Pretty cheap, and a BOATLOAD of battery life.
They also have some sort of feature that "restores data cut by MP3 compression," and the "D.Sound Engine," but I generally ignore stuff like this because I find it doesn't really do anything worthwhile.

Matsushita Electrical Industries Corporation will release the "SL-CT720" portable CD player with integrated digital amplifier o­n September 10th. It is Open Price, but indicators suggest it should cost around 15,000 yen.

Four body colors will be available: silver (-S), blue (-A), orange (-D), and pink (-P). In addition to audio CDs, it can playback MP3 files stored o­n CD-R/RW discs. Up to 999 MP3 files are supported, with 100 levels of folders. Supported bitrates are 32 ~ 320kbps.

The player contains the independently developed "D.Sound Engine" LSI chip, which is said to "produce clear and sound that overflows with reality." D.Sound contains, apart from a 5mW x 2ch digital amp and S-XBS, S-XBS+, and TRAIN equalizer settings, it has the new 3D-1 and SD-2 equalizers. Also, it contains the "Digital Re.Master" function that allegedly restores data cut during the MP3 encoding process.

Frequency response is from 20Hz ~ 20kHz, and it has a maximum output of 5mW x 2ch. Also featured is the "Anti Skip System" that uses a 64Mbit memory in conjunction with a thin optical pickup to prevent skipping.

Also included is an LCD remote, which can display Kana and English characters. Using the two included stick type NiMH batteries, the player can play CDDA for about 70 hours, and MP3 for about 120 hours. It can also use AA batteries, which aren't included. The external dimensions are 136.7 x 136.4 x 16.1mm (W x D x H), and it weighs about 200g including the batteries or 154g without.



Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20040810/pana.htm

Press Release:
http://www.matsushita.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/jn040810-1/jn040810-1.html