RCA RP2410 Personal CD Player
Out of stock |
Similar in Portable CD Players
- Anti Skip Buffer: 45 sec.
- Overview
-
Reviews
-
Compare Prices
User ReviewRead All Reviews »
Philips eXpanium EXP103: a BETTER buy!
Pros
Not a whole lot. ID3 tag support, plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs, decent headphones.
Cons
Uses four AA batteries, no battery indicator, short battery life, easily skips. Simply put, terrible.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
This player performs very well, if you always have a plug handy. It is too easily jostled and needs to use less batteries.
I finally gave up with my Aiwa.
(RIP Aiwa XP-V70, 4 July 2001 - we hardly knew thee)
Since the screw had come loose and been lost, the player was virtually impossible to use in any sort of moving situation (car, exercise, San Francisco, etc.) So I decided to get a new CD player that, in addition to playing CDs and CD-Rs (maybe even RWs), I'd get one that could support MP3 files instead of normal audio files.
For you folks with lives, I'll give you a little insight into MP3s and the like.
With a normal CD-R I can store 650 MB of data, audio, whatever, onto it. Wave files are very large, so I can only store a little over an hour (about 74 minutes). However, MP3s are much smaller, and while smaller, they do not lose quality. So I can store about 10 hours of MP3s on a normal CD.
Whoo hoo, back to the review...
So I went out to Best Buy and checked out what they had in store. I saw many models from different companies, but the one that stuck out was the RCA RP2410. How I rue this day! One redeeming quality I saw about it was that I could use my MP3s and the name of the MP3 would appear in the window. This, at the time, was a big plus over the other models that only used two AA batteries.
It also came with some neat-looking headphones that wrapped around my head. Wow, I was getting a great deal! Wait, no. I brought it home and equipped it with four (yes, four) Duracell Ultra batteries. I burned an MP3 CD and off I was!
I returned it three days later and bought the eXpanium EXP103....I recommend THAT player...
Battery Life
The battery life is terrible. The player lasted about four hours on four AA batteries. This terrible battery life was complimented (complimented? maybe...) by the four batteries I had to use. Did I mention I wasted four batteries on this piece of junk?
Sound
The sound is the most redeeming part of this CD player. It is amazingly crisp, even up to the end of the batteries' lives. The headphones that are included definitely help but the sound is amazing on this unit.
There are four settings for sound modification: DBSS; bass, SURR; virtual surround sound, DBSS+SURR; both together - an interesting sound, and normal. The DBSS does not mess up and songs and make them indistinguishable from noise. The SURR would be useful if I had a surround sound system and could take advantage of the interesting effects.
Extras
The headphones are included, but no car kit comes with the unit! That was annoying, but my Aiwa came with one so I used that for the three days that I owned this product for.
However, it came with software that didn't work with my system. It was a good attempt, badly executed. Looking at it now, I don't think the "MusicMatch" software that put my system into permanent Safe Mode would have done much more than WinAMP.
Durability
Terrible. Terrible! It would have broken had I lost my temper and dropped it the short foot and a half to the ground. (My Aiwa could survive a four-foot drop...weakling) An all-plastic casing is something I expect nowadays from our plastic-run society, but this was so flimsy I thought the top would break off. The top is shoddily attached and badly designed. It was also very easily popped open. If you go running, walking, or any sort of moving, put a rubber band around it. RCA really should leave engineering to engineers!
The buttons were also very hard to depress, I thought I would break the top (ranted out above). I had to press it either
A. Very hard at the slightest angle, or
B. Directly perpendicular to the button.
Oh well.
Ease of Use
Rather easy to use, I'll give it that. Programming was very easy to do and shuffle play (random) was easy as well. A nice graphic came up every time I started it and said that it was reading the disc: I guess so I wouldn't break the damn thing trying to start the disc!
Aesthetics
The player just looks cute, when looked at from above. However, you notice that the player is very tall and bulky, should you turn it on its side. The graphics are very pleasing. When you open the top, a graphic takes over the screen and tells you that it's open. If you press STOP to shut the machine off, ABORT!!! ABORT!!! ABORT!!! appears.
Finally! Done!
To sum it up, the RCA RP2410 is not that great of a player. If you need something that will sit there, day in day out, be plugged in, and not be breathed on, you should get this merely for the sound and looks. However, if you need a good all-around CD player, check out the eXpanium line by Philips. They have new players coming out all the time.
(RIP Aiwa XP-V70, 4 July 2001 - we hardly knew thee)
Since the screw had come loose and been lost, the player was virtually impossible to use in any sort of moving situation (car, exercise, San Francisco, etc.) So I decided to get a new CD player that, in addition to playing CDs and CD-Rs (maybe even RWs), I'd get one that could support MP3 files instead of normal audio files.
For you folks with lives, I'll give you a little insight into MP3s and the like.
With a normal CD-R I can store 650 MB of data, audio, whatever, onto it. Wave files are very large, so I can only store a little over an hour (about 74 minutes). However, MP3s are much smaller, and while smaller, they do not lose quality. So I can store about 10 hours of MP3s on a normal CD.
Whoo hoo, back to the review...
So I went out to Best Buy and checked out what they had in store. I saw many models from different companies, but the one that stuck out was the RCA RP2410. How I rue this day! One redeeming quality I saw about it was that I could use my MP3s and the name of the MP3 would appear in the window. This, at the time, was a big plus over the other models that only used two AA batteries.
It also came with some neat-looking headphones that wrapped around my head. Wow, I was getting a great deal! Wait, no. I brought it home and equipped it with four (yes, four) Duracell Ultra batteries. I burned an MP3 CD and off I was!
I returned it three days later and bought the eXpanium EXP103....I recommend THAT player...
Battery Life
The battery life is terrible. The player lasted about four hours on four AA batteries. This terrible battery life was complimented (complimented? maybe...) by the four batteries I had to use. Did I mention I wasted four batteries on this piece of junk?
Sound
The sound is the most redeeming part of this CD player. It is amazingly crisp, even up to the end of the batteries' lives. The headphones that are included definitely help but the sound is amazing on this unit.
There are four settings for sound modification: DBSS; bass, SURR; virtual surround sound, DBSS+SURR; both together - an interesting sound, and normal. The DBSS does not mess up and songs and make them indistinguishable from noise. The SURR would be useful if I had a surround sound system and could take advantage of the interesting effects.
Extras
The headphones are included, but no car kit comes with the unit! That was annoying, but my Aiwa came with one so I used that for the three days that I owned this product for.
However, it came with software that didn't work with my system. It was a good attempt, badly executed. Looking at it now, I don't think the "MusicMatch" software that put my system into permanent Safe Mode would have done much more than WinAMP.
Durability
Terrible. Terrible! It would have broken had I lost my temper and dropped it the short foot and a half to the ground. (My Aiwa could survive a four-foot drop...weakling) An all-plastic casing is something I expect nowadays from our plastic-run society, but this was so flimsy I thought the top would break off. The top is shoddily attached and badly designed. It was also very easily popped open. If you go running, walking, or any sort of moving, put a rubber band around it. RCA really should leave engineering to engineers!
The buttons were also very hard to depress, I thought I would break the top (ranted out above). I had to press it either
A. Very hard at the slightest angle, or
B. Directly perpendicular to the button.
Oh well.
Ease of Use
Rather easy to use, I'll give it that. Programming was very easy to do and shuffle play (random) was easy as well. A nice graphic came up every time I started it and said that it was reading the disc: I guess so I wouldn't break the damn thing trying to start the disc!
Aesthetics
The player just looks cute, when looked at from above. However, you notice that the player is very tall and bulky, should you turn it on its side. The graphics are very pleasing. When you open the top, a graphic takes over the screen and tells you that it's open. If you press STOP to shut the machine off, ABORT!!! ABORT!!! ABORT!!! appears.
Finally! Done!
To sum it up, the RCA RP2410 is not that great of a player. If you need something that will sit there, day in day out, be plugged in, and not be breathed on, you should get this merely for the sound and looks. However, if you need a good all-around CD player, check out the eXpanium line by Philips. They have new players coming out all the time.
