Customer Reviews

Coby MPCD471 Portable MP3/CD Player with AM/FM Radio and USB Port

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

I should have paid more attention to the reviewers who said it WOULDN'T play computer-burned CDs, no matter what Coby claimed. I never got it to play one, even tried CDs burned on different computers. The CDs played just fine in my car, but never on this player. And even worse, after a total of no more than 30 hours using this player, most of that using the flash drive function, it no longer recognizes "store-bought" CDs. A complete waste of money!

I want to thank Martin for his review which avoided me having to figure out the play method of the unit on USB drives. The unit works well, has good volume and sound (at least by my ear). Since the tuning and voulume knobs are in the rear, you have to feel for them, but they work well and it isn't picky about geting a good signal. I was a little surprised at how small the unit is.

The USB port works well, but the display only tells you which track and how long you are into that track. At $30, I didn't have a right to expect too much, but was pleasantly surprised.

Edit as of May 2009:

This unit is in my wood shop so I admit the problem I'm now having may be related. The volume is not working properly. You choose a volume and later I can hear it go up slightly, then you can't turn it down regardless of moving the volume knob all the way down. I don't sand much (prefering other methods) so that isn't it and I've tried blowing out the knob with slight air pressure - that too was to no avil.

After a few hours, it will go silent meaning the volume knob is working again. Don't know if this is a problem with this player, or if it's just mine, but felt I should mention it.

This portable Coby CD/mp3/radio would be perfect for my toddler's room if it worked. It looks nice and the features were what I wanted, but the CD/mp3 player crapped out after only a couple weeks of moderate use. First it stopped recognizing homemade audio CD-Rs. All my other CD players have no problem. Then it stopped recognizing store-bought CDs, so I could only use mp3 disks. Now it has officially stopped recognizing those as well. I've tried and it just doesn't recognize any disk at all now. And I just got the thing 2 weeks ago. What a POS.

I bought this for my (81 year old) father who is a Bluegrass music fan. We opened the package and I connected a USB stick I had pre-loaded with around 150 songs. After some quick instruction, dad was an MP3 pro. The sound is clear and plenty loud. The controls are easy to use (the text near each button is pretty small but easy to operate once you get the hang of it). This is the second Coby MP3 player we have owned (the first was re-gifted to one of the grandkids on a whim). Works great, playback is clean, ultra compact and feature rich for the price.

I got this for a birthday present for my daughter. She had trouble from the start with it skipping. She tried if for a little longer and found that at first it played fine, but after a few minutes would begin to skip. She tried different CD's and same problem. I got it because the features are the right combination, CD player with MP3 capability and with a USB port too. Too bad it did not work.

We bought this as a Christmas present for our six year-old. The controls are simple, and with the USB feature and a cheap 2 GB flash drive, I can load loads of story CDs into it and change them when she gets bored for another batch.

The only issue I had was with the order that tracks play on the USB drive - after a lot of experimentation and frustration, it turns out that it plays them in the order they were copied onto the drive - simple once you know!

Fantastic little unit - and no problems with skipping CDs like the previous reviewer.

I purchase this item several months ago for use in my work space and so far its doing it's job. When I first got this product, however, I had a problem with it. The problem was that out of the box the CD player couldn't read any disc. The source of the problem was the stabilizing weight, located under the lid, was not swiveling freely causing the disc to skip or not read at all. My coworker ended up tiling the entire player slightly before it could read. After studying the problem for a few days, that's when I realized the weight problem. After working out the weight by rotating it several times in it's full range to smooth out any friction in the plastic, the reader began working normally. The problem comes back once in a great while, but just slightly moving the weight around a bit or opening and closing the lid solves the problem. The other feature such as the USB port works fine, in fact, it makes it easier to have a larger music library. Just load up a flash drive with your favorite music, plug it into the port and select. It doesn't support music tags and can't play all music formats but its better than having to play disc. The radio is decent, reception is o.k. but the antenna seems a bit short. The sound quality is fair, not much bass, but considering the size and cost that's to be expected. Overall a fair product. UPDATE 2/14/11 - The USB seemed to work fine at first, however, It started skipping oddly - repeating part way into the last song it played. From further trails it seems that if there are more than 100 songs it tends to do this, also using random select under the same condition (100+ songs). I've tried reloading my flash drive several times I even used a different flash drive - same result. If it is the files I have loaded or the player it's self I'm still unsure as not the same mp3 songs do this every time. My rating still stands. UPDATE 7/27/11 the CD player fails to play now it started having problems starting up but now it doesn't play at all it tries to read the disc but stops after half a minute. Less than a years life... 1 1/2 star rating now. Don't buy save your money.

I read the bad reviews, but I bought two of these hoping the people who had trouble with them were anomalous. They weren't!
Plus side: USB port = cool (and it works!)
Down side: CD player is tempermental. It worked the first could of times we used it, but after a couple hours it would take several tries before it would recognize there was a cd in it. It didn't seem to matter if it was cd-r or mp3. . . it would play one time with no trouble, then the next time would take several tries to work, then the next time would work fine. (Both machines we bought behaved the same way).
Bottom line: Don't make the same mistake I did. Trust me, you will be happier if you spend a little more and get a machine that works consistently.

Finally a portable radio that's designed for the 21st century. I wanted a small portable device for my mom that had an cd/mp3 player so she could listen to music uninterrupted. As an added bonus this has a USB port that will play your flash drives as well. Don't expect a lot of punch from the speakers after all what you pay for is exactly what you get, this is a great boom box for small rooms or just having some nice background music when company is over. I wish more company's would get on the cd/mp3 bandwagon. They all say, will play cd/cdr but if it doesn't say mp3, it won't play your cd/mp3's. Thank you Coby for stepping up and delivering.

While always wary when buying low-priced electronics, this player has proven to be worth more than its low price. While not for audiophiles, it has proven itself amazingly reliable. The audio quality is definitely better for spoken word recordings than music, as anyone should expect. All in all, it is a surprisingly good value.