Rating: 
Summary: PINTO Reliability
Review: I loved my Philips aka Nike ACT21017 from 1/3 until 2/27 when it died suddenly during a run. It simply stopped playing and emitted a squeling tone like an impaled hamster. It never recovered and I've no idea why it suddenly packed up. The unit was never abused, never dropped, loaded 4 playlist changes via MusicMatch without incident and then on a sunny day in Austin decided to die. I believe it died because it isn't designed and built for reliability. Let's face it many MP3's were rushed to market without a lot of thought as to long-term customer satisfaction and less regard for quality. I thought the Nike unit was worth the [money] I paid. It wasn't and I'll try the new SonicBlue model next. So long Nike. Stick to shoes and let phillips make junk with someone else's brand on it.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost perfect, but almost should not be good enought!
Review: I bought this for my wife for her to use while working out to replace my original Rio PMP300 with the legacy paralell port interface that does not work with WindowsXP :(This is ALMOST a perfect MP3/WMA player. What they got right: 1. It is extremely light, probably the lightest player me and my wife looked at. 2. Transfer speeds are very fast. 3. Headphones sound AWESOME. They have a tremendous amount of bass and complete dynamic range. It was extremely suprised by the massive sound they give out. 4. Supports lots of different bitrates so she can cram lots of stuff on there in WMA format. Even at only 48kb in WMA the music has lots of dynamic range with the supplied headphones. 5. Magnets on the remote and headphone wires are genius! What they got wrong and is silly for them to over look. 1. It should not require taking a flimsy plastic cover off to hook up the USB cable. 2. The buttons on the face are very small and VERY HARD to press, I mean they are very STIFF! The ones on the remote are not much better! 3. Did I mention the flimsy USB port / battery cover. This looks like it is going to be VERY easy to break, and it has to be manipulated every time you add or remove music to the player :( 4. Where the hell is the "shuffle" feature. What is with these people, NONE of the players we looked at had any advanced features and are over [$$$]US!!!! My PMP300 which is like 4 years old has shuffle and A/B repeat even! What good is 4 hours of music if you can't shuffle it during playback! The battery recharger is a nice to have but you can buy rechargeable batteries for any of the units.
Rating:
Summary: Junk
Review: What a piece of ... I spent almost an hour on the phone with a very helpful customer service rep trying to get this thing to work... I finally got 10 songs loaded on it and was off to the gym. The head phones are way to small the buttons are to small. The only thing good that I liked about it was the armband. This evening, I got to spend another few hours on the phone with another customer service rep. I came to the conclusion that this is a good-looking piece of garbage. I can't wait to get my money back.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: I spent almost an hour on the phone with a very helpful customer service rep trying to get this thing to work... I finally got 10 songs loaded on it and was off to the gym. The head phones are way to small the buttons are to small. The only thing good that I liked about it was the armband. This evening, I got to spend another few hours on the phone with another customer service rep. I can't wait to get my money back.
Rating:
Summary: POOOR PRODUCT & BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM PHILIPS
Review: To Preface, we purchased this through Best Buy and not Amazon.com but our experience with Philips and this product has been so horrible, we felt obligated to let other consumers know. I would have given the PSA128 ZERO stars but it isn't an option Originally, we purchased the PSA64 - and it never worked. After i downloaded songs, it wouldn't power up. I also had difficulty with the USB functionality - sometimes it would work and sometimes i would have to jiggle it around. So I called Philips to see if I was doing something wrong or if it was just a faulty device. The representative treated me like i was completely ignorant and i honestly felt like i knew more about the device and computers than he did. We returned it to Best Buy and upgraded to the PSA128. This device worked for about 25 days - and we were very satisfied with it when it worked. We had the same problems with this device - it wouldn't power up after a download and the same problems with the USB. We exchanged it for another PSA128. We weren't able to get this one to ever work. Same problems - it wouldn't power up after a download and the USB port would work sporadically. He took me through a process to reset the device several times and it would power up before a song was downloaded but never after. I called Philips and was told that i would have a Sr. Technician call me back in 24 hours - and i waited a week and never received a call or had a message stating that they called. Before i called them back, I tried the product on a different computer that uses Windows 2000 (thinking that it might have been a problem with XP) and the device didn't work. I called Philips back and after waiting on hold for 25 minutes, i was told that a Sr technician did return my call and that he also left 3 messages in my voicemail - they had the correct # and i never received a call or a VM. Initially, the Philips rep tried to tell me that it was because we were using XP and then i explained that i had tried it on Win2000 with no luck. He then tried to tell me that it was a problem with my computer's USB port and I had to explain to him that i thought the same thing and was able to xfer some files from our digital camera, using the exact same USB port with not problems. The Philips representative finally told me to go back to Best Buy and get a refund and if i wasn't able to get the refund from Best Buy, I would have to mail the unit to Philips and they would issue a refund. Best Buy wouldn't issue a refund because it had been 35 days (and not 30) since the original date of purchase. So I called Philips back and they told me that I had to do THREE exchanges with Philips in addition to the THREE exchanges we had done with Best Buy before we could be issued a refund. I continued to explain that we do not want another Philips Nike PSA 128 because it is a crappy product that doesn't work. I am waiting on a "supervisor" to call me back. This is a horrible product and it has caused us a lot of frustration. I have spent hours on hold waiting for Philips customer service that was less than helpful. We just purchased the Rio S35S Sport mp3 player - which has more features like an FM tuner and a stop watch and is upgradable to 256MB and paid LESS than the Philips piece of junk we tried to THREE times.
Rating: 
Summary: Problematic software
Review: I bought this about 2 years ago after a review from Outside magazine labeling it the best mp3 player. The design of the player is very attractive to the sports enthusiast. However, the software is very user-unfriendly. My wife bought one several months later. She returned the first one due to problems with it locking up, not reading the device, and never playing music. The second player played for a short while and then experienced the same problems. About 6 months later my player completely locked up will not show that there is any music on the player and will not play at all. I liked the player when it was working, but I think there are some serious flaws that have yet to be ironed out. If you are looking for a good MP3 player to use while exercising, I suggest looking elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty-- wish it worked with OSX
Review: I'd thought it would work with OSX at least as a mini-hard-drive you could just drag files to, but no luck. Love the appearance. Looks really well done. I ended up going with the Rio Sport S30S, which is about the same size, costs a little less, and although it has less memory, does have an upgrade slot that for about the cost of the nike one will put you at 192MB instead of the 128 from the Nike... Tossup really.
Rating:
Summary: Great idea, great package, some bugs
Review: Surprisingly, this is my first portable digital audio player. Although I am an information technology professional and lifelong digital electronics enthusiast, I have delayed purchasing a portable digital music player until they became affordable and I had a need for one. The Nike-Philips PSA 128[max is my first player. I decided on this unit because I have recently begun jogging as I train to run in my first marathon. For my long runs, I needed a player that was light, accessible, and durable. I decided I want enough memory to store several full CD's but without being as expensive as the players that store 1 or more gigs. This player fit my needs perfectly. The instruction manual leaves much to be desired, but there is more detailed instructions available on the driver CD that comes with the item and also on the Nike-Philips website. The "Musicmatch" software is limited version of a decent audio management application and allowed me to begin copying music to the player. I also found that Microsoft Media Player 9 has support for this device, but forces music copied to the player to be converted to Microsoft's WMA file type. This is okay because the PSA 128[max also plays WMA files. The headphones that come with the player are very light and very comfortable as they sit securely over the ears and behind the head. However, after my first run with these headphones, the right side driver got damaged from a little sweat. These headphones are supposed to be designed for athletes, so why did a small amount of sweat destroy them? I am very disappointed in this fact. My old Sony Sports headphones have stood up to hundreds of sweaty workouts without any problem, and they still work. Unfortunately, my Sony Sports headphones may be light, durable, and sound great, they are not as comfortable and snug fitting as the sweat-damaged Nike Philips ones. Another problem I have is when I use MS Media Player 9 to copy music to the player, the player "locks-up" at the end of each song when the files it is playing are WMA format at 128 Kbps. I have to remove the battery to "reset" the player. There is no mention of this or any firmware updates on the Nike-Phillips website. Using the included "Musicmatch" software to copy music to the player at 128 Kbps does not cause this problem. Because of this problem, I am forced to use the "Musicmatch" software instead of MS Media Player 9, although I prefer using Media Player 9. And the final problem I have is that when I connect it to my computer just like I do with any USB device, Windows XP recognizes it and assigns it a drive letter. However, after I disconnect the player, the next time I connect it, Windows XP does not recognize it. I have to reboot my computer to have Windows XP recognize it. I do not have this problem with other USB devices such as my digital camera, Pocket PC PDA, or memory card reader. And of course, no driver update is available at the Nike-Philips web site. As for positives, the audio quality is excellent. The features are simple and easy to use. The device is light and the armband position is ideal for jogging and working out. The headphones have a magnetic clip that is great for attaching the wires to the best positions on my clothing so they don't interfere with my movement. However, I don't like having these very powerful magnets near my computer desk as the magnets could erase data on storage devices around my desk. I have diskettes, media card, ZIP disks, etc. around my computer area that are sensitive to strong magnets. I have to disconnect my headset when I bring the player to my desk in order to copy music to it. This is very inconvenient. But since the headphones that came with my player don't work, I no longer have this problem (my Sony Sports headphones don't have the magnets, and as a result, their wires do get tangled when I am moving). The added rechargeable NiMh battery and charger is a good bonus, although two batteries instead of just one would be nice so that I would always have a charged battery available when the other needs to be recharged. A second rechargeable battery is recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A great idea put together by some dumb people
Review: I read the reviews to this product before I purchased mine and I thought those people complaining about the software problems and everything were just not good with technology. However, I've found that downloading the songs to the player is near impossible if you have a problem with installing the drivers. I've spent nearly an hour so far and the only real directions it gives to how to use this device are online. The product comes with a couple [weak] pictures that make the process look rather easy. If you have no problems with the installation or downloading the songs this product would be a good investment. If not you are in for a world of headaches like myself.
Rating:
Summary: Nike MP3 player (128)
Review: I love this thing!! It's really simple to use once you figure it out. That is why I am giving it only 4 stars instead of 5. The directions are really lacking for both the equipment and the software. But once you figure it out...it's a breeze. It is a great size and weight for when I'm working out and it has enough space to hold tons of music. Great product!
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