Rating: 
Summary: Nice system, yet too many minor flaws
Review:
I honestly think this system looks visually better then the iPod. As a matter of fact, this system uses a 2 color LCD screen. It is exactly like a game gear system screen or a small portable hand held TV screen except the actual Philip's hardware on this unit only permits 2 colors. However the iPod is only a regular Dot Matrix screen with the regular green back light screen (kinda like your watch.)
With that aside what irritates me the most is the freakin' software provided. You can't drag and drop files on to you unit. You have to use this slow program provided and ONLY this program. Perhaps most of your mp3 selection you cant use because philips created a thing that prevents you from downloading certain audio files that have been encrypted on the unit (something to do with Digital Rights Managament). Of course, this should not be much of Philip's concern if they want to stay in the audio business unless hassled by the government.
Also one would think if you have a 20gig HD on your jukebox with a nice quality screen, that I'm sure they could reserve a couple MB for games and programs. Think about it, perhaps a calculator, calender, about 2 dozen games (ya know, tetris, solitaire, frogger)and perhaps a screen saver - several of them - for viewing pleasure while sitting on that chair of yours. OK, now I'm just pushing it, since a lot of companies leave out just the simple essentials - the simple CHEAP essentials - that could give them better leverages over the competition.
Any who, the unit's own software is uncomfortably slow. It was a cool design to add animated menus and so forth, but if they move 2 frames per second, then what is the use. The fast forward doesn't fast forward really, it merely seems to distort the audio while it is moving 1/2 a second faster. But perhaps I'm picky, but, It would have been nice to separate the Play/Pause button from the Power button. How do you pause without powering off, or at least stop taking off certain needed buttons for aesthetic reasons.
But other then that, this is a fine piece of machinery.
O yeah, why do they always package the rather expensive audio players with cheap crappy headphones?
Rating: 
Summary: Impressive unknown MP3 jukebox
Review: After much thought between getting the Philips or the IPOD, I went with the Philips and have been very impressed. Once the new firmware is upgraded, the player is virtually problem free. The only fault of this product is Philips obviously does not know how to market this product very well. It is unheard of by many and not in many stores. It would have been new to have come with a belt-case like that of the IPOD instead of a bag. I would have also liked to have some type of song rating built into the player. The menu animation affects are unneeded. If I wanted just a player, the IPOD would have been slightly better (I want the wheel), but if you want to record also, this is the way to go. Up to 192 kbps MP3 line in/optical in/ mic recording, can't go wrong. The only major problem I had, was I can not figure out how to quickly fastforward into a song yet, if its possible.
Rating: 
Summary: Crash! Crash! Crash!
Review: Bought it about 6 months ago. Conclusion? fabulous device ruined by appalling software and support. Particularly like the line-in recording to MP3. But the PC software is a disgrace and digital rights protection means you can't drag and drop MP3's to your player. So using the Philips software is not optional (there's no other way to load mp3's) and it crashes... often. I tried updating the firmware; and now windows closes down the software every try to upload music. I have emailed Philips customer support (in detail) and despite the promise of a 24 hour response I have had only an automated acknowledgement and no solution 3 days later. Such a pity! Incidentally changing the headphones dramatically enhances sound quality.
Rating: 
Summary: terrible software ruins a great player
Review: Hmmm... beautiful player, very Philips... but one big problem.
Misguided digital rights managment means you can only play tracks uploaded through the supplied DMM software. It is appalling. Slow, prone to glitches and clumsy, the software makes uploading files tiresome and time consuming. You wait, you hope and sometimes it works. To add insult to injury, the software stops you freely moving tracks from your player to another computer and fiddles with track orders if you don't have ID tagging; a big problem with audio books which I have yet to resolve. Downloading firmware/PC software updates is not very intuitive and can improve the function or crash the system. One particular download locked the player and corrupted the music files on the PC. Very exciting and an opportunity to try out my extensive vocablary of swearwords.
The player itself is a quality product once the music is downloaded. Occasional lock-ups can be cured with a soft reset and the rest of the time it is a joy. I particularly like the in-line recording straight to mp3 and the sleep timer. Output volume is too low, but after market earphones help this and the sound quality.
Overall perhaps one star is a bit harsh. But the painful truth is that Philips have created a beautiful ipod competitor with more features and real quality of construction ... and then flushed it all down the toilet with misguided DRM and amateurish software. Oh yes, don't bother asking Philips for help either. After my aforementioned software disaster they didn't reply to my detailed questions by email; except to send me later a customer service questionnaire asking about the quality of their reply. Oops.
Rating:
Summary: Time, Thought and Tune Nightmare
Review: I bought this product to be able to meander through New York city streets in aural splendor. When this hunk of gunk reached my door, I chose to ignore that its program discs came empty. No biggie, I could download the requisite files from Phillip' web site. If only I had hailed to the harbinger of defective design I could have averted the crises that followed on my trip to New York. All I could get out of this machine on the road was five to six songs played, before its monitor and play froze. If only the machine remained cool it wouldn't have been such a big deal. Unfortunately, when the machine freezes there is no reset button. It just leaves the LCD display on and gets hotter and hotter until the battery runs out. Not only does the machine not play more than a few songs before freezing, it doesn't let you manipulate the songs as it should. I couldn't figure out how the adjust the equalizer settings. Finally, the buttons on the machine are so hard to press. It looks nice, kinda, its a good price, kinda, but if doesn't work, why would you get this? Now that the Ipod has record components as plug ins, don't waste your time. Peace, armen.
Rating:
Summary: Review of a review
Review: I Have the HD100 and please to not listen to the reviewer who states there is no reset button. If they had taken the time to read the instructions they would know which keys need to be pressed to reset. Also the buttons are not at all hard to press i have no idea what this reviewer is talking about. its only fault is that it should have had an AM/FM radio.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent gadget, great looks, smooth display
Review: I have to admit, the DMM software it came with is clumsy and slow, but it never froze on me. I am also using the Sveta Portable software which you can dowload from here: http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t= 4628
This program allows you to do drag and drop in both directions and organize the player's playlists and songs.
The sound is great, (remember, junk in - junk out, so bad rips will sound bad as in any other player), it's small, light, great looking and sooo easy to use. I am impressed and really surprised about what other people wrote here.
Rating:
Summary: Dont be misguided by the bad review!
Review: I just purchased this player the other day...the look caught my eye and I just had to have it. So I bought it and took it home and then everything worked out. The player did freeze up every few songs so I looked in the manual for a while. It turns out that this player doesnt support any secure WMAs, so that addresses the problem that guy had of the player freezing. Other then that, this player has been great! The design is pretty good and the software is easy to use. Just dont load in any secure WMAs. Btw...there is a reset button...hold the volume up, up, and left buttons for 4 seconds...
Rating:
Summary: BAD
Review: I Purchased this in order to listen to my music....(of course its an mp3 player) the sound quality was bad u didnt have enough options there was no stop button (to my knowledge) and it was a pain. heres the really bad part. Normaly u can rip music from cd's and send them to well mp3 player with this you cant i called philips and asked them for help and they did they simply said with this philips model you have to download seprate software.....i was like what?! i spend good money on this product and i want the same i shouldnt have to download seprate software for this to do what i want.i personaly had a 20gb model but itsprobally as bad as this model here anyways i wouldnt recommend this mp3 jukebox to anyone .
Rating: 
Summary: Not too bad after upgrade
Review: I'm in the UK, but the the same things apply. When I got my HDD100, it kept locking up, requiring a reset. However, on the Philips site (www.philips.co.uk) you can get version 6.6 of the firmware, and version 2.0 of the Pc music manager. Since I did this, the machine hasn't locked up once. The music manager software is pretty poor unfortunately, it works OK, but take ages to start up (3 to 5 minutes), however, once running its a simple drag and drop operation. Battery life is acceptable (but still way off my old MD players), though I imagine newer machines will improve on this. All in all, not bad value for the money...just make sure you upgrade the firmware.
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