Panasonic RP-HX70 SLIMZ Monitor Headphones

I bought mine at Fry's for about $45, and have used them for about a year, mostly traveling. Last week I somehow broke the yoke that holds the ear piece. It was on a cross country flight, and for the life of me, I can't figure out what happened. It looks shattered, with no way to fit the parts together with superglue. There's like a piece missing about the diameter of a pencil in the breakage point. I just felt loose for a minute, and I took them off my head and looked - broken! But I do like the sound, and the size.

Update on further use. I only use these on airplanes, and they have a good hard plastic case, so I was surprised this week when yet a different part of the headband essentially disintegrated in yet another crack. It may seem like I am hard on these, but they only get used on domestic commercial air flights, and then go straight back into the case. I have other headphones as much as 20 years old around the house, that have been handled much more roughly, and...Read more

Introduction

I found these portable headphones by chance at Target one day and saw that they were on clearance, marked down to about $15 from the MSRP of $60. Seeing the relatively high retail price, I thought these were practically a steal at one quarter of the MSRP so I promptly purchased them, thinking that I'd done pretty well for myself. After owning these for six months or so and using them on and off during that time, I've decided to review these, as there are only a few reviews out there on these portable headphones.

Design and Build Quality

The Panasonic Slimz are made to be portable headphones and fold completely flat into a space saving design and feature a retractable cable, which is automatically activated by plugging the straight plug into a small slot on the left driver casing.

Having said that, I can't recommend carrying these around with you unless they are stored in the protective case they ship in when they aren't...Read more

Um..first off, I bought these not from Amazon, but from a nearby retailer in a traditional store, paid $60, they are $38 here on Amazon. That alone would be reason enough to return them and buy them here.
However, I gently pulled the cord to it's max length and there it stayed, never to retract again into one side as it is designed to do.
They do sound decent and are lightweight and easily stored in the hinged clear hard plastic carry case that comes with it.
The cord is very thin and fragile.
Obviously, disappointment was all I felt, even before plugging these in to my iPod. Back they go.