We swapped streaming for the $99 Lola CD player — here’s our honest review

Listening to music is easier than ever — you have hundreds of thousands of songs at your fingertips, plus, algorithms, custom playlists, pre-saves and more make the process feel automated. However, that doesn’t mean we’re ready to give up on physical media. A 2025 Consumer Reports study found that almost half of Americans (45%) still listen to CDs, with one in five still listening to vinyl records.

The Lola CD player is designed to help bring that nostalgic feel back to your music, and myself, along with three other NBC Selected editors, tested it for two weeks. We collectively agree that it’s a fun way to switch up our listening habits (and a very cute accessory to carry around), however, it may not be best for people most concerned with convenience. Keep reading to hear our thoughts and our final verdict on the CD player’s highs and lows.

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The Lola CD player is a classic portable player with a few modern updates, including anti-skip protection and a micro SD card slot. It charges via an included USB-C cable, so you can share a charger with your phone if needed. While the player doesn’t have Bluetooth capabilities, it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, and can be paired with a Bluetooth device with a third-party adapter, according to the brand. It also comes with a pair of polka dot, wired headphones, and gets up to 48 hours of playback on a single charge.

Four NBC Selected editors, myself included, tested courtesy samples for around two weeks, using it as a substitute for streaming music. We listened on commutes, on walks and throughout the day to see how the listening experience measured up. Since a few of us belong to different generations, we all have a range of experiences with physical media, helping to shape each of our unique perspectives on using the CD player.

While I’ve owned boomboxes and CD players in the past, two of our editors grew up listening to CDs, which made this testing process especially interesting for them. “I’m in my late 30s, and grew up recording songs off the radio onto cassette tapes and listening to them on my Walkman,” says NBC Selected senior editor Nikki Brown. “I eventually graduated to CDs, most of which I still have today — and of course I took my CD player everywhere,” she says.

NBC Selected senior editor Shalwah Evans had a similar experience — “I’m a Xennial, so I had a Discman in high school and remember burning mixtapes in college,” she says. “I praised the day the iPod dropped and changed the way we listened to music”.

NBC Selected editorial operations associate (and Gen-Z-er) Jem Alabi, on the other hand, specifically likes buying physical versions of her favorite K-pop albums, but hasn’t had anything to play them on until now. “I have quite a few CD’s that have been collecting dust,” she says. “The CD’s tend to have bonus tracks that you can’t always find on streaming so I was happy to get to hear my favorite groups in this intimate way.”

Along with seeing how well the CD player works in comparison to streaming, we also evaluated features like the battery life and the player’s anti-skip protection.

In our experience, the Lola CD player is worth it for anyone looking to invest more in physical media, or who may be searching for a more intimate and intentional music listening experience than streaming can offer. We also like the anti-skip protection and battery life. While those features work well, we felt as though our experiences with the headphones were mixed, and that the CD player, while cute, isn’t very convenient to carry around.

The Lola CD player definitely feels like a throwback to a simpler time — pre-streaming and algorithms, when your listening experience felt a lot more personal and manual. I especially felt this during the time when I’d choose my CDs for the day — I usually chose one to start with inside the player, and then one more to bring along for variety. Choosing the CD every morning felt like I was curating my mood for the day, which added an intentionality to my music listening that isn’t always there with streaming.

“Using this CD player felt like stepping into a time machine,” says Brown. “I pulled out my CD case and immediately was transported to all that was happening in my life when I made or bought each one — the people I was spending time with, the city I lived in, the party I pregamed for, the person I was dating.” She also turned it into a communal experience: “I started sending pictures of CDs to my group chat and we went down rabbit holes seeing what certain singers and musicians were up to since we last listened to them.” she says. Evans felt similarly, saying that using the CD player shifted her daily listening habits from single songs to full albums. “I also rediscovered songs that I loved and hadn’t heard in forever because I rarely play full albums all the way out (versus spot-playing songs from different albums),” she says.

Alabi, who grew up listening to Afrobeat CDs with her family, also felt that the CD player helped her reconnect with those memories: “My family has a vast Afrobeat CD collection with songs that marked my childhood but can’t be found on streaming, so it was cool to have a way to preserve and revive those memories,” she says. That’s also something I loved about the CD player — it let me finally put so many of my old CDs to use while on-the-go, instead of letting them collect dust on my shelves (and made me look forward to picking up some new ones, too).

Prior to testing, one of Evans’ biggest concerns was whether or not the player would skip, or damage her CDs. Thankfully, the device’s anti-skip protection did its job well, which she calls “a huge plus”. She was also reminded that since the music didn’t rely on a Wi-Fi connection, there were no service outages. “This does not go down in ‘dead zones’ the way streaming does and that was a nice change,” she says. I also didn’t experience any skipping, which I fully expected, since it was such a common part of my experience with CD players when I was younger.

“I experienced skipping but only because I was listening to my mixed CDs that I would literally just throw into bags and commute with, without protection (ah, to be young!),” says Brown.

I used the CD player for a few hours daily, and only had to charge it every few days. As someone who charges their phone not only overnight, but constantly throughout the day, it was nice to have a device that I didn’t have to think about plugging in. I also like that I didn’t feel the need to bring along the charger, like I do with my phone, since I knew the battery wouldn’t run out on me. Brown, who used the player every few days, had a similar experience and says hers still wasn’t close to needing another charge at the time of giving feedback.

Our experiences with the headphones were varied. Brown, who doesn’t care too deeply about sound quality, says she thought the listening experience was good, and Evans felt similarly. “It was as good as any other device I use today,” says Evans. I, on the other hand, wasn’t a big fan of the sound quality, and felt the headphones had a far-away sound, as if you were listening through a wall. Alabi felt similarly, saying that she thought “the headphones were cute but they felt and sounded kind of cheap, like the ones you get on the airplane.” “I recommend using or buying another pair to enhance the listening experience,” she says.

We also all felt that in our experience, the volume, although not overpoweringly loud, was loud enough to be heard outside of the headphones. “People can clearly hear what you’re listening to and it’s loud since the corded earbuds don’t have ANC,” says Evans.

While the Lola CD player itself isn’t bulky, we didn’t exactly find it to be compact or slim either. If you’re carrying a larger or medium-sized bag, it shouldn’t pose any issues — “it’s kind of bulky but it did slide right into my bag with my laptop and planner,” says Evans. However, if you’re looking to carry along a mini bag (as I often do when I’m not at the office), you’ll either have to hold it in your hands, or leave the CD player behind.

The other size/portability consideration comes with the CDs. Again, you either have to choose to commit to one, or commit to carrying multiple around with you. Although the player’s CD card insert is designed to bypass that problem, you still have to load the memory cards with songs, which adds another manual step that streaming doesn’t require.

The Lola portable CD player is worth it if you’re looking to add a vintage twist to your music listening experience. It may not be ideal if you’re used to the convenience of streaming, but at its current price of $99, it’s best for those who either haven’t owned one before and would like to try, or who are trying to recapture the nostalgia of a bygone era.

“This is definitely more for someone who never knew what it was to lug around a book of CDs just to get through an hour-long commute,” says Evans. On the other hand, she also says that “one of the biggest pluses to this is rediscovering songs on full albums that I haven’t heard in so long and kind of forgot about (but love).” Brown agrees that the CD player has a universal appeal. “CD players are for everyone,” she says. “There’s something positive to be taken from the experience of using one, regardless of your age or background.”

When it comes to retro tech, Urban Outfitters is one of my favorite destinations for browsing — the retailer has a wide range of options that are designed to be nostalgic, but with a modern twist. If you’re looking to recreate the CD experience at home, consider bookshelf players and boomboxes like the affordable Jenson CD590 boombox, or the more versatile Emerson EDL-2901 Multi-Media Boombox. You can also double down on the nostalgia and go for a record player, like the Crosley Eclipse Entertainment Center. If portability is what you’re after, MoMA Design Store’s CP13 Portable Cassette Player has a cool transparent design, or you can get an MP3 player like the Globluum MP3 Player from Amazon.

I’m an associate SEO reporter for NBC Selected, covering skin care, lifestyle and more, along with being a longtime music fan and collector of records, CDs, magazines and more. I’ve written about why I love my old Sony bookshelf CD player, along with my Audio-Technica record player, and for this piece, myself and three other NBC Selected staffers tried out the Lola portable CD player, to see how the vintage device would hold up against our modern music habits.

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