The Bottom Line: This player has good portabililty, even better sound quality, and exceptional battery life. It's only downfall is the poor radio reception; but otherwise it's a good and durable CD player.

I am the type of person who is not, under any circumstance, an impulse buyer. When I decide to purchase an item, it generally takes me weeks to decide on which model or type of item I will be happy with. So, let us just make it clear that I went into this CD-player-purchasing-experience being pretty well-researched. And let me also make it clear that it was a hard choice for me (as most choices for me are) when I finally settled on this particular Sony CD Walkman with G-Shock Protection and an AM/FM radio.

The CD player is quite basic looking. It is however, circular shaped, just slightly larger than a CD itself, allowing for easy storage and space-saving. The buttons are cutely arranged with the radio presets being tiny circles under the display. The player runs on two AA batteries. While browsing through other reviews of this product, someone mentioned that it could not use rechargeable batteries, but they worked quite well in my CD player. The battery life provided by those two AA's is one of the player's best features. I have owned my player for 7 months and changed the batteries only twice. Granted, I don't use mine everyday, but this still beats my older players which seemed to have battery addiction problems in comparison to this one. Another good battery feature is that on the display, there is a small meter that shows you approximately how much battery power is left. Also, about a half-an-hour before the batteries will die, a "low battery" message will flash on the screen.

The first thing that sets this player apart from others that I have had was the presence of a radio. A radio on a Portable CD player?? It seemed ingenious to me at the time. That way, once I got tired of my CDs, I could easily switch over to the radio stations for a change. This seemed like the perfect adaptation for my aforementioned indecisiveness. However, the radio's reception is quite sub-par. Forget listening to it in the car unless your local radio station has an extremely strong signal. The radio music constantly fades in and out when I listen to it. The instruction manual to this player explains that the radio's receiver, or antenna, is actually the headphone cord that connects the headphones to the CD player. Therefore, by straightening or moving around this cord, it is possible to get better reception. Just like a TV antenna, you have to fiddle with the cord and player to get them in sync and in the right spot to receive signals. This process often looks goofy as I am constantly repositioning the player and tugging on the cord in every possible direction. The radio has proven useful a few times for me, but usually it was a last resort when I didn't have any CDs.

On the other hand, the sound quality of the CD player is very good. The music comes in clearly and the vocals are always sharp, even on my copied/burned CDs. One feature I particularly enjoy is bass capacity. You have the option of listening to music with no bass, level one bass, or level two bass. So depending on your musical preferences, the bass option may be good for you. Most rap, rock, and popular music sound very nice with the added bass this player can provide.

The G-Shock Protection is also a very well-used accessory for myself. It can be turned on by a little switch that is exposed when the player is open. It works fantastically at preventing interruptions in your music due to everyday turbulence. I don't ever recall my player skipping or pausing at all, even while driving over train tracks or Indiana's multitudinous potholes. Besides for the tracks and potholes, my CD player has also had to endure lots of falls and plunges in its seven years of existence. This is the perfect player for the accident-prone, whose player might take a little more of a beating. I have dropped mine a good 42 times, and the only evidence of it is a tiny scratch from that one time I dropped it on brick. But regardless of its slight facial blemish, the player still plays like it did the first time I used it.

Despite the problems with the radio, this is a great CD player for under a hundred bucks. It is very durable, has great battery life, a small design, and it easy to use. I would recommend it for nearly everyone, with the exception being people who wish to have crystal clear radio reception. For that, prepare to spend loads more money or dig out the old AM/FM Walkman. Let me know if you enjoy your Sony player too!