Panasonic RQ-E27V

Author's product rating:   

Sound Quality	Good
Ease of Use	Average
Look & Design	Satisfactory
Range of Features	Diverse
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Loads of toys .  Nice sound reproduction
Disadvantages:	A bit flimsy - feeling, and those blue buttons are a pain .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

It would be easy for anyone skimming through the opinions I’ve written and posted to come up with the notion that I’m some sort of fire-breathing, beer-swilling maniac, pausing only long enough between Mexican food and organic ale benders to ram strange sandwiches and fine malt whisky down his fat face.

OK…harsh…but fair, I suppose.

Anyway, in the interests of salvaging some tatters of my reputation I decided it was time to review something real…practical…non-comestible and non-intoxicating. (I sense I’m losing some of you already), so I dragged out from the wastebin in my office the packaging from my latest self-indulgence: a new cassette player.

Over the years since the very first Sony Walkman made it to these shores I’ve been a regular purchaser of personal stereos. No sooner do I have one I’m happy with than it gets nicked, ‘borrowed’ by ‘friends and family’, dropped (usually into deep water for some reason) or in some other way relocated to that great Where The Hell Is It in the Sky. (Historical note for those who might give a damn: I worked next door to an illustrators studio in the 70’s, and they had the VERY FIRST WALKMAN IN THE UK to make drawings from – this was about a year before they went on the market here. I got to try it out…so I had a head start on nearly everyone in saving up to pay for the thing! GOD they were expensive!)

Anyhoo, finding myself in need of yet another personal tape player, I teleported myself to our local Dixons. There, I stood around for some time, laughing at the antics of the poor benighted fools who thought that the staff might actually have sufficient knowledge of the stock to answer questions correctly. In fact, there is at least one member of staff at my local branch of this nationwide ‘Find the Braincell’ game who knows her stuff, (How she slipped through the net, I’ve yet to discover) but sadly she was off-duty…or away getting compulsory sedation to bring her into line with her colleagues.

I took the bull by the horns…and I THREW HIM OUT! What he thought he was doing in there I just don’t know. He was rampaging about like a bull in a china shop – so I directed him to one and got on with making my selection from the many personal stereos on offer.

Dixons seem to have a policy of labelling for maximum confusion: One stereo’s label will tell you about features and battery life, while the next will detail features and some meaningless acronyms and a third will relate battery life, acronyms and the name of the packer at JVC’s factory or something. The trick is to ignore the labels, delve lower on the shelf and look at the boxes, where all the good stuff is written down clearly.

By this innovative method, I found myself drawn to the Panasonic RQ-E27V, which boasted (or it’s box did on it’s behalf - like a pop star’s manager) auto reverse (boring but useful) am/fm tuner (Never listen to am, but the fm bit might be handy) a digital tuner with 20 presets (I can only find 5 stations I want to listen to, and that’s in London, so…many, many obsolete presets, but what the hey) a battery checker (tape stops playing…battery flat. How hard is that? But…what the hey) and the now obligatory Extra Bass System (for max damage to ears). Intriguingly enough, it also said something about 10 direct access keys. Turns out you can tap in the frequency of a station and it’ll tune direct. Natty…I find the best way to use this feature is to do a tuner version of a random Google search: just tap in any old numbers and see what you get! (Hmm…Radio Saga).

I purchased the little monkey for a modest £34.99 and made off, before they could offer me a 10 year extended warranty: a snip at just £155.99!

Out of the box, it’s quite loud...and that’s just to look at! Brushed chrome-look plastic with shiny buttons and a little LCD screen on one side, while the other is dark blue.

The headphones are a bit unusual to look at, with an extra little ‘spur’ on the in-ear bit. I’m not sure what it’s actually for, but it does ensure you put the bungs in the correct ear…get it wrong, you ear-hand dyslexics, and the bungs’ll just fall straight out of your ears…unless you cultivate extra wax to hold them in. Probably better just to put them in the correct ear anyway…really…it’s a turn-off, that ear-wax…honest!

Down one of the long sides, there’s the usual array of buttons for accessing exciting functions such as ‘Stop’ – ‘Play’ etc. They are done in a translucent blue, which has the effect of rendering the indications of function totally invisible in normal use…I found myself just pressing anything, and hoping for the best. (Silver Ginger 5 at fast-forward is not recommended, by the way. Not at the level I was listening to it at, anyway) (Special bracket for TallTone: Not at the level at which I had been listening, anyway) There’s also a little flip switch for changing the tape direction.

On one of the short sides, there’s a volume control, a switch for the XBS and a flip switch called ‘hold’. I rather hoped this gave access to a large storage area, like on a ship, but experimentation led me to understand that this was at best a vain hope, and at worst a sign of a deeper illness. Nurse tells me it’s actually a switch to lock all the controls…like autopilot…but not!

There’s a belt-clip type arrangement which can be attached (and thankfully detached too) by means of a plastic screw. This clip feels a bit odd, as it flaps around in order to allow access to the tape bay. However, it’s strong enough to secure the player to clothes in the event you feel like running, doing spontaneous cartwheels or otherwise acting like someone in a Coke ad. (That’s Coca Cola…a popular soft drink, or so I’m told; not the other stuff that makes you want to run around and talk very fast)

The edge opposite those natty blue buttons is home to a flip-down arrangement, which opens to reveal…ta-daa…a battery! Yes folks, ONE battery of type AA, LR6 or MN 1500. This, it says on the box, will last up to 33 hours if all you do is play tapes without using the (where…bum…which one is…bottoms…AH! There it is…)the FF button.

The same flap which reveals that lonely little battery also hides the tape type selector (normal or metal) and the stereo/mono switch for the tuner.

All in all, I like it, even though it all feels a bit plasticy, and as though the odd bit might drop off. So far nothing has, and I’m not renowned for gentle handling of my toys, so maybe this is just an impression.

I’ve not tested the battery life to the full yet, nor have I tried dropping the machine (wet or dry) but I can vouch for great sound reproduction, decent transport mechanism (it plays at the right speed) and fairly user-friendly controls, if you except the blue button thing mentioned earlier. It’s a bit glossy to look at, but it works, and I commend it to the house. *sips whisky and water…sits down to cheers and catcalls both* Ah no…that’s the budget. Sorry.