The Bottom Line: For the price, this is a good buy. Sound quality is superior and this is the only portable CD player I know that employs 3D sound enhancement that works.

It was time for me to look for a new portable CD player and it has always been a toss for either Sony or Panasonic for me. This model got my attention because aside from being reasonably priced it had an LCD remote which I find to be useful when I go biking. Most Sony models I looked at had no LCD remote.

THE GOOD:

Let me quickly run through the general features:

- Slim design with LCD remote
- WrapIt behind-the neck headphones
- Long battery life which combines both AA and AAA batteries (using supplied external battery case).
- Has 5 pre-set equalizers (Train, 3D-1, 3D-2, S-XBS and S-XBS+)
- Recharge function provided you use the recommended adaptor and NiMH batteries (not included).

Panasonic has always impressed me with their slim designs. They were always stylish, with symmetrical lines and had function buttons conveniently placed. For this model, all of the buttons are on the circumference and neatly organized. The battery compartment is inside the lid that holds 2 AAA batteries. There is no display on the unit itself because of the LCD remote control.

I usually burn my new portables along with the headphones by playing at least 5 hours of a jazz CD or music that has good bass and various musical instruments before I analyze the sound quality. To me all the styling and functionality will be for nothing if the sound is unbearable. The CDs I tried for this CD player are that of Dido, UB40 and Enya which I felt covered the whole spectrum of music frequency from heavy bass (UB40) to a lot of instruments (Enya). Since there were 5 equalizer settings I had to chose which one suits my preference. I felt like the Train was dull and dry while the S-XBS+ was "too thumping" on the reggae music. However, I loved the 3D-2 sound enhancement as I was hearing sort of live music from my player. The WrapIt headphones that came with it are fairly decent but it kind of lacked the mid-range as the bass sound subdues it. Nevertheless when you try a more decent headphone like Koss Porta Pro, the sound is truly revealed as balanced and not overpowering. The 3D-2 gives you an impression that sound comes in your front and not within your head which makes listening less fatiguing. You get less bass though but for people who like to hear more of the vocals and string/wind instruments like me, this is perfect. The volume can get very loud (setting of 20+) but I usually find a setting of 12 to be the right loudness. If you listen to a lot of hip-hop, reggae music then you will appreciate the S-XBS+ setting as the bass is really heavy.

I have been using the player for 2 weeks now at 1-2 hours per day and I am still at 1-bar on the battery indicator. That is long battery life for me. The LCD remote has all the information you would expect except it does not read ID3 tags of mp3 files. I have a separate small mp3 player that I use when I want to listen to mp3 music so this does not bother me.

Lastly, although a little bit bulky the player comes with an external battery case that can house 2 AA batteries which according to Panasonic will provide you an amazing 155-hr battery life for mp3 music.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD:

I have had at least 5 portable CD players before and I believe Panasonic did a good job of providing features that are useful. They did their homework. However, I still have some "wants" that hopefully will come as standard in their future models for the same price range such as backlit LCD remote, at least 2 lines of LCD display because of mp3 file information and the ability to read mp3 tags since you already have mp3 capability built-in.

Overall, the $45 I spent on this player was well worth it.