For the last 10 years or so, I've owned exactly one portable CD player; an old, generic Sony Discman. Not because I didn't listen to music on the go or anything - it's because the thing has survived through thick and thicker. It survived a cross-country move, it's survived numerous vacations, survived a fall out of a mini-van onto a street, and even survived Mariah Carey CD's pre-skank-breakdown phase. This is despite the fact that it ate batteries like it was Shaquille O'Neal at Burger King before a Lakers game, and it skipped if someone farted in a nearby car. Either way, next time someone says that Sony products don't last, I'll be whacking them upside their dome with my old Discman.

Despite that successful relationship, I figured the time was right to update my disc player - it didn't hurt that I had a $50 gift card at Sears that was burning a hole in my pocket. So, after looking around at the selection of portable disc players at the store, I decided on this model, the D-EJ360 PSYC Walkman, naturally from Sony. After a month or so of use, this disc player has completely replaced my old model, and looks like it will have the same longetivity as that ancient Discman. It has a few quibbles that mess up how the player functions, but for the price, I really can't complain.

This Sony CD player comes with a couple nice extra features and advancements. First off, it comes with its own set of headphones, of the behind the head variety. It takes a second to adjust to them if you haven't used a pair before (it's similar to the Xbox Live headset, actually), but they're quite nice and deliver solid sound. Compared to my old, tinny earbud headphones, these are a major improvement.

Also, Sony's advanced skip protection makes its way here, and it's great. Coming from a player that skipped too often, like an oversensitive car alarm, the change is incredible. If I'm not driving and in a car, I can actually set the player on the floor, and drive over speed bumps and rough road (something that you can't escape from in Arizona, it seems) without skipping a beat - pun pretty much intended, and groans are obviously expected.

Sony also promises 40 hour battery life - and so far, it seems to be the case. I haven't changed the batteries yet, though I don't think I've used it for 40 hours. However, it's already outlasted the battery life of my older player, which got about 10-15 hours of play before digesting them and begging for more. I would rather see Sony up the ante by creating an internal battery that can be charged in a car or at home - though I guess we gotta keep Duracell and Energizer in business somehow.

The player itself has all the usual features for a CD player, with a couple new tricks. One thing that surprised me was the DVD-like feature of going right back to the place you left off when you stopped playback. It's a good idea actually, as it conserves battery power if you have to pause the player to go do something or talk to someone - instead, just press stop, and it will pick up where you left off. Nice.

There also is playback for CD-R and CD-RW discs, but this is a pretty standard feature now - but actually, my old player from the 1990's played back these as well. But it's nice that you can use custom CD's on here. However, it doesn't have MP3 or WMA playback - it's just a simple, basic CD player - and it does it exceptionally, as the playback itself is great and rich sounding, especially in combination with the included headphones. With the special effects like Mega Bass, it's just all around excellent sounding; no complaints here.

However, there's a couple things that I think could have been done better. First off, the buttons on the player are incredibly small, and hard to push. It could be because my fingers are pretty big, but I find myself struggling to skip around or change the volume, due to these microscopic buttons. Also, adjusting the volume is a chore, as it's done through button pressing instead of a dial - I'd prefer a dial to turn instead. These problems can be dealt with, but it's definitely worth mentioning if you're in the market for a player like this.

My all around favorite feature of the player is actually the weight. Or lack thereof. Simply, this thing is light. It almost literally weighs nothing at all - it actually surprised me when I first picked it up and almost threw it out of my hands because I expected something a bit heavier (because my old Discman weighed a ton). This only increases the portability, as you won't have something overly heavy to carry around with you. However, this does mean that it probably will break under too much pressure - so don't be dropping this out of a van onto a concrete road anytime soon, ya hear?

The Bottom Line

I'm really pleased with this player, despite the small complaint with the buttons. Not only does it play CD's perfectly and sound great, the included headphones are excellent and the light weight makes it extra portable. The great battery life helps as well. If it wasn't for the small buttons that hurt ease of use slightly, this would be an easy 5 star product. As is though, the Sony D-EJ360 CD player is an excellent disc player, especially for a low price as this. If you're looking to upgrade your portable CD player, this would be a great option.