Skip-free playback, shiny metal-clad housing, top-mounted controls

Supplied headphones, somewhat high price

I bought the SL-SW850 for $149.99 at Best Buy because I gave my previous CD portable--a Panasonic SL-S231C--to my brother who needed a CD player for his car. Mine has a louder headphone output than his non-"sports" player. It has never skipped on me, and they sound great--provided you have a set of cans that are relatively efficient (such as the Grado SR-60 or the Koss Porta/Sporta Pro). It also sounds good with some of the more efficient "studio monitors" (i.e., the Sony MDR-V6/V600). The headphones that come supplied with this model, however, are absolute dog-crap: They are very uncomfortable, difficult to fit properly, and completely lack any bass response at all! Also, $149.99 seems kind of expensive for a CD player you can use at the beach. Panasonic is discontinuing the SL-SW850 and replacing it with the similar SL-SW860 for the same price. Needless to say, if you must go to a Best Buy, pass up all the other portable CD players and buy the SL-SW850 (or SL-SW860). The quality is 5 stars, and the somewhat high price doesn't deduct more than 1 star for value.

Similar Products Used:

None (This is my first "sports" portable CD player.)

good sound; thin, compact size; metal shell; long playback

the crappy headphones that come with it

I recently got the sl-sw860 which is basically the 850 replacemant at Best Buy for $150. It replaced the Aiwa xp-sp90 that I had gotten a few days earlier which I didn't like, it was bulky, the lock was not very tight amoung other things. So, I spent an extra fifty and got the panasonic. It's a great all-around player, with good sound and a strong metal shell. The clips give me way more peace of mind than the lock on the aiwa did. This player is also smaller, small enough to easily fit in a pocket. The battery life is longer by ten hours, as well. Another thing that was lacking on the aiwa was track programming, which I like a lot. The panasonic has that. As I said above, its sound is good, but not as good as I had expected. I do think the aiwa had better sound, but I have yet to try the panasonic on really good headphones (although i did replace the headphones it came with. They suck! Seriously, if you expect to buy this player, expect to buy some new headphones as well, unless you have a good pair). In contrast, the aiwa had good headphones that were made to go with that player. That means that it is going to sound better with those phones than normal. The sound quality on the panasonic, however, is nothing to laugh at. Personally, I think the price tag is pretty steep, steeper than I have evr paid for a cd player. But you get what you pay for, definitely.
Oh, one final thing, the lcd display is small enough, then they clog a lot of the space with a running guy when the shock protection is working! bad idea.

Similar Products Used:

Aiwa xp-sp90