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Summary: This cd-player is fantastic!
Review: I read about it on philips home page. It seems wonderful! I'll buy it soon!
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Summary: This is GREAT!
Review: Over all I think this pruduct is wonderful! I can take songs of the internet or rip songs of my cds and burn them onto a cd or cd-rw. I love not having to burn cd day after day and with this I can just burn the songs once and have plenty of music to listen too (10 HOURS!). The anti- shock is GREAT and it never seems to skip, not even if i bang it around. When I am playing my mp3's it never skips because of the almost 100 seconds of protection when playing mp3s. I greatly think that this product is the right thing if u love music.
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Summary: 4 YEARS LATER and it still works like a charm!
Review: When I first bought this product, it was a brand new concept on the market - burn your MP3s onto CDs and play them wherever you went!
This product has stayed with me through extreme winters, summers, rain, humidity. It's practically lived in my car for the last 4 years and it works like a CHAMP.
I am so impressed with this, that I came back to amazon to review it. BUY IT!
Rating: 
Summary: Long-term update
Review: Now that I've had my eXpanium 103 for over a year and a half, I would like to update my previous review and summarize my long-term experience with it. As I've already stated, its skip protection in MP3 playback mode is nothing less than phenomenal. Even after all this time, when my eXpanium has seen heavy service and has largely replaced FM radio in my mobile listening habits, I STILL have not been able to make it skip in MP3 mode! However, it has not been entirely smooth sailing - I have encountered a few other minor problems, but they are generally rare.On a few occasions, the eXpanium has locked up and refused to play certain MP3 tracks. When this happens, the <</>> buttons often fail to work as well. This usually requires turning off the unit to clear the problem and, in some cases, making sure it doesn't try to play that particular track again. I had one disc from which the eXpanium never would play one certain track at all - maybe the disc had a minor defect there, or maybe there was something about the MP3 itself that the eXpanium didn't like, but it just never wanted to play that one track. Again, though, these lockups are rare - the eXpanium usually plows happily through MP3 discs for hours at a time. Since I use mine almost exclusively for MP3 playback, I have little experience with standard audio discs, but it has performed beautifully with the few I've tried. I haven't tried using it to play a standard audio CD while I'm on the road, so I can't say whether its skip protection there is as good as it is in MP3 playback mode. Other reviewers have mentioned that the output of the headphone jack is weak, and I have to agree. Even with a proper set of headphones, as opposed to the included "ear buds," it still just doesn't put out much even at maximum volume. I wouldn't recommend it for personal listening in noisy environments. However, I generally use my eXpanium in the car, with the included cassette adapter, and the output level from the "Line Out" jack is perfectly adequate for that. The "resume" feature usually works well - note that, in MP3 mode, "resume" simply restarts the most recently played MP3 track from the beginning - but I've noticed that it sometimes resumes the wrong track. This MIGHT be due to the fact that I tend to run it from the car DC adapter and seldom have batteries installed in it, but the eXpanium seems to have a non-volatile memory to keep track of its "resume" location, as unplugging it from the car [even without batteries] usually does not make it forget which track was last played. Sometimes, though, it just forgets where it was. The DC power adapter in the car kit seems to be somewhat poorly designed and does not correctly fit my car's lighter socket, nor does it fit well in a friend's car or in the accessory power socket I installed in my car. The adapter seems to be just a bit oversized, making it a very tight fit indeed. As a result, its connectors were soon damaged, and the adapter could not be inserted, so I bought a universal DC adapter from Radio Shack for use with this unit. That works just fine - at least it fits into my power socket! The display IS strictly bare-bones and does not display any ID3 tag data, but as I have stated in my earlier review, I already knew about the display before I bought mine, and I bought it anyway, on the strength of the reviews about its skip protection. Keep in mind, though, that the eXpanium 103 IS a first-generation model! Philips has broadened its eXpanium line, and newer models do have more informative displays - including ID3 tag support - and a wider array of features. If price is a factor, and you don't mind putting up with a completely basic display and sacrificing some features found in newer players, then the eXpanium 103 is a very good choice. If you don't mind paying more for a newer and more advanced player, then by all means, buy one of the newer models in the eXpanium line. To paraphrase an old advertising slogan... Hasn't skipped yet!
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Summary: Look at the price.
Review: I bought my EXP103 last January. In the past 8 months this unit has seen some heavy use. Four times a week I use it at the gym and also in my pickup truck. This unit does not skip, is easy on batteries and for the price any short comings are easy to overlook. Consider - MP3/CD Player, Power adaptor, car cassette converter for this price. If you don't need the ID tags this is a deal.
One down note: The earbuds are not that great, I replaced them with a set of inexpensive wraparound headphones and am now pleased with the sound quality.
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Summary: Philips EXP103 eXpanium
Review: I just wanted to add my comments to the many others on this CD-mp3 player from Philips, many of which I found helpful before my purchase. I have found the Philips EXP 103 to be a reliable, solid player with a few drawbacks which I am willing to overlook at the present price point (...). I have the EXP 103 model that comes with the wall outlet 4.5 v transformer and car kit, which makes it a good value. It does have the problems in that it lacks the "tag" reading ability so the songs are identified only by their number on the disc (in AIFF), or by their folder ("AL" for album) and number (in mp3). The display is indeed really tiny and lacking backlighting, especially for knowing which mode you're using (repeat, shuffle, etc.). And you can't fast forward through a tune in mp3, though you can in AIFF (audio CD) as you would with a typical CD player. Others have mentioned this, which I am willing to overlook for the price and accessories. On the PLUS side, it has a great sound when played through the home and car systems. It handles typical jostling well (no skipping) at home and in the car with the buffering off, though I have not yet used it during jogging, walking, etc., with or without buffering. The earphones are loud enough for me though Philips may have upgraded the amplifier or found more efficient earphones since the original complaints. I am able to burn mp3 CD's using Toast Lite on a Mac as long as the .mp3 suffix is used. I have not had luck with session writing. Only the last session is recognized, but this may be an artifact of my system and software since the manual suggests that a Windows machine can add songs in separate sessions. (**Please note that the packaging materials say CD Creator is NOT compatible with this player.**) On my Mac (OS 8.6) and software I must burn all my mp3 songs and folders at once. No big deal, to me. BTW, the player does not recognize the number in the name of different songs but plays them back in the order they were burned. So you may have to number them to get the burner software to burn your songs in a given order, but the player simply plays them back in the order they were burned, within each folder. It also does not matter what the folders are named or numbered but you probably should not place folders within folders but keep all folders at the first level on the disc. That's enough for now. I hope other buyers find this info useful. Overall, I find this first generation CD-mp3 player to be a good value, worthy at this time of 5 stars. Dan
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