Full Review

I love the portable technology these days. MP3’s are popular, but CDs gain the big mainstream bucks and they are certainly my favorite media. The D-FJ401 is the second portable CD player that I’ve had. My other one was a D-E451 and it was old with no gravity protection (it skipped a lot) and used a lot of battery power and I’m glad to say that this is the successor.

Portable CD players are nice because you can listen to music on the go whether you are on a train, bus, in the car, or just plain walking or riding your bike. I highly recommend this for bike riders out there because it never skips, it’s really light and little, and it’s just easy to handle compared to the other players on the market.

What’s more is that it’s sort of liquid proof. I got the player on Christmas of 2002 and I have to admit that it’s been spit on, rained on (just a little bit), and spilled soda on and all you have to do is wipe the liquid away and it’s perfect. My player looks as new as it was when I bought it. Once I even dropped it down my 12 stairs and I was almost crying about it, but there wasn't a scratch, everything looked fine, and it's still working and I've dropped it acidentally three times. It just won't die!

Something I dislike about the new model but doesn’t hurt the rating because it’s just my preference is that it opens from the side. With my other CD player, it opened from the bottom and it was always better because I have a carrying case. This annoys me for two reasons, I’m not used to it, and why does it open from the side? Why can’t they keep the old fashion? I liked it.

A thing that is totally better about this CD player than the other ones on the market is that the batteries aren’t consumed fast. It takes about 8-10 hours for me to run low on batteries and that’s pretty sweet compared to the 4-6 hour-usual. This is good for people who waste a lot of money buying batteries, but I have rechargeable batteries.

There are two popular models, this one and the D-SJ301. I don’t like the D-SJ301 basically because of the colors of it, I don’t have any MP3s, and because of how you open it (it opens with a clicking latch, instead of the usual pop-top). They are both made by Sony, and to tell you the truth Sony is the only company I trust to buy electronics from. Not only do they have great warranties if anything happens to it, but the sound quality is always good in all their products.

That’s the thing that I just about their CD players: they have clear sound quality. No matter how bad the sound quality of the CD itself is, when it plays off of this player, it sounds superior to anything else. I don’t know how they do it, but all the sounds are clear and the volume turns up pretty loud. If I had it my way, I would wish for it to be louder (because I love my music really loud), but the volume that it’s set out is decent and very nice especially if you are on a bus full of loud kids, or you like your music loud like me.

Every now and then there are fuzzy sounds coming out of the player. I first thought it was the headphones, but I switched headphones and the problems still occurred. Maybe it’s just mine, but it gets pretty annoying. All you have to do when this happens is just open the slot that you put the CD in and close it again to diminish the problem, but it happens frequently.

The headphones, I have to tell you, are very bad and I advise you to pick up your own after you buy the player because not only are they uncomfortable, but they break really easily. A lot of these players come with different types of headphones like ear-stubs and swoop-neck ones, but I got the over-the-head phones. These cover your whole ear, but they are incredibly stiff and can really make your ears sore after long use no matter what music you are listening to or what volume level. The wires in the headphones are brittle and separate easily making them not at all good for traveling. When they do split or separate with one of the earphones, they’re worthless. If you do pick up other headphones, be sure to pick up good Sony’s or Koss.

Let’s go through the buttons, shall we? There are WB and TV buttons but I don’t know what they do and next to that are where you switch and/or turn on the radio and channels. To the right of those two mysterious buttons is a directional pad of orders that you can order the CD player to do. On the right side of the pad is skip forward/play and in the opposite direction is to go back a song and to the south and north are positive and negative “preset” buttons (and I don’t know what they do either, but it probably mixes up the songs). Close to the bottom is where you can tune your radio and then there’s a repeat/enter button and one the far, high right side is a memory button. The volume dial and “hold” button (which when put on makes it so that if you press a button, nothing happens so if it’s in your backpack and something hits it, it won’t turn on and waste precious battery power).

When you open the slot to put the CD in, you will notice that it’s quick and easy to put it in with no hassle but something that really bothers me is that when you put the batteries in that slot, under where the CD is, there’s a latch and you put the batteries in. This makes it sort of tough when you are on the go and you need to change batteries and you have a disc already in there (and you are a sensitive CD user like me).

One of the best things about this CD player is that there’s an AM/FM radio that’s built in. I don’t listen to much radio (since I have a zillion CDs to listen to), but a lot of people do and I have tested it and I have to say that the reception is superb even though there’s no rod sticking out of the player. You get a ton of channels and when you’re moving around, it doesn’t get as distorted as other players.

If you are easily annoyed by something that I am, maybe this player isn’t for you. It doesn’t bother me much anymore since I’m used to it, but when you press “stop” it pauses so that when you turn the player on again, it picks off where you left it. It’s a good thing and a bad thing. If I get a new CD and I have to stop it, it’s good just to pick it up and finish off where I was last. This may bother some because, as I said before, you might never get used to it if you had an older model of the player. To make the CD un-paused, you have to open the slot and then close it again.

Probably the best feature of this player is that there’s gravity protection/anti-skip. This is extremely good because I’m always listening to my player on the bus ride home and it’s a bumpy ride. With my other player, it would skip every bump and annoy the crap out of me, but with this feature of the player, it never skips at all so you can shake it up and down, run with it, jump around with it and nothing at all will happen. This is also a really good thing for gardeners because when I’m picking weeds, I put it in my pocket and listen to my music while I’m picking. This is perfect for any outdoor use except that I wish it had a hook-on so that you could hook it on to your belt or the top of your pocket, but if you buy a protective case for it (which is always a good thing if you want to keep it in top shape condition for years to come) make it a Case Logic because that’s what I have and it’s fantastic.

Well, that’s my review and I just have to squeeze in that it’s an awesome price for a terrific player. For 80 bucks, you get the player and the headphones. With the built in AM/FM radio, it’s a bang for your buck. If you buy one portable CD player, let it be this, because it will last a long time and it’s easily one of Sony’s best creations.

Jason

I’m not used to writing these kind of reviews, so give me feedback… ~ Me