The best MP3 player out there!
Written: Feb 22 '01
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Pros: Large storage, lightweight, extremely portable, no skipping.
Cons: Song numbers instead of titles, hard to figure out what you're playing.
The Bottom Line: Portability, large storage, and long battery life make it a must have for any music enthusiast/technology lover!
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| fireballdw's Full Review: Philips eXpanium EXP103 Personal CD Player |
I bought the Expanium EXP103 after going to many websites, comparing prices and features. I have not been disappointed in my purchase.
Background:
Forget those $200+ MP3 players that only store 32MB, 64MB, or 128MB, you can fit 650 MB of MP3s on one CD, and replace them whenever you want. That's the wonderful thing about CD MP3 players. You can store around 10 hours of 128 kbps encoded songs (standard encoding) on one cd. This minimizes the amount of time you have to spend at your computer transferring songs, because once you've made a CD, all you have to do is pop it in! Of course, you do need a CD burner (lingo meaning a CD drive that can make CD's) which can cost you an additional $200 if you don't already have one!
Well, I haven't really told you anything about the EXP103 yet, just a background on why a CD MP3 player is good. The EXP103 has several things that puts it head and shoulders above the rest. What drew me to it immediately was its price. Only $200 (and Amazon had it for $170 + free shipping at the time!). Once I looked at its specs, I was even more impressed.
Good things:
Skipping
Skipping is virtually nonexistant. The specs claim to have "Magic ESP" 45 second protection on standard CDs and 100 second protection on MP3 CDs. I have had the player in a car, and I've been walking/jogging all across campus with it, and I've even dropped it from a couple of inches on accident -- not a single skip, ever.
Hold Switch
Since I carry it in my backpack a lot, some buttons are bound to be pressed. With the hold switch, I can make no buttons affect the playback of the CD.
Car Kit & AC Adapter
Great if I'm here in my dorm room listening to it, or if I'm out on the road and want to listen to my favorite tunes. The car kit is a CD headphone output to cassette tape adapter, as well as the lighter power source.
Long battery life
For 2 AA batteries, it claims to have 10 hrs life for MP3 CDs and 14 hrs life for regular CDs. I have been listening to it for at least 10 hours with MP3 CDs and I'm still using my first pair of batteries.
Weight
Nobody wants a bulky player, this thing looks almost exactly like a regular CD player, and is just as light, at only 9.6 ounces (0.6 lbs).
Extra bass
For a little more 'umph' in the music, this works great. I was very pleased with it. It didn't just make the music louder, like a lot of players with extra bass, it actually emphasized the bass in the song.
Play modes
You can listen to all your songs in order, or you can shuffle, repeat, or scan them. With around 170-180 MP3s on one CD, the ability to shuffle is very nice.
Bad things:
Headphones included
I don't know if my ears are abnormal, but the small headphones included are the ones you put right IN your ear. They were too big for my ears, and didn't stand up after a couple of weeks of pounding from being in my backpack.
Track labeling system
Ok, this is probably the most difficult thing to understand about this player. If you burn multiple directories onto your CD, each one will be labeled with a different "album" number. The display shows 2 numbers. The first is the track number, the 2nd is the album number.
For instance, I burned a CD with 5 directories, called 'techno', 'easy listening', 'pop', 'rock', and 'themes'. If I was listening to the first song in the 'themes' directory, it would display 01 05 (track 1 in album 5). If I was listening to the thirty third song in the pop directory, it would display 33 03 (track 33 in album 3).
Rewind/fast forward?
You can skip from track to track, but you can't go back or forward within a track.
What other people say:
Hard to read display?
When reading comments by other people, I ran across a lot of people saying that the display was too difficult to read. I have had absolutely no problem reading the display.
Low volume?
People have also said the volume is too low. I have not had any problem with this either. I did notice that the earphones included were louder than my large Koss headphones, but both were sufficiently loud enough to hear, even on the easy listening songs.
Skip recovery time?
I've heard from people that it takes FOREVER for the CD to recover after skipping, but since I've never had this skip, I don't know.
CD-RW incompatibilty?
The player claims to be compatible with both CDRs and CDRWs (writeables and rewriteables). I have a CDRW drive, but I have never tried a RW disc, so I wouldn't know.
Recommendation:
Even though this CD MP3 player is a great deal, you won't find much use in it if you're not an audiophile. If you only have a few songs, or only enough MP3s for one or two CDs, then it may not be worth it. However, if your hard drive is filled to the max, burn some CDs and listen to them on this! Also, the CDs are still compatible with your computer, so any time you don't feel like listening to the songs on the CD MP3 player, you can just pop the CD into your computer and go!
It would make a great gift for someone who spends 24/7 downloading songs!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 169.99
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Epinions.com ID:
fireballdw
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Member: Derek Williams
Location: Louisville, KY
Reviews written: 84
Trusted by: 18 members
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