My Musical Mate (Sony Atrac CD/MP3 Walkman 64 MB)

Member Name: GuruOnAMountain

Product:	Sony Atrac CD/MP3 Walkman 64 MB
Date:	19/09/04 (559 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Long Battery Life and rechargeable, ATRAC system lets you store up to 30 CDs on one CD recordable., Stylish.

Disadvantages: Rather difficult to operate., Larger than an MP3 player.

I've always liked the idea of music on the go. When I was just an ickle anklebiter, I confiscated my dear old dad's Walkman and claimed it as my own, and then when I was about 12 I got my first portable CD player.

However, I learned soon enough how much battery power my new portable CD player needed. I was often lucky to have listened to one CD the whole way through before my CD player gave out on me and I had to insert a fresh pair of batteries before it would do anything else. Of course, this proved to be quite an expensive habit, and before long I just gave up using it and it lay gathering dust in my bedroom.

At Uni, though, I often wished I had something to listen to as I spent long hours in the library, and I started looking into portable CD players with rechargeable batteries.

My eye fell on this particular CD player, although it was slightly more expensive than I'd hoped to pay. I think it cost me (or rather my parents!) about £120, although it was available on Amazon for just under £100 at the time.

I'd been toying with buying an MP3 player, but decided on a CD player, so I could just grab my favourite CD and not have to worry about downloading tracks to my music player, but it appears I got the best of both worlds with this system.

This CD player comes with ATRAC software which allows you to copy CDs onto your computer and then put them onto a recordable CD. The software compresses the files (it can also compress MP3s) and can allow you to store up to 30 CDs onto one recordable CD. I think I've only ever managed to squeeze about 23 CDs onto a single recordable disc, though, personally. This has proved invaluable.

I was away on a 3 week long archaeological excavation and due to this fabulous technology, I didn't have to worry about carry loads of CDs with me as I had a large portion of my CD collection sqeezed onto only 4 discs!

The CD player comes with a cradle that you can plug into the mains to recharge your CD player, but it also comes with an extra attachment that stores a battery and that you can carry with you and use in an emergency if your CD player runs out of power. Very clever! The battery life is amazing! I recharged this CD player before going away that excavation, and it just ran out of battery on the way home from the trip at the end of 3 weeks. It wasn't getting used constantly, but it was still getting used for maybe a few hours a day, so that's pretty impressive.

The cradle itself isn't too unwieldy, although I would rather you just needed to use an adaptor to charge it.

The headphones that come with this model are about the only gripe I have. They have a small display and control panel attached to them so you can change tracks, vary volume etc. even if your actual CD player is in your bag. This is useful, but it is attached to the left hand side of your headphones, and the wire on the left hand side leading to your ear is much shorter than on the right. I feel because of this short wire and the extra weight of the control panel, the left earpierce of my headphones keeps getting pulled out my ear, which is ever so slightly annoying.

Obviously, it being a CD player, it is a lot bulkier than an MP3 player, but comes in at a fairer price and I feel is probably more versatile on the long run. It also comes in a nice little grey carry pouch which is excellent and the machine itself is quite stylish.

However, it is a devil of a thing to operate. Admittedly, I'm one of these people who refuses to read instruction booklets, so I've probably only got myself to blame, but this thing certainly takes a bit more getting used to than an ordinary CD player, and I'm probably still totally oblivious of half the things this little machine is capable of.

Nevertheless, I would recommend this to anyone looking for music on the move. It is a bit pricey, admittedly, but I think it is probably one of the best portable CD players on the market. Sony has never let me down in the past, and they certainly didn't let me down this time!

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