I scrapped an older model of Sony Walkman in the hopes of finding a newer model with better anti-skip protection and a better design. I was very pleased to find this walkman in excellent (used) condition in a local CD store for $40.

I tried the G-protection feature in the store before I made the purchase. I borrowed a CD, hit play and shook the CD player and set it down on the counter to see if that would jar it. Not a bit!

Then, I tried a different Sony walkman that they were selling for $10 less. Shook it, and it started skipping right away. The D-FJ61 does NOT skip with the G protection turned on. I carry this CD player amongst a ton of junk in a carrying bag while it plays, and I have even dropped the bag... It never skipped.

The sound quality is excellent. It's good even with very cheap headphones. I cannot vouch for the headphones that come originally with this model of walkman, as the walkman was sold without them.

The volume is great (as long as you don't accidentally plug the headphones into the line-out plug -- a mistake that is easy to make with this model). I also like the "Sound" feature on this model of Walkman -- it allows you to set the bass at the lowest, medium or highest level.

The walkman also has the usual "play mode" button that allows you to set the CD to shuffle tracks or program the order of the tracks you want to play. It also has a "repeat" button that lets you listen to a track over again, if you like. Pretty standard... but still not bad.

Possibly the most useful feature this Walkman has is the "Hold" option. If you carry your walkman in your pocket or if you like to walk while you're listening to it, it's very easy to accidentally push one of the buttons and end up skipping the song you were listening to... etc. So, check the side of the player, near the "Line Out" connection and you'll see a little sliding button. It's really a feature I couldn't do without, but I think that it might contribute significantly to battery drain. Also, I can't count the number of times that I forgot to reset it and ended up hearing the the walkman start up whenever I put my bag down or bump it.

I suppose that you can also purchase a remote to use with the walkman if you wanted... There's a connection for a remote on the side.

Like I said, this player can drain batteries fairly quickly, but it only takes 2 double-A batteries (compared to the older model that I traded in, which took 4 double-A batteries). I use "Hold" so often that it might also be contributing to the battery drain.

The FM/AM radio is also nice, and is definitely a feature that many models don't have at all. I found that tuning the radio was annoying and time consuming, because you have to repeatly press the tuning buttons to get through FM band 93.50... 93.60... 93.70... etc. This is both a problem AND a feature, because you can more precisely tune in a station so that you can hear it better and better. I actually don't use the radio as much as I might if I found a way to have the walkman find me the next radio station rather than having to monotonously press buttons until I finally found something that WASN'T static. Also, the stations don't come in as clearly as I like when I do listen to the radio.

(UPDATE: I did some searching on this model, and found out that it DOES indeed have a scan feature for the radio and it works quite well in tuning radio stations in for you. Hold one of the tuning buttons down for a few seconds and then let go... The radio will automatically tune to the strongest signal. The radio sounds really great, actually, and has good reception. I think I'll be listening to the radio a bit more often!)

When you find a station that sounds good, you can make it a pre-set station so that you can get to it more quickly. The walkman also "remembers" what station you were at when you turned it off. It also remembers what track you were at AND what part of the song you were listening to when you turned it off last -- I've found this quite surprising and very nice, especially if I forgot to turn on "Hold" and have accidentally turned off the walkman.

The shape of this walkman is a bit of a problem. Since it's round, I tend to grab it and not get a good hold, and I'm dropping the walkman very often. I just try to keep it in my bag rather than carry it around, and that has worked fairly well to alleviate the problem.

Most importantly is that this walkman is DURABLE as all get-out. I've dropped this thing repeatedly... so hard that I was sure it was done-for. The worst that happened was that the LCD screen acted really, really funny and didn't show every part of the display. Then, I dropped the walkman yet again, and the LCD went back to normal! I'm sure this was complete dumb luck, but I was so pleased. No matter how many times I have dropped this player in the six months I have owned it, CDs still play just fine and the radio tuner hasn't broken... Just the LCD screen (temporarily). It was still quite usable, but just slightly annoying.

Overall, I highly recommend this product for it's durability, extra features, and superior G-Protection.