Califone 2385AV-03 Portable Multimedia Player

Comments about Califone 2385AV-03 Portable Multimedia Player:

I bought this for my 87-year old mother, and in many ways it's just what she wanted (plays MP3 CD-R/RW, looks conservative, sounds good). However, she will never really learn how to use it because the controls are WAY too complicated, and needlessly so. For instance:
- It's got a Power switch AND a Standby switch, and there's no visible reason to have them both. You have to turn them both on to do ANYTHING.
- With most boomboxes I've used, if you put a tape in and press Play, it will automatically switch to Tape mode. Same with a CD. Not here -- you have to use a Function button to switch between functions.
- You can save radio stations to a preset. Fine. But if you turn the power off OR the Standby switch OFF, you lose your presets. Even if you just switch from radio to tape or CD, your presets are gone when you switch back to radio.
- Some details I don't remember (it's at Mom's, so can't reference it right now), but it seemed like most features were just more complicated to access than they should have been; my wife felt the same way, and she's a bit of a gadget freak, too.
- I don't know if it's common for a boombox to save your place on a CD or MP3 disk when you turn it off (my iRiver does, and returns to that place next time you put that same CD in), but this unit does not. Even if you just switch to listening to the radio or a tape, then back to CD, you have to start over at the beginning. You can, however, navigate through directories to go directly to a desired place on an MP3 disk. The only way to stop listening to a disk and restart at the same place is to Pause it, and don't do anything else with the unit until you want to listen to the disk again.
- There's no AUX in for something like a Flash MP3 player, although there is an external microphone input.

On a more positive note:
- It's got good sound and will play at a quite respectable volume level without distortion. Not audiophile, of course, but good for the price.
- It's small enough to be easily portable, even for an 87-year old woman.
- It doesn't look like a Star Wars movie prop.
- Pretty full-featured.
- Since Califone caters to educational users (and guarantees their products for that usage model), I'm assuming it will hold up well.

In summary, I prefer my JVC Kaboom box (except for the futuristic looks), but Mom couldn't carry that around...

I'd recommend this for my tech-savvy friends, but for the tech-challenged, NOT. I still gotta write up a cheat sheet for Mom.

Comments about Califone 2385AV-03 Portable Multimedia Player:

The sound quality is good, but the CD player is sensitive to vibrations and skips if someone walks nearby. This can be hard to avoid in a crowded room.