Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SL-SX290 Portable CD Player

This product has realy good sound, great non skip technology, especially when driving in a car or truck over rough terrain or even while walking or jogging. I don't recommend the car kit cassette adaptor, so don't buy this with the car kit included. Use the SONY adaptor, much.........more reliable.

This is a basic portable CD player that features CD-R/RW playability, 35-hour playback on 2 AA batteries (even cheap ones!), 40-second anti-skip system (cannot be turned off, unlike previous basic models from Panasonic), and three-phase equalizer (normal, bass boost, "train"). Of course, you can program the playlist as well as disable accidental button presses. It can play MP3s that are burned into audio CDs on CD-R/RW discs, but not MP3 files directly. No big deal since it's real easy to burn audio CDs anyway. The lid color is blue, and many people think it looks cute, but not overly so.

Solid build quality, excellent sound quality (esp. on good headphones), long battery life, and ease of use make this the best basic CD player out there today. Made in Japan with a great price tag.

I was very impressed with this player at first. It was a bargain, and nice and lightweight. I was thrilled to find that even scratched CDs didn't skip and played well. However, I noticed after about two months (without having used it excessively), the CDs, even new ones, did not read as well as they had done at the start. 4 months later, it will play about 40 seconds of a song, and then the CD will just keep spinning with no sound, and no reading on the display save for the "Sorry" message. I was careful handling the product, and certainly didn't use it 24/7, so I can't understand why it doesn't function properly anymore. Now I have to search for another walkman!

I've had this CD player for over a year now, and it works OK, but I am pretty sick of a few of its unexpected "features", namely: (1) You have the volume on 3 while you listen to a CD. Then, you turn the player off. Then, you turn the player back on, but when it plays again, it plays at volume 13 for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, your ears get an unexpected blast. (2) You insert a new CD into the player and hit the play button. For no apparent reason, the player starts playing track #7 instead of track #1. (3) You play a CD with the bass-boost "off". Then, you turn the player off. Then, you turn the player back on again. You guessed it -- for no apparent reason, the bass-boost is now on.

I purchased this CD player for my daughter. Although the features are fine, I question the durability. She has had it for about a year and it constantly skips and/or does not recognize certain CDs. I plan to return it. I would recommend spending a little more for a quality unit.