FUNKOMETER RATING: 2

For those not in the know, Soundwave is a toy from the 1980's cartoon Transformers.  He's a was a tape deck of the Walkman variety that some how transformed into a 40 foot robot.  So aside from the ability to defy physics, he was a fairly "cold-hearted" evil robot, and probably one the best know and favored bad guy of the time.  So you can only imagine how excited I was when I saw a working Soundwave toy.  Sure it doesn't play tapes, but that's ok, because all of my tapes are to worn out to play anyway (and the ones that aren't, aren't worth listening too).  So on to the review of the Soundwave playing audio player (it's what the box says). 

Well, first off this a is a toy.  It plays mp3's, and it does a decent job of it, but over all, it's a toy.  It's pretty light weight, but kind of bulky.  So, it's easy enough to carry around, but not so great for a jog or bike ride.  There's no belt clip or anyway to strap it to your arm.  There's no internal memory, and it runs off a single AAA type battery.  I can't read Japanese, so I don't know how long the rated battery life is, and those who've read the site know that I don't listen to music long enough to really put the player to the test.  In order to play music you have to put it on a miniSD card, but it won't handle anything bigger than 1GB.  The card fits nicely in the cassette door.  Controls are conveniently on the front and allow you to go back, forward, pause, play, and turn the volume up and down.  There's no way to know what song is playing (just like a Ipod shuffle), and there's not play list support.  In order to get songs to play the way you want, you have to put them in that order when you put them on the miniSD card.  So, for the most part, it's a low end mp3 player, so why then did I give it such a great score?  IT'S FREAKING SOUNDWAVE!!  In robot mode he's fairly poseable, and looks a lot like the original Soundwave toy, just smaller. 

The end result:  Really nice novelty mp3 player for Transformers fans, but not really meant for carrying around all the time.