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My friend is looking for a portable CD player that also plays MP3 CD's. He would like it to be as small and slim as possible with a price tag of under $170. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to post it.

So far we have found 2 that he likes.
TDK Mojo 860 CD-MP3 Player
iRiver SlimX Portable CD Player with MP3 support

Go with the iRiver. I've heard its one of the best.

-Scott

Has he considered the Sony NetMD line of MD players? They can hold 5 hrs of music in a pretty small package and record @ 32x. The only drawback is that you can only record a song to 3 different MD's at a time (Sony's rights management built in to the software ) and need to have access to your base computer to add music. But, for small size and excellent sound quality these things are awesome, but only if you can get past those significant drawbacks. I will say that a battery lasts a long time in one of these, and the media is a lot more rugged than a CD for camping and hiking and such. I just wish that they were popular enough for someone to hack the MD software and get rid of the limitations, otherwise it is my favorite portable bar none.

Oh yeah, the Sports model lists at $179, just above your limit but worth a look in my opinion.

I thought the most a Mini-Disc could hold was 80 mins worth of music. Maybe you can explain the new technology to me. However, he doesn't want a mini-disc player, but rather a CD/MP3 player. Myself on the otherhand, might want a mini-disc recorder in the future.

The Sony Minidisc players under about $300 or so actually perform a conversion process when transfering music to the player. According to CNET, this actually results in a reduction of audio quality. From what I have heard, the iRiver is great. Go with it.

-Scott

Most of the reviews on the iRiver have been very positive. He's pretty sure that he's going to get the iRiver CD/MP3 player. Just need to find the place with the lowest price.

Have you checked Pricewatch.com? Generally speaking they have the lowest prices on everything.

-Scott

BuddhaTB wrote:I thought the most a Mini-Disc could hold was 80 mins worth of music. Maybe you can explain the new technology to me. However, he doesn't want a mini-disc player, but rather a CD/MP3 player. Myself on the otherhand, might want a mini-disc recorder in the future.

MD LP - like LP on VCRs - records 4 times as much music on the same MD. of course that means at a somewhat lower sound quality.

sonyman wrote:The Sony Minidisc players under about $300 or so actually perform a conversion process when transfering music to the player. According to CNET, this actually results in a reduction of audio quality. From what I have heard, the iRiver is great. Go with it.

AFAIK, the ATRAC compression used by MD players results with better quality audio than MP3.
(i'm not sure however about the LP mode, if that is still better than mp3. of course dependes on what mp3 you're comparing - bitrate etc.)