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"Star Trek's mp3 player" on by Ralph320
Pros: Graduated touch sensitivity; Intuitive menus; LONG battery life; Intelligent Screen Layout; Great Sound Quality; Looks COOL!
Cons: Accessories slow to market
Summary: I bought this 17 October from Best Buy for a series of upcoming trips, as well as general use. I am amazed by this player. It worked right out of the box and flawlessly synched 17+ GB of music through WMP10. You know how on Star Trek, all the panels & controls are touch sensitive and were implicitly intelligently designed because everything works and can be done from that panel, well that's what Philips has done with this player (and I do not consider myself a Trekkie). I have a continual Groundhog Day experience where I'll think "it's a cool player, but not that cool" and then I'll use it again, and think "It really IS that cool!". The display/interface is intuitive (look ma, no manual) and does not scratch with normal reasonably careful use (unlike word on Apple's players), and from most any screen you can access a MENU button (lower left front of control panel below "<" button -- well, touch area) that gives contextual options. Volume is a physical toggle on the upper right edge that works no matter where you are in the menu system. Hold toggle (middle left edge) offers playback undisturbed by accidental key touches when inside your pocket. JPEG viewer handles multi-megapixel pics 100s of KB to MB size). Li+ battery is rated 15 hours, but I still like to "condition" them. Some have told me this is silly, but on first charge I got 15 hours of playback; 17 hours on the 2nd charge; and 19 hours on the 3rd charge (all on shuffle play - I went to work & let it play all day). Sound quality is excellent. FM radio tuner is great, and when you select AUTOTUNE, it scans the FM band (USA) and assigns the stations it finds to up to 20 presets -- all in 5 seconds. Sweeet! Jump presets with the track select pad: |<< or >>| or tune with the vertical slide bar. Recording with included mic works great & is wonderfully audible (but I think it records in WAV format - bulky; haven't read to see if it encodes mp3). Volume: loud enough on my headphones, and with 320kbps encoded music, sounds GREAT - I hear things in the music that I don't hear on my audiophile friend's Polk floor speakers. I will likely reencode everything to 192kbps so I can fit my entire 300 CDs on this with room to grow (and some pics for family slideshows). Synch with WMP10 was flawless & fast. Have had to reset the system once, but I do not consider this an issue - it reset immediately and worked just fine thereafter. Specs say that the HDD6330/17 (silly model name) can be flash upgraded and have done so once with no problem. Doesn't play videos, but then I didn't want that. I wanted to hear the radio, as well as have the ability to record lecture/meeting notes. CONS: accessories slow to market - I have had this 30days-2 and there are no additional accessories at Best Buy or on the Philips site; but it does come with an AC charger/USB cable, good mini ear buds with rubber grommets, & reasonable padded nylon case. I would like to see a car charger & more robust carry case that allows access/use while still encased. But I still highly recommend this player. It meets and exceeds all expectations. Go play with it in the store & take your own headphones; work the touch pad: it's responsive and hopefully an omen of things to come on future consumer products. I had gone to Best Buy with the intent to buy an iRiver 20GB player, and saw this sitting nearby, it having been introduced 2 days earlier. I'm glad I waited. The physical form thickness seems to be about that of a 60GB iPod, but battery life is excellent and I don't want to watch videos on such a small screen, nor pay for compressed DVD file formats when I can rent/buy/borrow DVDs & watch them on a larger screened portable DVD player with longer battery life. Moreover, the iPod has no FM tuner, nor records from the mic, line-in, or radio. (Line-in recording on the Philips requires base, I think - don't quote me; but mic & radio are done with no additional cables (FM reception requires headphone wire for the antenna). Impressive unit. Warning: be sure to actively eliminate this from your list or risk buyer's remorse over an inferior, competing product when you finally do encounter this Philips player.
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"I love it." on by dstalker34
Pros: Excellent interface, clear screen, well executed touch sensitive buttons, great sound quality out of the box.
Cons: Screen could be a little bigger
Summary: I just picked this up yesterday, and I have to say it is the best player I have ever used. I was a little put off by the touch sensitive interface because I haven't seen it done well on any other player, but it works perfectly. It comes with an excellent pair of head phones, considering they are freebies. It interfaces with Windows Media Player surprisingly well. I never liked using WMP, but it wasn't a horrible experience. I got my entire 2,000 song library on my player in about thirty minutes, I wasn't watching the clock so that is an estimate. I still don't know if I am going to jumo all over the Napster To Go thing but it is nice to have that as an option. I will come back later and update this with a more hands on review.
Updated
So I have now had this player for a while longer and have put it through a few more tests and a little bit of abuse. I have no problems. I do notice a few things that are a little weird. If you make a large playlist like 75+, which really isn't exactly large, it takes a while for the playlist to load. Normally this wouldn't bother me, but the problem is during the loading the time out clock is running so right when the loading of the list is complete, it times out to the now playing screen. Okay that's not a problem just back track to the playlist, but then the playlist loads again, it can be an endless cycle but I figured that just tapping the scroll pad whileit is loading keeps the screen active. Sometimes when it is on the now playing screen, when you try to back a screen, it just rolls back to the now playing screen. You basically stay on the same page no matter how many times you press the back button. But then if you hold down the back button you go back to the main menu, problem solved. I work at Best Buy and I have always gotten a lot of customer feed back from my customers. The response on this one is about fifty-fifty. A lot of people are experiencing freezing and haulting of the OS. I have not experienced this at all. I still love this player, I think the touch sensitivity is amazing. It interfaces extremely well with WMP10. Overall, I think this is still an excellent player. I think half of my customers just didn't know exactly how to take care of the player. I still recommend it everyday, with a warning.Updated
This will be my final review on this player. I have had it for about a month now and I just wanted to get my final impressions to you. I have had no problems what so ever since the last review I wrote. I have started using the "On the Go" playlist option. I actually find it very easy to use and I love that you can save the playlist on the go. I still experience some lag when loading a large playlist. As long as the list stays below forty, I haven't had any problems. Overall I think this is an excellent player. I still recommend it everyday. If I were to experience any technical difficulties with this player I would have had them by now, so I think I am in the clear. I am still expecting the battery to die eventually and there is always the chance something else will go wrong so I have my replacement plan that will cover all that. I highly advise you to get this player over an iPod. -
"Kewl player but slow and buggy" on by superguy
Pros: 30 Gigs, Looks Kewl, Album Art (sometimes), WMP Playlists, Radio, Dedicated Volume Button
Cons: Not loud enough. Music sounds a little ditorted on WOW. Slow, Play Lists double up every sync. Touch pad quite sesitive. Must hold on/off key for 5 seconds. Screen could be larger.
Summary: This player looks super kewl. I love the glowing blue strip and buttons and the interface is quite intuitive. I just wish it was a little quicker. The song info usually takes about 5 to 10 seconds to update after the song is playing and the album art another couple of seconds. The touch panel, although a great idea, is quite sensitive. I find myself putting the player in hold mode every time so that I do not accidentally hit one of the buttons. The strip makes finding songs pretty easy. It also lets you swipe your finger across and send the song list spinning down so that you do not have to hold down constantly.
I do wish this thing was louder. I can still hear the voices in my head. Also, on full volume, most tracks sound distorted on WOW and most other equalizer settings. I’m still using the included headphones, but it sounds extra bad. IRiver fixed a similar issue with a firmware update, I hope Philips can do the same. Finally what always kills me the most is bugs. Every time I sync with WMP10 the play lists double up and then triple up and so on. I have about 25 copies of the same 6 play lists. I’ve formatted the player and deleted the playlists one by one and still on every sync, they copy over and over and over. I was going to return the player but don’t really like anything better. -
"Take it back, don't call Customer No-Service" on by schtuggie
Pros: User Interface, Graphics, Earphones are Great!!!!
Cons: will not interface with wmp10 correctly, build quality is poor!
Summary: I had really high hopes for this player as I read all sorts of reviews ranting and raving about the interface. Well, they were correct, this player priced right (279.99 at BB with a $25 gift card), is totally cool looking and the interface is the best around. The problem is when you actually try to use the player, and that is only if you get one that has been manufactured correctly.
After selling my 40gb Ipod on Ebay because of my hatred for the itunes system (and I use the term loosely), I decided to go with one of the newer HDD players that would interface with WMP10 (plays for sure and all that)....
I went to Best Buy and fell in love with this player, it looks great, has terrific sound, the earphones are first rate, and it has an FM tuner...after 10 minutes of cutting into the plasitc packaging as well as my fingers I found that the tuner wasn't even installed at the factory....took it back....got the 2nd one home, computer wouldn't even recognize the unit....got the 3rd one home and this finally had both the tuner and my computer recognized it!
After finally getting it to finish syncing with WMP10 (it only took 4 or 5 attempts and an overnight run ) I ended up with 4402 songs on the player which was great except for the fact that there are only 4256 on my computer!
I decided to use it and see if I liked it before even attempting to go back to Best Buy for the 4th time...and all worked well, I was happy and was going to keep it......
Then, I ripped another CD to WMP10 and the interface erased the entire MP3 Player....
LAST NIGHT I RETURNED THIS PIECE OF CRAP FOR THE LAST TIME.......I hope they fix the Firmware, because they really were onto something...oh, by the way, the customer service is useless, the same people you talk to about this have a guy with an electric shaver on hold...... -
"looks awesome" on by chikachic817
Pros: black, color screen, 30 GB, not that expensive for features included
Cons: no games like Ipod
Summary: This player looks awesome. I have read the reviews on the player from the website so it sounds like it would be a good mp3 player. I was considering buying it, but thought that 30GB was too big for me so I decided to get the smaller version, the 6 GB. If anyone wants to buy this one, they can order it from bestbuy.com for I think it said $279, which is less than what Philips advertised. If you want the 6 GB, you can order it from walmart.com for about $198. Overall, I am excited to see what CNET says about it, and I can't wait for mine to come in the mail.
Philips GoGear HDD6330 Jukebox user reviews (30GB)
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