Rating: 
Summary: MP3's stopped working :(
Review: I got the EXP503 to replace my bothersome MPTrip player. So far, I couldn't be happier. A display that actually tells you the artist who plays that song #149 that you didn't know you liked so much. A resume feature that will pick up where you left off yesterday (caveat: batteries or power source must be connected for resume to function). Plenty of buffer storage. I ran 3 miles with it this morning with nary a skip.Bonus points for some rocking in-ear headphones that have some new BASS technology. Batteries are NOT included contrary to product description. I'm using NiMH rechargeables. The included car kit works as expected. Thanks Philips!! Update in Feb. 2002: The MP3s stopped working. Music cd's still play but the mp3 discs just sit there. So I've returned the player to Phillips for warranty replacement. Currently awaiting the new one. Rating dropped to 4 stars. Got the replacement model from Philips after a couple of weeks. So far so good.
Rating: 
Summary: LOVE IT
Review: I had purchased 2 Philips CD players a little less than 2 years ago and for the wear and tear that my boyfriend and I put them through they lasted & we really got our money's worth. I didn't have any kind of worries in buying another Philips product, however I was leery of the MP3 player part. Prior to my last CD player purchases I had bought an MP3/CD player combo that just was awful built by memorex. The sound quality was poor, and the CD player was laggy to get it going when you first switched the mode from MP3 to CD, so I wasn't sure I was going to like this model, but seeing as though it was from Philips and I had good luck with them in the past I figured I'd give it a try. I purchased the product and immediately was pleased with it because it had many of the same features that my elder Philips CD player had such as the anti-skip, the belt clip, the buttons were all in about the same place, bass & double bass modes etc. As time has gone on I have had my player for a little over a month and I'm very pleased. I have told all of my friends and family about this marvelously pleasing purchase and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for this type of audio entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: LOVE IT
Review: I had purchased 2 Philips CD players a little less than 2 years ago and for the wear and tear that my boyfriend and I put them through they lasted & we really got our money's worth. I didn't have any kind of worries in buying another Philips product, however I was leery of the MP3 player part. Prior to my last CD player purchases I had bought an MP3/CD player combo that just was awful built by memorex. The sound quality was poor, and the CD player was laggy to get it going when you first switched the mode from MP3 to CD, so I wasn't sure I was going to like this model, but seeing as though it was from Philips and I had good luck with them in the past I figured I'd give it a try. I purchased the product and immediately was pleased with it because it had many of the same features that my elder Philips CD player had such as the anti-skip, the belt clip, the buttons were all in about the same place, bass & double bass modes etc. As time has gone on I have had my player for a little over a month and I'm very pleased. I have told all of my friends and family about this marvelously pleasing purchase and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for this type of audio entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: LOVE IT
Review: I had purchased 2 Philips CD players a little less than 2 years ago and for the wear and tear that my boyfriend and I put them through they lasted & we really got our money's worth. I didn't have any kind of worries in buying another Philips product, however I was leery of the MP3 player part. Prior to my last CD player purchases I had bought an MP3/CD player combo that just was awful built by memorex. The sound quality was poor, and the CD player was laggy to get it going when you first switched the mode from MP3 to CD, so I wasn't sure I was going to like this model, but seeing as though it was from Philips and I had good luck with them in the past I figured I'd give it a try. I purchased the product and immediately was pleased with it because it had many of the same features that my elder Philips CD player had such as the anti-skip, the belt clip, the buttons were all in about the same place, bass & double bass modes etc. As time has gone on I have had my player for a little over a month and I'm very pleased. I have told all of my friends and family about this marvelously pleasing purchase and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for this type of audio entertainment.
Rating:
Summary: Very good unit
Review: I have been using my EXP503 for a couple of weeks, and am very pleased with it. My observations: * The unit is thin (a little over an inch) and light, unlike most of the MP3 units I've looked at. * I have had no problem with the "Resume" function on MP3 files; however, if the unit "goes dark" the "Shuffle" indicator doesn't come back when you start it up again. It seems to lose the Shuffle setting. If you hit "Start" and then immediately press the Mode button to choose Shuffle, the unit changes the mode but then does not start. Just press "Start" again, and you'll resume where you left off. * The unit does recognize ID3 tags, but only some kinds. The files I got from mp3... work with the "Artist+Title" function, but the files I have converted with MusicMatch do not. Maybe it recognizes ID3v1, but not ID3v2. I haven't been able to get to Philips' web site ...to find out. * I haven't found software to create AAC files yet. MusicMatch is supposed to have a deal to add it, but I can't find anything on it on their web site. * The "fast-forward-within-track" also works on MP3s, but it doesn't seem to speed up; it runs at about 6x normal speed. ADDENDUM: ID3 tags seem to work on my unit now, but with an amusing bug. The tail end of the tag does not fill the remainder with spaces; the old characters stay. So right now I am listening to General Public's song "Tenderness", but the artist tag is "GENERAL PUBLIC ND", and the title is "TENDERNESS 90, GO OU" (the last song played was "C30, C60, C90, GO", and there must have been an earlier song with "OU" at the end.) Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" is now "KAJAGOOGOO LIC ND" and "TOO SHY SS 90, GO OU". Not a big deal to me, though.
Rating:
Summary: You have got to buy this now!
Review: I was looking for a CD-MP3 player to sugest some family members buy fo me. I was pretty much set on asking my parents to get me the Rio Volt or the Soul player but I came across this one in a local store; I had to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming. I'm a big Phillips fan an they make great stuff, this is no exeption! (I'm not sure if this is the exact same model of mine ,I have a eXp501 so I'm sorry if this isn't acurate but it cnt be far off) The ID3 tag suport is a must have for CD-MP3 players and this has a crystal clear screen, with the awsome feature of a backlight. It charges its own batteries (perfect if you listen to your CDs everyday and run through bateries) The remote is small and has a clip that is yet to slip on me, If you are looking for a CD player for a tech savy person this is the perfect one. If you are looking for an even moderatly tech savy person buy it. Its only drawback is the manual's section on burrning MP3 CDs may be unclear to some people.
Rating:
Summary: The Best!!
Review: I'm from Turkey and I always wanted a discman which plays both mp3 and audio cds.Finally I saw this amazing machine in amazon.com,wanted a friend of mine in US to order for me.He was able to bring it the previous week and delievered it to me yesterday.It's really superior!Quite bigger than the latest discmans,Expanium is very light and has an excellent quality of sound and also it's cheap.If you are looking for something like this don't hesitate to buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Great MP3 player
Review: I'm happy user of EXP503 since three days, and I consider it as a very good player. Of course there are some areas, where Philips could do better, but "overall performance" is very well:). The major complain: earphones which come with player are very very low quality as for such good player! Believe me, using them you wouldn't hear any difference between very high quality sound produced by Expanium and something like $[money]personal cassette player. Trebles are awful! So prepare next 30$ for good headphones or stay with unsatisfactory sound... Many people complained about bad ID3 tag implementation. I'm not sure about it, maybe my unit is using newer firmware or what, but everything seems to be okay [there are some exceptions - eg sometimes filename is cut to about 40 chars, but there are no tricky numbers after song title]. Cassete car adapter - good idea, works well. It's useful during long car trips. DBB - PERFECT!!! IMHO sound produced by SBLIVE is worse. I liked it very much:). ESP - works very well. Oh, btw, I have turned off ESP to check unit's behaviour, and I was very surprised to hear good sound, without any skpis during quite fast walk. It looks like, turning esp off doesn't turn off all of the buffers which player uses to stop skips. Probably it still has something like 10s anti-skip protection - good idea too. Display: looks nice, especially at night, but why does it look like mirror? In some situations it makes LCD quite unreadable. Philips should work on it, cause it seems to be easy to eliminate. Battery life - very good! My last player was TDK MOJO, where battery life is serious problem (during normal use, set of 2xPanasonic rechargable batteries 1500mAh gave 3~5h of music). Philips works three-four times longer :). Size & weight of the unit is also acceptable. I give EXP 503/17 4,5 of 5 stars. I'm glad I bought it, it's worth it's price.
Rating:
Summary: Philips Does it again
Review: I've always liked the idea of an Mp3-CD player. I first bought one around 3 years ago back when the only modles were cheap no name brands, they played alright and were very durable but that was all to them. Then the market opened up and I bought a new Rio Volt... which broke the first two weeks I owned it. This verion made by Philips is much better then anything I've seen. The controls are easy to deal with, centering around a very nicely placed back-lit window that tells you the name of the tag of the song your playing (The real difference between this and the 300 modles). Another great feacher is the ablity to skip between folders in the CD, something I havn't seen in any player before the Expaniums. Before I played with Mp3-CD players I bought Philips CD diskmans and now that they have made a player that is up to snuff I finally don't have to resort to cheap noname player (or even worse, there more expensive cousins **Don't buy a Rio Volt**). This is a true Mp3-CD player, the difference is comparable to the first clunky diskmans for the early 90's to the sleek ones we have now. Thank you Philips.
Rating:
Summary: is this true?
Review: IS THIS TRUE??????????????????? about what that one guy said? "ADDENDUM: ID3 tags seem to work on my unit now, but with an amusing bug. The tail end of the tag does not fill the remainder with spaces; the old characters stay. So right now I am listening to General Public's song "Tenderness", but the artist tag is "GENERAL PUBLIC ND", and the title is "TENDERNESS 90, GO OU" (the last song played was "C30, C60, C90, GO", and there must have been an earlier song with "OU" at the end.) Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" is now "KAJAGOOGOO LIC ND" and "TOO SHY SS 90, GO OU"."
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