Home > Consumer Reviews > Memorex MPD8081 Portable Mini-CD/CD-R/MP3 Pocket Player

I got this about a week ago. It worked very nicely for several days. And then, a couple of days ago, I turned it on and the display no longer worked. It worked again for a few hours, and then died again. It is kind of hard to use the device without the display, especially since you can only tell whether you are turning it ON or OFF by the using the display. Oh well, I guess I'll send it back. It sure seemed like a cool idea! I should have paid attention to all the other reviews that mentioned the faulty display, but no, I thought "I won't have a problem with mine."

Here's the problem with these "mini" CD players: they use a fullsize CD mechanism! No manufacturer has had the guts to build a dedicated mini-CD reader mechanism, so all the so-called mini-CD products just try to pack the guts of a full size CD reader into a smaller package. The result is something that's only 1-2 cm smaller (in linear dimension) than its full sized brethren. Not too compelling!

Having said that, the unit is not bad; it's just not small. There are occasional quirks in the audio between songs (as others have reported) and the unit seems slightly more prone to skipping than other CD players I've used. Continous jostling movement (e.g. jogging) will result in occasional skipping.

(Note: I recently downgraded my review as the display stopped working a few months after purchase. When it works, the unit is pretty good, but it's kind of hard to use with the display out!)

I must first make a personal admission. When I first looked at the advertisement for the Memorex MPD8081 MP3 player, I thought it was a full size MP3 player that played full size disks. My bad...I didn't read close enough. When the package arrived and I say that it was a "baby" CD/MP3 player, I first was disappointed.

Well returning it was a hassle so I thought I would give it a try. Man was I happy I did. While the portable mini-CD/CD-R/MP3 player is larger than a "chip memory" based MP3 player, it is quite a bit smaller even the smallest stardard CD players. Small enough to fit in my pants pocket.

The player came with three pocket (or mini) CD-R's. I quickly burned one with music I ripped from my personal CD collection using Microsoft Media Player. The burn went flawlessly. I put the little disk on my new player, but on the supplied headphones and listened. WOW, I love digital music. Sounds great. The bass-boost worked very well.

The LCD display showes a great deal of information. I must say that I am at a loss why it didn't pickup any information related the song playing except for the title. The title, BTW, was dirived from the file name. As I stated before, I ripped the music with Microsoft Media Player. I was connected to the internet so WMP found the information on each song. I don't know if it is the fault of the ripping or the MP3 player, but I can't see the album and artist info while playing the mini disks.

The main reason I bought the Memorex MPD8081 was to use it in my car. I have tried using portable CD players that said they had great skip protection, but it sure skipped in my car. The MP3 pocket player worked flawlessly! No skips and the music using a cassette adapter in my car stereo sounded great! Note: The bass boost feature is a little much when playing in a stereo system like one in your car or home.

I use a 192 Kbps rate when ripping my MP3 files. A little more than most people, but I am willing to give up smaller size for a bit better sound. Using this method, I can get around 29 songs on one 210 MB disk. Not bad! The memory capacity of a mini CD-R/CD-RW (210 MB) compares very well to your standard SD or MMC memory chip of 256 MB and at only a fraction of the cost.

The battery live with 2 AA batteries was remarkably good. I was suprised! Also, the battery "gas meter" worked very well compared to many other devices using this feature.

Bottom line:

Good points: Much smaller than a portable CD player. Great sound. Great battery life. Cheaper money outlay for additional memory. Mini CD-R/CD-RW's completely compatible with almost every burner ever made. Fantastic addition to your AM/FM/Cassette car stereo. Benefit-to-cost ratio very high.

Bad points: Larger than almost every "chip-based-memory" MP3 player. DOES NOT PLAY WMA FILES CREATED WITH MICROSOFT MEDIA PLAYER. (Sure wished it did.) Poor job at identifying the music being played. No built-in equalizer (although I hear a newer Memorex model does.)

All-in-all the Memorex MPD8081 portable mini-CD/CD-R/CD-RW pocket player is a great value. Try one.

Absolutley satisfied with my purchase of the Memorex MPD8081 Portable Mini-CD/CD-R/MP3 Pocket Player. The unit has a nice solid feel. Very easy to use. Can get about 50 - 60 tunes (avg) on one of those mini-cd's. Instructions are quite clear. Unfortunatley, beyond the little owners manual, the Memorex web site won't provide much more info. Don't think you'll need it though. Sound is very good. Headphones are nicely matched. What's my gripe about the unit? We'll...would it have killed them to include a belt clip on the unit so that you can wear it on shorts or pants that don't have pockets? Anyway, the unit is small and does fit easily into a pocket...Recommended? Most definately, yes!

This product should never gone into production with such a poor display component. It took it a couple of days, but the display eventually failed on me, just like it did for other people that've reviewed this player.
Aside from that, it's a pretty decent player for the money. Reads MP3's with all kinds of bit-rates and doesn't even complained about damaged files.
The interface could be a little simpler though. For example, to skip to next album, you have to press the "mode" button twice, then the "stop" button.
In the end, I redurned it and got a Philips EXP411 instead. Little more expansive, but definately worth it.