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Philips GoGear SA3245 4 GB
by Warda010
This mp3 player offers you great MP3 and WMA playback, at a relatively cheap price. You also get reception from roughly 20 different radio stations and you can watch video clips (in 220 x 176 pixels) as long as they are the correct format. The 1.8" colour screen gives you great photo viewing and easy navigation with the icons having ... a modern 3D touch to them. The 4GB memory offers you around 20 hours of playback (depending on volume and various other things)
This product with me
I bought this product about 2 years ago and although at times it has been a pain in the backside, I don't regret buying it. It is a light, compact MP3/4 player which does the same thing as an I-Pod (in my opinion) for a much cheaper price. However I found that when I put over 2gb of files onto it, it started to freeze quite frequently and I had to reset it which was a chore in itself (the reset button is tiny and really difficult to get too, but I guess I can understand that), as each time I reset it, it would take forever to load back up again.
Durability
Over the years it has been through more than just a few bumps and scrapes, it has been trodden on, threw about, dropped into a sink (only for a few seconds and it was in a silicon case) and it still works well.
Sound quality
The sound quality is great and it has a customisable equaliser which is great, as my music taste is very open, it is difficult to get a good setting for all the genres of music; however with the customisable equaliser it is relatively simple to get the bass behind the drum & bass songs, and the kick behind the rock songs. I bought some Panasonic headphones for this MP3 player as I do not like the standard ones, and the sound quality is even better. 10/10
Picture Quality
The picture quality is magnificent, each image I have ever put onto here has looked exactly the same, with very little pixilation. Also there is a slideshow feature which allows you to easily show off your pictures with friends and family. The pictures themselves are very easy to put on there as a default folder for pictures has been made for you, and images themselves aren't too difficult to change the format of. 10/10
Video Quality
I cannot provide you with accurate feedback on the video function as I have not used the video function yet, as I fail every attempt at putting a video on as it is not the correct file type/format and I have no idea how to change it, I assume if it is anything like the picture quality and sound quality (which it should be) it would be great. However I cannot give a rating as it would be poorly judged and unfair.
Aesthetics
The MP3 player itself is fairly standard; it is light (just over 50g), relatively slim (about 9-10mm) and is easy to hold. The layout of the buttons is fairly simple to get the hang off, and the arrow buttons are in a circle, which is relatively small (I assume it could be difficult if you have big fingers). The 'Philips' logo is printed below the screen and has a pearlescent finish (the colour changes depending on the angle light hits it).
Would I recommend it?
I would highly recommend this product if you are looking for a cheap product that can play music, store pictures, and has video playback. With the release of the I-Pod Touch this product is overlooked as it cannot hold applications like the I-Pod touch. However does the same thing in terms of music and pictures, also in my opinion I think the sound quality is far better on this MP3 than on an I-Pod. It has lasted me a good 2 years and I still use it now, it fits in your pocket perfectly and can hold all your music, what more could you want ?
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Philps GoGear RaGa 4 GB
by kingbeerex
It's small, it looks funky, and it does a decent job of playing.
That's all a bonus, and pretty much all I'd look for in an mp3 player (4gb is more than enough for me anyway- does one always need to have their whole music collection with them at all times?). However, there's a few negatives that bring this one down for me, ... unfortunately.
The minor issues- rewind and fast forward take a while to do. Maybe that's just me being influenced by our want-it-now society, but I hate having to hold down for a while to skip that pointless intro, or crowd noise at the end of the song. But it's minor. Not too bad.
Then, the songs don't seem to ever be in order. However, this could just be a problem of my mac. No matter how much fiddling I do, it still never seems to have track 1 at the start (and no, it's not on shuffle!).
And the last issue isn't a minor one. It's a fairly major one- bigger than this little player itself. The player often won't detect on my computer, and when it does, it will get rather confused and say the battery is full when the battery sign clearly says no battery, or it will say no battery, seemingly just to confuse and ridicule me. Well, you did it well little player.
These issues come and go, so it's frustrating to say the least, especially as this player has so much promise. The menus are small, tidy and unclustered; it comes with headphones, a USB cable, software, and a very nice price (£25 for me); and it's small enough to fit in a toddler's pocket.
There's also a voice recorder, a slightly colour screen (not too dull, no too loud), and also an add-to-playlist option so you can add on any songs to a playlist on the go. Finally, it does a fairly good job of sorting out the files to their ID4 (that is, making sense of my clustered music collection).
So, take away the inconsistencies and you have a nice player. Did I mention it is small and red?
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Philips GoGear SA5295 16 GB
by janedaniels
I picked up my GoGear for a little over £50 on ebay over a year ago and thought that was a decent price for an mp3 player with video playback capability and 16GB storage. It was, admittedly, factory reconditioned but if that knocks a nice chunk off the price then that's fine with me. I also liked the design of the device-very slimline, ... satisfyingly weighty and with a well-made feel.
As a straightforward mp3 player the sound quality is decent enough. I am not very demanding when it comes to mp3 players and don't require them to be brimming with features as I just use my player for train journeys and jogging, so if it works, it works. However there were quite a few issues with the player that I feel I should draw attention too.
The navigation is not fantastic. Scrolling through the menus would often jump, skip and stick in an irritating way meaning it would take a bit of fiddling to select the piece of music I wanted to listen to. Obviously for the price I wasn't going to get something as intuitive as an ipod interface but this grated.
The video playback, which admittedly wasn't my main reason for buying the player, only accepts WMA format, which none of my videos are in. As I'm no fan of squinting at tiny little screens to watch my favourite TV series anyway this didn't cause me too much of a problem but I would warn anyone buying this for the playback capability to bear this in mind as while you can convert your files to WMA the process is irritating and considering other Philips GoGear players seem to play a variety of formats from reviews I've seen it's an irritating quirk that the playback is so limited. File formats for music playback are limited to mp3 and wma as well, which is okay 90% of the time but an occasional irritation.
Like most mp3 players you can play radio and record through the device. No complaints here, both are easy to use and the recording is nice and clear.
One problem I had which may just have been my unit-my player froze 3 or 4 times when I first bought it and I had to reset it by sticking a paperclip in a tiny hole in the side like a tamagotchi. This was frustrating and I was on the verge of sending it back but in the end this suddenly righted itself. I cannot say why this happened and may be because it was factory reconditioned. However, in the long term it hasn't caused me any further problems.
The bundled headphones are rubbish but this is par for the course, it's rare you get a decent pair with and mp3 player and I had some decent ones on hand to use.
All in all for £50 I couldn't complain and it does everything I require from a player, but if you want something special from your mp3 player I'd look elsewhere and spend some more cash. For someone who wants to watch videos and have a nice amount of storage space though it's a bargain
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