Price Paid:  $39.00 from Ubid.com

Summary:
Great budget machine. Plays Factory CD's & burned CD's & MP3's. I agree with most that the output is very low even at full volume. I usually have it hooked up to my home receiver, so it's not much of a problem. No problems with it skipping even when purposely shaking it up, since it plays from a memory buffer. Love the convenience of nonstop random music of my choosing that lasts 10 hours!

Strengths:
Plays 10 hours, shuffle play, cheap, comes with car & home adaptors.

Weaknesses:
Sometimes takes 2 or 3 tries to read a disc.

Similar Products Used:
First CD/MP3 player

Price Paid:  $95.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
I couldn't resist purchasing the Expanium at such a low price, just $95 at my local Best Buy. However, I was immediately dissatisfied with the electronic shock protection. The player cannot withstand any kind of movement, especially during MP3 playback. Furthermore, the sound quality was not nearly what I had hoped for. I can only thank Best Buy for an outstanding 2 year warranty (for which I paid an extra $10) because I am prepared to return this soon and use the money towards a MP3 player. The Expanium doesn't come close to matching digital audio quality or the easy personal use found in a MP3 player. It did not meet my expectations!

Strengths:
Good price, able to fit 150+ songs

Weaknesses:
Poor electronic shock protection, takes too long to read CD and to switch to next track, decent sound quality

Price Paid:  $110.00 from WalMart

Summary:
I read over the other summarys and maybe I got gyped or somthing. Maybe it's just wal mart, but this is really a problem.

First thing I noticed was that it was kind of quiet. So I thought duh, turn it up. I tried, it was at max. Oh well. Maybe it was just the crappy headphones I got with it.

Then I put it in my pocket, and with ESP ON I started to walk. It chocked up. IT just displayed "oops" on the screen. I held it and looked at it, it took a good 5 seconds of being stationary to regain it's position and start playing. I wanted to smash it on the ground and say "oops"

When you put a CD in it says "reading" for WAY too long. It had a problem with trying to play songs other then track one. It would play 1 then 2 then 3, but if you skipped to 3 it would just blink, you could feel the moter spinning then slowing.. then spinning some more and it just goes back to the stop position. Tried with different batteries and many different CDs, still all same problems.

Overall, I might just be the one that got skrewed, might just be that walmart is terrible, I don't know. Luckily they have a good return policy so I'll be there getting a SONY thank you very much. If they're out I'll try another one of these--All these testimonials do kind of convince me otherwise..

Strengths:
Looks nice, has cool LOOKING features

Weaknesses:
Skips all the time, takes WAY WAY WAY too long to load, song skip does not work, shakes

Similar Products Used:
None

Price Paid:  $189.00

Summary:
Bought this before any CD/MP3 players had ID3 tag support, so I can't knock it down for not having ID3 tags. The unit is very durable and it hasn't skipped in the 6 months I've owned it unless the disc was severely scratched. It will work with multiple directories and sounds very clean though the headphone output is a bit under powered.

Strengths:
Simply will not skip, line out, bass boost, comes with a lot of extras like tape adapter and AC plug.

Weaknesses:
Ear buds are crap, but most headphones that come with players are. My main gripe is that the volume just can't go that high. Normally it's not a problem, but sometimes (depending on the track) it's too quiet.

Price Paid:  $145.00 from Best Buys

Summary:
With my new computer software allowing me to download Mp3 music to a CD; I was rushed into buying something, anything that could play MP3 on a CD. So, I went to Best Buys and came across this player. At first it looked like a dream, it could play CD-R, MP3, and even CD-RW which was a first, at least for me. Plus on top of that, it had a nice buffer of electronic skip protection(ESP). Another reason I bought it was because it came in a great package that included quality ear plugs, and a car kit.
It looked almost too good, but then the intial excitment wore off. At first I thought it was just the ear pieces or maybe just the cd. Any ways, I'll get right to the point, my player played extremely low. It didn't matter how high the volume was turned up. Maybe it is just my player; or I'm unexpectedly lossing my hearing. But it's just my review, so Be Warned. And Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So!

Strengths:
Excellent features; Plays all CDs flawlessly.

Weaknesses:
Warning; all those who enjoy to hear/listen to their music.

Similar Products Used:
None as of right now, that have all these capabilities.