Music on the move, first there was the cassette player, next the CD player, nowadays the MP3/WMA player seems to rule the roost. Here an ultra small CD player that can also play MP3/WMA etc, its called the NAPA Ultra Slim DAV-397.
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The unit is tiny and only a little bigger than the CDs it plays. It is 13.5x13.5x1.5cm and weights less than 300grams. The remote is corded and fits at the end of a .75metre lead, this has a three line 3.5x1cm display. There are a total of eight buttons and a read of the getting started sheet should enable you to master what they do. The unit itself has another nine buttons around the circumference and apart for the corded remote connector also has inputs for the DC adapter and line out socket to enable you to play through speakers.
Earpieces are provided and for ease of use they connect to the top end of the remote that has a clip for shirt or jacket attachment. Various anti shock figures are given dependant on what you are playing, CD is 160seconds, MP3 480seconds and WMA 960seconds. My idea of vigorous exercise while using the unit is rapid walking when late for a train. Playing CDs I found no problem in this mode and as that is the most sensitive you would probably be okay in the other modes. My tests in these modes were less dramatic but still involved movements of the unit without any skipping.
It is supplied with two Ni-MH rechargeable batteries. Stated life between charges vary between 6 and 10 hours dependant on what you are playing, with CDs being the least, and WMA the most with MP3 in the middle.
Unlike some early units of this type of machine you can store your tracks in different directories and indeed the CDs can be mixed format and both CD-R and CD-RW are accepted. It happily played a mixture of tracks of various types.
The graphic equalizer has settings for Normal, DBB, Rock, Classic, Pop, Jazz and Disco. However to really appreciate the different setting play back though a set of reasonable speakers and hear, really hear, the difference sounds. During my tests I used a set of Porsche speakers (review shortly) that had an excellent sub woofer.
There is a fabric case (bag) provided and a large pocket should take the unit however I suspect the more active would have preferred a clip to fit onto a belt. While I am on my gripes I would have preferred a paper manual but few manufacturers provide one today, the getting started sheet covers most points and anything else can be found on the provided CD in the ubiquitous PDF format.
Once you have copied some tracks to a CD you will notice that it supports ID3 tagging so any track/artist info should be displayed during playback together with time remaining number of tracks and various other info. The display is quite small but still clear in reasonable light.
A lot of people me included have small and light MP3 players but should you need to play a CD rather than rip to MP3 first you are in trouble. Should you play mainly CDs then this sort of solution is ideal. I have got close to 20 hours of MP3 files onto a single CD and of course it is nearly double this figure for WMA files. This unit costs £67.99 from The Upgrade Store link below.
http://www.theupgradestore.co.uk/digital/product_page.asp?id=MP3 >Select Item Six
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