Tamashi Takes the Travelling Test! (Tamashi personal CD player)

Member Name: Blurbubble

Product:	Tamashi personal CD player
Date:	23/04/04 (618 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good price, does what it should do, looks good.

Disadvantages: Not suitable if likely to be jogged about too much

I have to submit! There comes a time when we all have to bow to technological advances and upgrade, don?t we? OK, well it was nothing major really. On the (now rare) occasions I make a journey of any length alone, on public transport, I like to have some musical accompaniment with me and up until very recently that has been the trusty personal stereo ? cassette version ? of budget/mid-range level. As it happens these days, like many people, my music collection is largely now on CD or at least that which I currently feel like listening to and instead of going through the process of taping a CD to play n my personal stereo I thought it was time to splash out on a new personal stereo ? CD version ? so I could skip the taping step and have what I wanted to listen to immediately to hand if I was in a hurry or undecided.

Well, that?s how I came to be trawling the internet ?window shopping? again for the best buys and to save me doing the offline version which isn?t easy for me due to mobility problems and limited funds. I ended up back on my trusty friend of a website ? Ebay of course! After a short search I found a handful of personal CD players listed that met my requirements. I didn?t need anything too high tech, would only use it on rare occasions so it didn?t need to be an indestructible, durable type, was within my financial budget (under £15, even better if under £10!) and, with any luck, had a bit of colour to it as I get so fed up with these black/silver options. I spotted the perfect one! Altogether I bid on three or four different ones but the Tamashi CD player really fitted my requirements and I hoped I would have the successful bid for that one in particular. A couple of days later I found out I was the lucky high bidder and duly paid for it and waited for it to arrive.

My new little musical friend arrived a few days later and was just as I expected. I had been a little dubious of the fact that I had never heard of the ?Tamashi? brand but th
is is apparently the own brand name for electrical goods from the Index Catalogue Shop so I was somewhat reassured that it wasn?t a totally anonymous brand (although not renowned for quality I know!) Then again, I as buying a budget model so my expectations were reasonable. In Index this generally sells for £14-£15 so I made a small but welcome saving on Ebay.

I had ended up paying just over £11 including delivery for this little gadget and so I examined my new toy and wasted no time in testing it (at home, briefly!). It looks very nice ? just marginally larger than a CD, modern with a clear blue casing (also available in purple), clearly labelled push button controls, LED track indicator, Dolby noise reduction option and programmable option. It includes standard in-ear headphones and can be powered by batteries (2 x 1.5v AA) or connected to the mains if required. It has all the usual functions expected of a CD player ? play, pause, stop, skip forward, skip back and volume control. As I mentioned it is also programmable so you can play tracks in your chosen order, repeat a track/whole CD until you choose to stop it or use the random track option if you like a bit of a variety! This is easily done by the use of the ?mode? and ?prog? buttons and even a techno-bimbo like me can work it out!

That basically sums up the operational facts ? luckily portable CD players are pretty simple items not requiring software or more buttons than you can count! You just shove in your chosen CD and play ? that?s what I like! Oh, just a note, make sure you click your CD securely into place or it won?t register/play it. I wasn?t used to doing so as with stereo CD players and computer CD drives you tend to just place or slip the CD in so it took me a couple of goes to suss that out (yes, really!)

Yeah, yeah ? but what about the sound quality? Surprisingly good! Loud, clear and with a pretty thumpy bass so people who hate a thumpy bass may not be so pleased but t
hen again I suppose that?s largely dependent on what type of music you?re listening to. My first few plays included Eminem, Blur and Marilyn Manson so any heaviness/bass was emphasised as you can imagine. The dial volume control is quite sensitive so it only takes a small adjustment to boost or lower the volume and it can go quite loud so bear in mind your eardrums when using this! I also decided to give it the ?jog/jump/skip? test (although none of those really apply to my activities!) bearing in mind that this player is designed to be used on the move. The result was pretty good but I don?t think it would be adequate for a jogger/athlete. I shook it gently, turned it upside down and gave it a gentle, small drop on to a chair and none of those caused any interruption in play. A sharp horizontal jerk caused no problem but the same vertically caused a slight skip. I think this would be fine for those of you, like me, who would be listening to this seated/still while travelling or walking gently but for more active use it would probably not be adequate.

Luckily, being a relatively simple gadget, there is very little that can go wrong or few problems that can arise. Any that do are most likely not directly to do with the layer itself but will be down to a dirty or damaged CD, low batteries or maybe dust on the lens ? all easily remedied.

This CD player comes with the expected instruction leaflet ? just a few pages as there is not much that needs to be explained really unless you have never used a portable electrical gadget in your life which I?m guessing is very unusual these days! In fact, I only read it for the first time today before writing this just to check I hadn?t missed anything (and I hadn?t)

There, that about sums up this little companion. If your requirements match mine and this appeals to you then check out Index or Ebay ? I don?t think you?ll be disappointed by it.

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