For the last few months, our car CD player stopped recognizing most of the CDs. In the last few weeks it went to a point where it is used as a radio receiver only. With lot of good audio albums around (LoveAajKal, Magadheera, Josh, …), it is not worth listening to radio during the long drives. So the CD receiver in the car is changed after about 7 years. Given the fact that most audio tracks are being released in MP3 format now, I felt it is worth going with a USB/MP3/CD player than a plain MP3/CD player. The choice is very simple on the lower end: Sonly Xplod series. So I went to the store and got this Sony CDX-GT484US installed in our car. The previous player being a Sony one, installation is nothing but a 5 minute task. Testing and configuring the player took lot more time though.
After coming home, quickly compiled songs on one of the old 2GB pendrives and I am all set to go. The track seek times on the USB drives are a lot better than the seek times on CD (understandably, no disc rotations involved). It is a lot quieter operation too.