Customer Reviews

RCA RP2478 Portable CD/MP3 Player with SmarTrax (Silver and Black)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

All right... Its not Aladdin (REM: A Diamond in the rough) but it is a very competitive product with quite a few major glitches in the design area, mostly. Appearance wise, it is not the cutest thing to ever hit the streets (unless you are a fan of Rave/Techno/Hip Hop/Rap, in which case this is probably designed in the style that you enjoy ;) I am not complaining about appearance here though... The interface is very difficult to memorize, much to many buttons that are arranged seemingly out of sequence. And they all have the same shape, so you have no way whatsoever to figure out what you're pressing in the dark (or in your pocket, for that matter... I guess you'll get used to it in a few months but :( downer.... The menus are difficult to navigate, and RCA, as usual are no help either. I think monkeys write their manuals, I'm serious!!! A few comments on the specs, since NOBODY (not RCA, not Amazon), even have all the functions listed...

Very neat high rez (comparatively) LCD that is unfortunately too low contrast and maybe even a little bit too small to see properly. Not backlit...

Radio tuner (only FM) with 20-station memory. Relatively poor reception and unwieldy command interface (takes much too long to scan-- you have to hold "scan" for five seconds and release it within 3 seconds of that) :( but hey, it works and you're gonna listen to the radio only when you're out of batteries, right lol otherwise look in the Amazon portable radio section for much, MUCH better scanner radios.

The CD-MP3-player stands out even in its class (we're not even talking ultra-slim players here) as being at least 50% bigger and bulkier than the average. However weight-wise it is I would say quite a bit (25%) lighter than average, even when it is stocked with batteries and the other ones aren't... How do I know, you ask? I have 2 other CD-MP3 players that did not suit me and one that broke a while back sitting on my desk at this instant, and I can compare :) ...

Compatible bit rates info I couldn't find ANYWHERE prior to purchase, and believe me, I looked-they are important to me (I frequently listen to low-bit-rate audio-books)...

MP3: 32-320 kbps & VBR is fully supported, unlike almost any other model on the market, apparently-Great range!!!
WMA: 64-192 kbps = Downer!!! what about 48 kbps??? I'm upset lol I have to re-record like 6 CD's worth of audio-books
Supports CD-RW (who doesn't!!!)
Does NOT have Resume (downer) on standard recorded CD's :'( (******see section below*****)

A few comments on the software (MusicMatch and the so called SmartTrax system)

To enable the RP 2478 to perform many functions comparable to those of higher-end and HD players you have to burn the CD's using their "SmartTrax" 'FancyPants' ;) format . The provided CD contains MusicMatch JukeBox (boy, they really like those DoubleCapital words, don't they ;) ) which writes in this "format" (basically inserting a text-file in the root of the CD that describes different aspects of it for the player. Then features like browsing by genre, performer, year and extensive Playlist creation become possible... I don't appreciate this very much, since I already have licensed CD burning software (NERO--Highly recommend!!!) with which I am happy...However, resume is important to me for understandable reasons (see above) so... lol guess which program I'm going to have to install in a few moments :P ...

Question you may be thinking of at this point: why on earth do I give it 4 stars and not like 2 or 3? Because it sounds perfect, does not skip and loads the songs it plays in a very short period of time unlike other players of its class (think of the Panasonic SL-MP80 or even the disappointing Creative M-100)

While I still believe that RioVolt is the superior company, this is a more than adequate replacement for the SP-90 that actually sounds better and performs better in some areas. Once you get by the minor glitches and the Great-Chinese-Torture-Style design, you may find a winner in there somewhere...

I bought this cd player because I needed a player with a MP3 player and FM radio. When I got home and opened the package I was very pleased. The headphones were comfortable even though I had already bought my own headphones. The sound system was very nice and clear and the stations came in pretty well. But after having it only 2 days, the volume buttons on the side began sticking and I had to take the cd player apart and push them back out twice. I would push the volume button and it would go in and stay stuck. The sound would go out and you couldn't hear a single thing. I highly advise anyone who wants a good cd player not to buy this one.. go for SONY or PANASONIC.

I got this for an x-mas presentt I was really excited but when I went to turn it on it didnt work. Sometimes it takes up to 10 minutes for it to start playing a CD. Also once it starts playing then it will often skip and sometimes stop playing compleatly. However the radio works great but for 60 bucks you can get a lot better radio then this.

I received this cd player for Xmas, i was really excited about it. But when i played mi first mp3 cd, when i was listening the 7th song i heard many cracks all the entire song, i thought it was the song but when i skipped to the next track and returned the sound was fixed. I'm using the cd player for 2 months and i had to get used to skip the songs when listening to it. I think this is terrible!!! Any other user that has the same problem?

The reason i bought this one was because it was really affordable, and had all the features i wanted, like the radio, skip-protection, and it played mp3s! But soon after i bought it i found a pretty big problem. I would play like half into a song, then it would just STOP PLAYING COMPLETELY! I dont know why, but it would just stop playing in the middle of a song and freeze. Usually i could just skip ahead in the song and it would play again, but it was really aggravating when i couldn't get through a single song before it froze. I used to think it only did this when the batteries were low, but it recently started doing that even when i had new batteries.

On the upside, I really like the radio on it, it works very well. And mp3 Cds seem to play better than regular cds. So, its up to you. Overall, the cd player has some things wrong with it, but it is darn cheap for all of the features it offers.

My dad and I share this player alot and when i have used it which is a heck of a alot with mp3's and normal cd's i have found that this player is above average.

First off i have used the mp3 feature and the esp is awesome. it never skips a beat. the menu feature when you are using the mp3 feature is awesome. overall it is pretty good. the only thing that keeps me from giving it a full five stars is because, the screen is small and it is not backlit. overall it is a very good player and i think that you will be happy with your purchase.

This player is good for the first year or so, but after that the CDs and mp3's will not play. Ican no longer listen to cds, but the radio is awsome. If the player is too cold, it will not work at all. in the winter ihad to stick it in front of a heater to get it to turn on. I wouldjust get a regular Mp3 player for this price that i payed for this one($89.99).

this cd player is good if u want one for running but if u tap it it skip a lot and it has no backlight and one of my buttons stick. a person said it didn't skip at all and it was great. well ur lucky. I would not buy this cd player for the amount they sell it for.

When i first bought this player, i thought it was pretty good. I already knew it wasn't the best i'd had, but all my cd players break eventually...within a couple years or so. This one however, was by far the quickest one to break. The volume buttons were always a bit funky, they eventually started sticking, and the volume only went up to 30 anyway. Now 30 doesn't sound bad, considering most go up to 10 or 15, but on here, 30 can barely be heard. The radio volume was much louder for some reason, I wish the cd volume was so that i could have enjoyed this for the time it worked. Another thing is that the cds skipped A LOT! I've never seen a cd player that skipped worse than this. My cds are all in good condition and there were at least 10 skips in every song. I do have a couple cds that are old and scratched a bit, and they wouldn't play at all in this player!!! Eventually one day, about 3 months after i bought the player, the cd player quit working. I still have the player today, and the radio does still work, but if you put in a cd it doesn't read it at all. I know that all cd players have problems, and the one i bought to replace this one this winter is already starting to malfunction as well, but please do yourself a favor and do not buy this cd player.

Aight, this is the deal. I just bought this CD player today and its great, except for one thing...every time I try to play a CD, the songs keep crackin. It's not skipping, its just cracking, and ALOT! I tried playing different CDs too but its the same for all of them. I'm goin to try callin these people up in the morning and see what's up.