Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic SL-CT800 Ultra Thin Portable CD Player

The SL-CT800 is an amazing CD player. Not only is it thin and attractive, but it also has an amzong battery life: up to 120 hrs (unheard of typically for MP3 CD Players). It works very well. The only problem I've had with it is that, unlike iRiver's SlimX 400, the LCD doesn't show international characters (i.e., letters from other languages, like the French "é" or the Spanish "ñ", or Russian Cyrillic, etc.). That's not a major problem though, and does not lessen the overall prestige of this amazing device. A definite A+++!

A couple months ago I bought an iRiver CD/MP3 player but it broke after a couple days, and the second unit I got exchanged for also broke, after less then a week. I did some research on the web and found out iRiver's quality is very poor. So I returned it and bought the SL-CT800 for about twenty bucks less. This is my first Panasonic portable CD player, and I'm greatly pleased.

Not only is the Panasonic much better quality than the iRiver -- it feels solid and gives you a sense of confidence -- it's also quieter and slimmer. The remote control is great, and the illuminated keys on the side of the player are fun and actually give you indications of various things. The player also shows ID3 tags for MP3 files (but not for WMA files). I read English only so I don't know if it shows international characters or not. For my purposes, it plays MP3 and WMA files with total cool so this is excellente, period. Of course, it's also a great CD player, in case you were wondering, heehee.

The player itself takes 2 special Ni-Cd batteries and you charge by plugging in the included AC adapter (which is also cool). It also comes with a case that holds 2 AA batteries and you can attach the case to the adapter port. Panasonic claims "up to 120 hours" total on the combination of Ni-Cd and alkaline batteries. For my purposes, the Ni-Cd gives more than enough juice to last through a whole day of listening. My friend who has another Panasonic says their CD players are power stingy, so I feel good about the whole thing.

If you are thinking a Sony, it's good, too, and they give you a case, but buck for buck Sony's have less features than Panasonic. The SL-CT800 should service me for a long long time.

I bought this as a gift. Very attractive design. Only 14 mm thin and light weight. The top lid is alumium which is cool. Sound performance is good through the earphone provided. MP3 and WMA files capable made it better than same level Sony CD player (D-EJ985). Long lasting rechargeable batteries gave 26 hours play time. Cool flashing button made it readable even in dark night.

The only thing it missed is a pouch which Sony provided on its high end CD-player.

Everything was working great initially.
But two weeks later, the CD player is dead!
I tried it for a long while and finally decided that the rechargeable battery went bad since CD player still works on AC!
Why the battery died so fast? I remembered that we put it on charger for a whole night a few days ago! And this baby is so vulnerable to a very common human habit. Look! lots of people put cellphone on AC charger overnight and that doesn't kill their cellphones.

And the manual does say "battery may go flat if AC adaptor is kept on after battery is finished charging" and the battery is only in warranty for 10 DAYS!
And I searched lots of places even on www.panasonic.com, can't find any replacement of this new and special Ni-Mh type(Why not Ni-Cd?) battery.

It basically useless without its rechargeable battery.
Really disappointed!

I've owned and used this for several months. I am happy overall but here is a list of things that bother me:

1) The romote control does light up which is good, but stays lit for only 7 seconds after you push a button. It takes MUCH MUCH longer than that for song titles to disply fully. Pushing a button to keep the light illuminted for another 7 seconds doesn't really help cuz it'll stop displaying the title and will display the info for whatever button you pressed instead.

2) The wire from the remote to the player is too short in my opinion (2 feet). It doesn't reach properly from the player inside your backpack or briefcase to your chest area where you'll probably want the remote clipped to. I also will sometimes keep the player under my car seat attached to my car stereo, and there too the wire is just a little too short.

3) The remote knob and buttons suck. They are too small and seem to play games with you. The diplay is too small as well. The entire remote and display should be much bigger! I would prefer to see the entire album title, artist name, and song title at the same time rather than small portions of only one of the above. Also, the display scratches too easily! And there is no pause button on the remote either. All very annoying.

4) The headphones that it came with have a good sound quality but they are a pain to use. One wire for one ear is much shorter than the other. One ear is always being tugged and you can't get comfortable.

5) The player does not always play MP3s in numerical or alphabetical order. If the tunes were converted to MP3 directly from a regular audio CD album, it seems to play in order. However, for people who often organize MP3 songs themselves individually on their home computer, most tracks will not play in order despite how you name them. Some tracks won't play at all! There is a small mention about this in the instruction manual. But really, this problem should not exist at all!

6) YOU CANNOT FORWARD OR REWIND WITHIN AN MP3 TRACK! You can only skip ahead to the next track or back to the previous track when listening to MP3s. This won't bother people too much who listen to 2-minute tracks, but for many people like me who listen to long tracks, this is really annoying!

7) The battery level indicator is not accurate. With my unit, it goes from full to 3/4 rather soon, but it can stay on empty (flashing danger) for another 12 hours.

8) I am sure I can think of more annoying things, but these are the big ones. However, like I said, overall the player itself is very good.