annoying to have absoultely no lock button on it, which makes it a poor choice for those excercising with it or putting it in a bag. Even if it didn't have a lock it could at least come with a remote, darn it Memorex. On the plus side, the batteries are placed in a good spot (not right under the CD door), the open button isn't annoying, and it's not bulky or heavy like most cheap players are. It comes in two colors, blue and purple, with Epinions has the purple listed. The blue is pretty bright, similar to the color of the taskbar on Windows XP if I were to use an example. They look pretty appealing at first but the only $40 will eventually pay off. Even if I saw a higher quality one that looked like a cheap piece of garbage at least I would get something that worked better. It's not waterproof whatsoever.
Overall Sound Quality
The sound quality on this thing, I thought, was pretty poor. First off, the bass boost on this won't do you any good. It doesn't have a whole lot of power and does add a lot more disortation than other players. Plan on getting a new pair of headphones with these because the ones supplied are terrible, and lack any bass or treble. I'd go genre by genre like I usually do but just about everything on this thing sounded flat and lifeless unless I used another pair of headphones. I guess the plus side on sound is that it can get pretty loud.
Anti-Skip Protection
The MD5687 says to come with a 45-second anti-skip protection but trust me on this one, this thing is a joke. When it says 45-seconds I expect ti to buffer all the data in 45-seconds. But no. This thing takes minutes for it to actually fill up, so don't you dare expect to go jogging with this thing.
Battery Life
I want to say this lasts a decent amount of time but nope. I only got about a weak 6 hours of battery life from this energy hog using a fresh pair of alkaline AAs. Luckily it has a low battery warning on it so you can easily replace them.
Hey, What About The Tuner?
This player comes with an AM/FM tuner. While this was the main purchase of the player, it was almost useless. I couldn't get half of my local stations to come in...it said up to 40 miles away from the station and I was 15 miles away and was having some problems. The AM signals were pretty weak too, as well only recieving a few of the normal local stations. You can store up to 10 presets on FM and 10 on AM but I don't think I can even get that many to come in clear. What even complicates me more is that I took this to downtown Tucson (about 4 blocks away from the station) and still couldn't get a good signal. You can make the sound mono and the station comes in a bit better but then your sound quality is much more limited in mono. Overall, I was pretty dissappointed by this feature.
Durability
Well, here's something your going to crack up about. The first player I bought broke on the lid a week after the warranty. The second player broke on the lid a week after the warranty. That really says a lot about the durability of these units. The warranty on these is 90-day so I guess the first one I got was summer 2003. On one of them the lid broke off completely so it had to be completely fixed and bundled-up with rubber bands. The second one the open button broke off so I had to fix it with tape. So much for the durability on these...
Portability
Like I said before, these are pretty slim. A lot of the CD players coming out even today are not quite as slim as this one. It's not the slimmest one ever but it is pretty portable. But with all of the design failures, is it really portable?
Warranty
Memorex warrants this CD player for a 90-day period. If you buy it from a store and it's immediately defective you're probably better off just returning it straight forward to them. Only 90-days for a warranty is a little weak but I at least wanted it to last more than 97 days.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that this player just sucks. While it seems like it is a good deal at only $30, the anti-skip sucks, the radio sucks, the durability sucks, the sound quality sucks, the headphones suck, and the design sucks. So, if everything sucks, it really isn't worth $30 to me. It is very low in price but even some of the generic models being pushed out there are better than this one.
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Memorex MD5687 CD Player
This annoying SOB of a CD player has more features than any $30 I've seen on the market, even today. First thing that most players, even generic ones don't have at this price is a radio. That's right, only $30 and this thing comes with an AM and FM tuner built right in. It plays CD, CD-R, and CD-RW discs. It has a 45-second skip protection. It's fully programmable. It comes with a bass boost system. It comes with stereo headphones. $30, that's it. Seems way too good to be true doesn't it. Well it surely is. It's true this player has a ton of features in it but these features are of low-quality. The tuner sucks. The skip protection sucks. The bass boost sucks. The headphones suck. So, in reality, you are paying for what you would pay for a $30 Sony.
Design
I wasn't too impressed with the design on this one folks. First off, the buttons on the top, besides the pause/play/stop/skip buttons, are really similar. This can make it really hard to see what's going on in the dark or if it's placed in a bag. The mode/program play/esp-band buttons are really close together. I also found it very annoying to have absoultely no lock button on it, which makes it a poor choice for those excercising with it or putting it in a bag. Even if it didn't have a lock it could at least come with a remote, darn it Memorex. On the plus side, the batteries are placed in a good spot (not right under the CD door), the open button isn't annoying, and it's not bulky or heavy like most cheap players are. It comes in two colors, blue and purple, with Epinions has the purple listed. The blue is pretty bright, similar to the color of the taskbar on Windows XP if I were to use an example. They look pretty appealing at first but the only $40 will eventually pay off. Even if I saw a higher quality one that looked like a cheap piece of garbage at least I would get something that worked better. It's not waterproof whatsoever.
Overall Sound Quality
The sound quality on this thing, I thought, was pretty poor. First off, the bass boost on this won't do you any good. It doesn't have a whole lot of power and does add a lot more disortation than other players. Plan on getting a new pair of headphones with these because the ones supplied are terrible, and lack any bass or treble. I'd go genre by genre like I usually do but just about everything on this thing sounded flat and lifeless unless I used another pair of headphones. I guess the plus side on sound is that it can get pretty loud.
Anti-Skip Protection
The MD5687 says to come with a 45-second anti-skip protection but trust me on this one, this thing is a joke. When it says 45-seconds I expect ti to buffer all the data in 45-seconds. But no. This thing takes minutes for it to actually fill up, so don't you dare expect to go jogging with this thing.
Battery Life
I want to say this lasts a decent amount of time but nope. I only got about a weak 6 hours of battery life from this energy hog using a fresh pair of alkaline AAs. Luckily it has a low battery warning on it so you can easily replace them.
Hey, What About The Tuner?
This player comes with an AM/FM tuner. While this was the main purchase of the player, it was almost useless. I couldn't get half of my local stations to come in...it said up to 40 miles away from the station and I was 15 miles away and was having some problems. The AM signals were pretty weak too, as well only recieving a few of the normal local stations. You can store up to 10 presets on FM and 10 on AM but I don't think I can even get that many to come in clear. What even complicates me more is that I took this to downtown Tucson (about 4 blocks away from the station) and still couldn't get a good signal. You can make the sound mono and the station comes in a bit better but then your sound quality is much more limited in mono. Overall, I was pretty dissappointed by this feature.
Durability
Well, here's something your going to crack up about. The first player I bought broke on the lid a week after the warranty. The second player broke on the lid a week after the warranty. That really says a lot about the durability of these units. The warranty on these is 90-day so I guess the first one I got was summer 2003. On one of them the lid broke off completely so it had to be completely fixed and bundled-up with rubber bands. The second one the open button broke off so I had to fix it with tape. So much for the durability on these...
Portability
Like I said before, these are pretty slim. A lot of the CD players coming out even today are not quite as slim as this one. It's not the slimmest one ever but it is pretty portable. But with all of the design failures, is it really portable?
Warranty
Memorex warrants this CD player for a 90-day period. If you buy it from a store and it's immediately defective you're probably better off just returning it straight forward to them. Only 90-days for a warranty is a little weak but I at least wanted it to last more than 97 days.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that this player just sucks. While it seems like it is a good deal at only $30, the anti-skip sucks, the radio sucks, the durability sucks, the sound quality sucks, the headphones suck, and the design sucks. So, if everything sucks, it really isn't worth $30 to me. It is very low in price but even some of the generic models being pushed out there are better than this one.
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jWIN Portable Radio
iRiver H10 Series MP3 Player
Lenoxx Sound Portable CD Player
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