Panasonic CQ-DFX683U Car CD / MP3 Player

At this price you will usually only find MP3 car stereos from no-name chinese manufacturers. This is why I was a bit sceptic when I purchased this product for 300 swiss francs (appx. $220) in Zurich.

What a pleasant surprise! Installation took less than 20 minutes (by myself), and you'll find everything you need in the box! They've even included a little antenna-adaptor (some cars have a reverse-antenna-plug)! There's also a remote control for the device which isn't advertised on the box. (Although I still can't fully understand why would someone want to look for the remote while driving and use that, instead of simply pressing a button on the player itself. Nevermind, it's still a nice add-on!)

The only thing I didn't like about the installation is that on the back of the player you won't find a standard ISO plug. Instead, they included a little adaptor cable with the ISO plugs hanging out of it. Most cars also require a car specific ISO adaptor, so in my case there is a huge pile of cables and plugs behind the unit. It was really hard to squeeze everything into place.

Now about the sound and features: in one word: impressive!
It sounds much better than the stock CD player (it's a BMW), which I think is originally manufactured by Philips. It brings out the maximum from the stock speakers which are anyway too soft and sensitive.

It plays any CD-R (or RW) with any MP3's or WMA files on it. In any folder and location. (WMA was an important criteria for me, as most of my music is in this format. WMA also has better quality / better compression, so you can fit more music on one disc. I usually use 128k or 160k bitrate to rip my CD's with Windows Media Player.)
Navigation through the disc (and finding a song you want) is relatively easy, although it's nothing like browsing through a windows explorer. All folders are flattened, which means you have a Folder+ and Folder- button and the player will skip through ALL folders in sequential order. No hierarchies. The folder names are not displayed as quickly as you're scrolling through them. You'll see numbers instead, and only after a few seconds of playing will it show you the actual details: Folder name, file name. You can also select to display the ID3 tags or WMA info read from the files. I prefer this. Again, the same principle: when you start playing you'll only see a folder and file NUMBER (given by the unit). Then after 2-3 seconds it will start scrolling the actual file info (title/artist).

But don't be put off by this. You'll get used to it within one day and then you'll have a great time using this cool product. I find the sound quality excellent. (I have to admit I only have the stock speakers in my car, that are just average.) Before this unit I had a VDO navigation-CD player which was said to be one of the best sounding units. Well, this Panasonic player beats it by far! Both in terms of sound quality and user friendliness.

I've tried the unit with different file formats, bit rates, etc. Everything played smoothly.

The buttons and controls try to look like they were metal but they're only plastic. The material quality is very good though. It's nothing like those aforementioned cheap no-name units! On the Panasonic everything is solid and thight, everything "clicks" perfectly.

I didn't detect any CD skipping at all, and I've been on some bumpy terrain with the car.

I also find the radio receiver very good, the reception quality is far better than the old stock stereo.

Two annoyances I found though:
1. the screen is a bit too bright (this is the fashion now... the brighter blue the screen is, the cooler you think you are....ridiculous). it's nothing major but I'd prefer it a bit darker
2. There are sound level bars jumping up and down on both sides of the screen. Luckily, this can be turned off in the setup menu! (It was my first thing to do!)

All in all, I'm absolutely satisfied with this device, I can only recommend it. You won't regret your choice! Go for it now!