Go Gear hits a flat note (Philips GoGear SA3245 4 GB)

Member Name: davey_26

Product:	Philips GoGear SA3245 4 GB
Date:	14/10/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of storage space, compact, can play mp3's and videos

Disadvantages: Video quality is poor, the sound is thin

The Go Gear is Phillips response to the excellent ipod and the Sansa mp3 player. I was bought this mp3 player last year and am still undecided about this one.

Firstly though it allows the standard fare of being playing mp3 files and WMA files but it also allows for video playback. It is nice to have this additional feature on the phone but it definitely comes secondary to the music.

The screen seems a little but the options are presented in a concise fashion which allows for easy navigation of the various options available to you. The options include playing by artist/all/album. The first thing I noticed when playing music is the sound is surprisingly flat. I adjusted the tone controls and added bass boost to the song. This did provide a more fuller sound but it seemed to do so at the expense of the midrange.

I thought this might be a problem which might have occurred because this was a poor quality bitrate mp3 file and indeed when I changed to a higher bitrate, there was an improvement but the improvement was not as obvious I was anticipating. While the music was more open it still had the unfortunate feature of sounding quite thin. This became even more apparent when I turned the volume up. As a result of this, the go gear seems to lack presence.

As for the video feature, again I wasn't particularly impressed. The process of converting the file into a format which will be readable on the go gear seems to take a long time and as for quality of the video it doesn't look very crisp and the contrast seems too low as a result of these weaknesses, it leads to a very unsatisfying viewing experience.

While the sound is not terrible, it does seem to be decidedly lacking. The gb of storage space will allow you to put plenty of songs onto the mp3 player but the question of whether you would really want is a different matter. In my opinion there is much better out there than this which given it's price doesn't offer a lot.

Summary: Disappointed by this

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