Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SL-SX281C Portable CD Player with Car Kit and 40-Second Anti-Skip

I purchased this cd player for use mainly in the car. I needed something durable yet sleek, easy one hand operation and inexpensive that won't skip. It has fit the bill on all points. The sound is exceptional although I haven't listened to it much with the headhphones. This has never even once skipped on me. I am a stay at home mom and purchasing this was an extra I didn't need but really wanted, I didn't want to waste my money on something I would not be happy with. I compared many portable cd players and read all the reviews. I took a chance on this one, which at the time was brand new with no reviews. I have been very pleased.

Well worth the... price. The player is very lightweight using two AA batteries which they claim can run up to 35 hours. The headphones are okay, but nothing exceptional. Using the cassette adapter and the car lighter adapter this works very well in the car and I have yet to hear a skip from the unit. It also reads audio CD-R disks just fine (not MP3 CD-R's). I have hooked the unit up to external speakers and the sound is excellent, although it defaults to its SBR "bass enhancement" which is a bit overdone when listened to on a system with reasonable bass response. I typically just listen to it with no tone enhancement at all (it has a "train" mode which I cannot find a reason to use!). It would be nice to have an AC adapter but I was able to use an old... adapter I had lying around which works fine.

The CD player works very well and has some nice features for the price like replay, random play, location memory, etc.

However, the car kit cassette insert for the cassette player in my car is of poor quality. It seems to work when it wants to and it doesn't want to very often.

I took a 5-hour car trip recently and was relying on the CD player to keep my kids entertained. I think it worked for a 45 minute stretch and after some frustrating attempts to get it to work, removed it and packed it away.

I would give the CD player 4 stars and the car kit 2 stars and the car kit is really why I bought this model.

A terrific product for automobile use. Sound is excellent and controls are simple. Don't upgrade to a new car stereo with CD player, buy this product instead. Enjoy.

I really like this CD player. I wish that it had a program mode though. But for it's low price I can't complain. It did not come with an AC adaptor, but it is very effecient with batteries. One pair of AA batteries lasts 20-30 hours. (I remember when portable CD players would use up 4 AA batteries in less than 8 hours.) I usually carry this CD player in my jacket while walking and it hardly ever skips. Great value.