Classic design, great sound, intuitive operation - great car radio!
Written: Mar 29 '06 (Updated Mar 31 '06)
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Pros: Excellent sound, classic black/green design, MP3 folder navigate, easy operation, responsive feel
Cons: No USB stick support, no DVD-R support, being discontinued, no front aux in
The Bottom Line: If you can find cheap - buy it. After being disappointed by a chrome / jukebox colored "nifty" radio, I've learned to appreciate simple & solid.
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| gustep's Full Review: MCE 4810W Jensen Car CD/MP3 Player |
I wanted to upgrade my old car's factory stereo to something that would play CDs and MP3s. First I bought some all-inclusive jukebox-chrome-colored radio, with a color display, that also included USB stick and SD card support, and it even had a remote. However, this thing sucked - it was very difficult to operate, especially without looking. It also was limited to playing the first 127 MP3 files per USB stick or something, and it couldn't navigate file folders on a USB stick. It was downright unsafe, and its coloring awful.
I decided to get rid of the jukebox radio, pair down a bit (no remote, no USB stick, no SD card), and try the Jensen MCE 4810W. I had seen it at Fry's a few times, and immediately liked the design: Classic "green display and black plastic" design, distinctly shaped and memorably arranged buttons (no-look operation easily possible - drive safely!) which have clear and simple labels, as opposed to the cryptic "M5/-10" that I saw on my jukebox. Also, it has two forward / rewind MP3 folder navigate buttons. Wanna switch from Madonna to Michael Jackson? It's just one push away! And the tiny red-lit power button perfectly accentuates the green-glow display and buttons. *This* is what I call eyecandy - simple & beautiful.
Now I have installed the MCE 4810W in my car, and it is surprisingly good! I must admit that I put the equalizer on "Rock" and turned the ixBass on, but the surprising thing is that it does not distort at all, even at fairly loud volumes. Furthermore, the MCE4810W is very intuitive to operate, blends in well with the console of my car, and the sound is awesome! I thought I had crappy speakers, but this thing puts such a solid and clean sound body into my music, I now enjoy listening to music in my car more than at home. I don't know how this thing manages to get so much richness and base out of my standard speakers, but it probably simply has good, distortion-free amplifiers that don't use inflated power output ratings. Also, it turns on and off quickly (if you disable the goodbye message), and on the radio the channel search is very quick - I have noticed that other radios scan slower from station to station.
Overall, a great buy. Solid product, classic design, and surpisingly good sound when listening to my MP3s from CD, much better than the factory radio and the jukebox failure. Too bad it is being discontinued - there are too few of its kind, and too many chrome-framed candy-colored junky jukebox radios out there.
The only downsides I see in this radio are that it doesn't have a receptacle for a USB stick, and that it won't read MP3s from a DVD-R disc, but then again, at the time of this writing, almost no car radios can do that. Oh, and a front aux in would also be nicer than just the back aux in, but I probably wouldn't use it very often anyway.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 90
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Epinions.com ID:
gustep
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Reviews written: 10
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