I have a couple of concerns over the Toshiba 2800 I picked up a few days ago. It makes a very strange sound when it is playing MP3s. There is an intermittent high pitched noise as it reads the disk. It actually sounds like the ticking of a clock. This does not happen on regular cds. I went back to the store to try to hear this on another machine, and I didn't, but there was so much noise that I don't know for sure.
The other thing is that the interface is pretty clonky. My usage of the machine is 1) cds 2)DVDs 3)MP3s. Navigating the menus to cue up either cd or mp3 tracks is an adventure in button pushing. Also, mp3 names are shown with the old DOS naming convention which is a major pain. The zoom function for DVDs puts a navigation box onto the scree which remains there the whole time you use it.
The plusses are the price, the audio quality, and the DVD performance with my old TV. The minuses are the ticking noise, and the awful interface. One option is exchange the machine for another (quick and easy- but if the ticking noise is A FEATURE I'm back where I started). Another option is for someone to suggest a better machine that I can buy locally in BC. The third option is to simply return the unit, go back to using my computer for DVDs and to wait a few months for the technology to change. Ideas?