Sony D-CJ01 Silver MP3 CD Walkman

There is one unit which is better on features, sexiness and price - the iRiver Slim-X. However the name SONY is what you pay for in terms of perceived reliability and the thought that goes into the product. And I think you do get exactly what you pay for with the D-CJ01.

The player itself does exactly what it says on the tin. Sound quality is good and the output levels are a far cry from weedy tape walkmans and minidiscs - serious punch is available. The G-Protection is pretty good, I've not had it skip yet - and I do bounce around.

The CJ01 has the same stylish backlit remote as the top of the range Sony Minidiscs, which is nice - but because it is a generic remote, some of the function assignments are slightly cryptic - be prepared to scratch your head initially if you can't be bothered to read the manual.

The battery claims are largely fictional, however you can easily get 10 hours of playback from AA Ni-Mh batteries (tip: buy the Uniross Ni-Mh 1500mah batteries, not higher mah or lower).

What else can I say? It looks pretty good, it's solidly made, controls are well laid out, the ID3 Tag read works without issues, and the folder navigation facility is excellent - you simply burn albums in their own folders, and you can skip from album to album.

The only issue, and this is one that is common to all CD MP3 players, is the gap when moving between tracks. It's there on the CJ01 too.

Um, that's pretty much all the bugbears this machine has. That's the surprising thing - for what you pay, including the premium you pay for the Sony name, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Are you considering getting a NetMD Minidisc to listen to your MP3's instead of this? In addition to owning the D-CJ01 and the SlimX (which I'm selling) I'm a Minidisc buff and have two NetMD minidisc units. I've tried transferring MP3's on the NetMD units (MZ-N1 (Japanese-spec), MZ-N707 (UK-spec)) and it is a NIGHTMARE. If you work solely with MP3's, don't get a NetMD, get this - you won't regret it!

Good Points (in no particular order)

Battery life is very good - I suspect the twenty four hour claim is about right for Duracell's - not for rechargables. It does not feel like you are burning money with every use.

Sound quality is very good - all the volume you will ever need and good quality. The three base settings really work. You will probably want to upgrade the supplied earphones however.

Build quality is exellent. The unit feels very solid (despite the use of see through plastic). Mine has survived two drops of about a foot on to concrete without a problem. The size is just small enough to fit into trouser pockets - which is a great improvement over my previous unit.

Navigation and display are good but could be better. Previous reviewers have pointed out the lack of a search facility within an MP3. I was worried about this before buying but found in practice it is not a big problem. The unit remembers exactly where you left and restarts from the same place - so audio books can be listened to easily provided you do not want to skip from book to book. In any case I rip from CD's which provide plenty of tracks to get back to. The folder skip is great for listening to music - providing you burn albums to seperate folders.

The remote works fine (it is a bit bulky) with a really solid clip for pocket attachment. The only missing facility is a start button - need to do this from the main unit.

I have had no problem at all with playing MP3's on cheap generic CDR's.

Some minor downsides.

It does take a while to read track info on a newly inserted CD (about 40 sec for about one hundred tracks) - but remembers the info when subsequently switched on and off.

There is a delay of about 4 secs between tracks - this is slightly annoying when playing MP3 books from CD but no problem for music.

Overall I would say if you can afford the premium for Sony brand and quality buy this unit. You get what you pay for.

I had considered buying an apple ipod but noticed it didnt have a remote control on the headphones which is a must and other hard disk type mp3 players I had seen had been huge and heavy.

Therefore after a bit of diliberation I purchased this, here is a list of good and bad points

1. It is very light for its size
2. The remote is great
3. It takes normal batteries (by that I mean it uses AA - not chewing gum type hence you can always buy batteries where ever)
4. You can buy a cd in a shop and play straight away
5. The quality is very good (through good headphones recommend sony MDR-EX70LP for in ear and MDR-7506 if you dont mind looking less stylish)
6. Skip free completely with 2 different settings (and I have never had to use the second one as the first is fine unless your jogging)
7. Looks very cool
8. With MP3 format you have more music than you know what to do with (I can get all of my BT albums on one and still have room for a 60min live track - which I have to say I havent taken out for a couple of weeks)
9. Perfect volume range - the last network walkman I had couldnt go very loud so this is now great particularly if you travel on a tube or noisy train.
10. CD-R/CD-RW are very cheap and so are the re-recorders when compared to memory sticks etc...also an ideal way to keep a backup of your music collection without spending loads on a new harddisk.

and the bad points....

1. 24 hours of battery life with an MP3 format disk..I wish!..if you are a mouse and have it on the lowest volume available maybe!
2. You cannot search a track....not such a bad point I live with out it!
3. 2 second skip in between MP3 track....very very annoying if you have a mix cd as this can really be annoying! (you can get software that will merge mp3 for you to get round this)
4. You must use CD-DA to write to CD-R/CD-RW i.e it isnt compatible with Adaptec DirectCD format and must write a full data disk each time and hence you cant just add tracks additionally
5. Only supports ID3 tag version 1 - therefore if you are like me and most of your MP3 are version 2 you cannot read the info (hint you can get software that will convert these back for you - invaluable)
6. Headphones supplied are c**p...I really wish Sony would sort this out as they alway bundle c**p headphones with their products and they don't seem to sell quality short lead in ear headphones...WHY!?

I think you will agree with me that the good point far out way the bad and this is why I bought it.

I thoroughly recommend you buy this if you are looking for an MP3, Sony as always producing the goods!

(however worth noting that if you are willing to pay +2.5x then the 20GB Apple iPod would be worth a check)