Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SL-MP70 Portable CD/MP3 Player

This inexpensive portable CD player from Panasonic combines an excellent basic CD discman with MP3 capabilities. You can play regular CD's and CD-R or CD-RW discs burned with audio CD content (i.e., "CD-DA" Compact Disc Digital Audio format), just like any CD player. When playing CD's it has two anti-skip modes, one 10-second and the other 45-second. The single sheet of user's guide says the 10-second memory mode gives better sound quality. There are two EQ settings in addition to the plain "none" level: XBS and "Live". As you would expect, as a CD discman the SL-MP70 delights with its light weight and good looks.

But you can also play MP3 files burned onto CD-R or CD-RW discs. You can burn MP3 files to CD-R/RW discs in two ways: use a program like Windows Media Player or iTunes to convert MP3 back to CD-DA, and burn the disc as an audio CD. Then what you get is exactly a regular audio CD. Or, to save time and effort -- and remember that since MP3 is a lossy format, converting an MP3 file back to CD-DA does not improve the audio quality, i.e., "garbage in, garbage out" -- you can simply drag and drop the MP3 files to a CD-R or CD-RW disc and burn them. When viewed in Windows, the CD-R/RW looks like a regular folder with the MP3 files. Then you can play these files on the SL-MP70. The player recognizes the files gracefully. (The slightly more expensive SL-MP80 model can also play WMA files -- that's Windows Media Audio format, developed by Microsoft.)

Unlike another, cheaper Panasonic discman, this one can display MP3 tags, basically information embedded in each MP3 file that has the track name, album name, artist name, etc. The SL-MP70 displays the track name and album name if they are available. If you download music in the MP3 format, chances are the guy who ripped it already put in the tags, also known as "ID3." If not, you can use a program like Music Match to edit the tags yourself.

Note that, if you buy music Apple iTunes-style from sites like Walmart and Music Match, they only sell the music in the WMA format, not MP3, so you'd need the SL-MP80 player to play them.

Some other observations:

Good - the player remembers the last track or MP3 file you played, so when you turn it back on, it resumes from the point it left off. I don't think you can turn this off with this model.

Puzzling - you cannot fast search within an MP3 track, although you can do so within an audio CD track. This is not a problem unless you are like me and carry audio books encoded in MP3. These books tend to have chapters that last more than 15 minutes. Luckily for me, my commute is 1 hour each way, so I have no problem with this. Also, most music MP3 tracks are no more than 4 minutes, so this shouldn't be a major problem.

Good - Long battery life. I run this off 2 AA NiMH batteries (1800 mAh each) and I've run on the same set for over 20 hours of play and I still see three full bars on the battery indicator. And yes, the battery indicator has three bars and goes to none when the batteries are near exhaustion. This is really energy efficient, and is one thing that sets this apart from the cheaper/lesser-brand products from Classic, Samsung, Memorex, iriver, etc.

Could be better - more volume for those nearly hearing-impaired thanks to their 24x7 listening on earphones habit, easier to get to the last of 1000 MP3 files (as if you'd do that often), backlighting (but that'd surely raise the price), remote control (ditto). Really, for this price, I think we are already getting a lot of bang for the buck, and the build quality of Panasonic players is just top-notch. And no, I don't work for Panasonic or any of its agents or distributors, and nobody in my family or circle of friends does, either!

Tip - to get around the "press forward 99 times to get to the 100th song or 999 times to get to the 1000th song" problem, put a dozen songs in each folder. The Panasonic automatically designates each folder an album, and you can skip to the next album by holding down the fast-forward button.

In summary, the SL-MP70 is a stylish and very dependable CD/MP3 player. Highly recommended for those who don't need a separate MP3 player like iPod or RCA Lyra.

Panasonic has done it again with another great product. This MP3/CD player is a great one. It has a cool look to it and fits nice in my hands. It is also really light. The LCD is amazing, it is big and writes everything clearly. The MP3 playback is a great feature, you can catagorize your MP3's into different albums, and this player will play them all very well with no problem. You can search through your songs really easily. This player is really easy to use. I haven't tried it long enough to see whether it really plays 48 hours of music as its battery life, but if thats true, thats awesome.

Pros:
Cool Look
ID3 tag is clear
Easy to use
Battery life
MADE IN JAPAN

Cons:
cheap headphones come with it
can't search druing MP3 playback

Considering its price, this is a remarkably decent CD player. The screen is large and legible, and the sound quality, while not outstanding, is better than most similiarly priced CD players. That said, the MP70 isn't without its problems; the centre button array feels loose and slides around easily, the plastic feels cheap, and the included headphones are mediocre at best. For all that, though, the above strengths and the exceptional battery life and full support for Mp3 audio and CD-R/W discs make this a solid purchase.

*The first thing that I must mention is that the only difference between this player and the MP70 is the 80's ability to play WMA** files. If you don't need that functionality then get this player. The MP70 is about 10 bucks cheaper.

**The WMA file format is a format developed by microsoft to offer an even lower profile alternative to mp3s. Unless you really need the space on your cd you probably won't need to use WMA.

Now on to the actual review:
At first glance the player looks pretty attractive, although a tad bulky. When it was started, it took about 10 seconds to load the cd and start playing.
The audio quality was quite excellent especially if you like listening to music with a lot of bass, such as rap , r+b, alternative rock, etc; the EQ bass mode takes care of that.
The battery life does indeed live up to its claim. I still haven't listened to the cd player until the batteries have died, and I use the player quite a bit.
The only thing lacking with the player is the inadequate navigation system. To get to track 100, you have to click the skip button 99 times. Although this problem can be somewhat remedied by putting songs in specific albums, panasonic could definitely improve this aspect of the player. Then it truly would be the best.
Overall, the ML-70/80 are definitely the best bangs for the buck. Its affordable price, great functionality, and aesthetic design will provide countless hours of entertainment.

I have been through 4 portable CD players in the last month (I have a good excuse though) and I have to say that I have finally found a great little machine that delivers just about everything that I am looking for at a really great price.
My trusty Panasonic SL-SX270 died last month after 2 years of pretty heavy abuse. I replaced it with a Sony Psyc that died (with no abuse) after only 3 weeks. I then exchanged that for a Sony D-NE510 ATRAC3/MP3 CD Walkman and I was appalled by the poor sound quality. It was the worst I have heard on any portable unit. I decided to give the Panasonic SL-MP70 a try and I am glad that I did!
The sound quality is great for this price. I have not even upgraded the headphones yet (although I plan to do this) but I am already very pleased with the sound. The highs are bright and the bass is nice and deep. The sound is very full and there is good seperation. This unit delivers very crisp and clear sound and I have turned the volume all of the way up using the s-xbs bass preset and have not had ANY distortion. Part of the reason for this is that the headphone output is not as powerful as some other units floating around there ... so if you are a volume freak this might not be for you. However, at 8mw per channel output it has more power than its sleeker (and more expensive) counterpart the Panasonic CT700 which is only rated at only 6mw. Also, I really like to listen to stuff loud and while I know there are more powerful units out there I find this to be just the right maximum volume. Another reviewer commented on how quiet the MP3 playback is ... I did not find that to be the case at all ... it is the same as CD playback. It all depends on how loud the original MP3s are burned at. If you have quiet MP3s they are going to stay quiet on this unit.
This unit also has great battery life - supposedly 50 hours and that sounds about right. The ID3 tag support is great (although I wish that there were more than 10 characters displayed.)
OK here are the negatives ....
No back-lit display (would be nice if you could push a button and see what was playing if you are in the dark.)
Can't play WMA files (the SL-MP80 can and it is only about $... more and I think all of the other specs are the same. For me I don't like WMA so I didn't want it.)
No line-out (which would be nice if you wanted to hook it up to a portable amp to drive some really nice headphones and get a little bit more power.)
Can't play Variable Bit Rate MP3s (at least not to my knowledge and I don't think that it's that great of a loss.)
Can't fast forward through MP3s (that would have been a nice feature but you can't have everything.)
Even though I just listed a bunch of negatives I still say that (for me at least) they are all minor ones and the positives more than outweigh them. I seriously doubt that you are going to find a better sounding machine with the functionality of this unit in this price range. I am completely happy with mine (and very relieved at finding a nice unit after my bad experiences with the new Sony models in a similar price range.)
***UPDATE***
I need to add the following. I dropped this machine from about 3 feet and as another reviewer promised, buttons really did fly off. Luckily I was able to open up the unit and put everything back in place but this is really unacceptable. These are portable units after all and should be able to take SOME abuse. I lowered the my rating from 4 stars to only 3. This machine still sounds great but it is really a shame that they skimped on the build. I considered returning mine but I am still satisfied with the sound and features so I will keep it. I am just going to keep it in a case as much as possible.