Panasonic SL-SX425

I wanted this Panasonic SL-SX425 portable cd player to take travelling round the world. The selection criteria I had was for it to be cheap (in case stolen), play MP3's (so I can take more music with me), have a remote (so I can leave it in rucksack) and also recharge batteries within the player.

Well it did 3 out of 4 of these out the box. I had trouble getting it to recharge batteries. However, a little searching around the web found me this Russian Panasonic page:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?tt=url&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.panasonic.ru%2Fsupport%2Ffaq.xgi%3F%26fgroup_id%3D177703&lp=ru_en which tells you how to modify rechargeable batteries to work with the player - this seems to work BUT DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK! Just requires cutting away a little of the plastic at the negative end of your rechargeable batteries. You'll see the contacts it needs to make within the battery compartment of the player.

Now I've got this working I'm very happy with the player. Max volume is perhaps a little too low, but believe this is a European law now, so not Panasonics fault.

Would definitely recommend at this low price!