Rating: 
Summary: Not QUITE there yet but darn close...close enough for me!
Review: I'd heard about this breed of device but it seemed to bevaporwave until I came upon one at another store while pouring over yet another display of MP3 players. I just couldn't QUITE bring myself to buy any of the current MP3 players out there, especially at the cost of the data cards..price those before you buy a dedicated MP3 player! Well, a WONDERFUL young salesperson at this store saw me looking things over and picked up the ONLY EXP103 they had left and said, "THIS thing is great..give it a look-see." No hard sell. It wasn't needed! THIS was what I'd been looking for! I bought it and I LOVE it. The two guys at that store, who both had one, said they couldn't keep them in stock and have people calling daily for them.So far the downside is the awful display. Just awful and lacks the track info you'd like to have. I haven't had it long enough to comment on the controls but so far they seem pretty intuitive for me to use. I'm not worried about battery life, my Power Plant battery from my regular portable CD player works fine with it. Yes, the ear buds aren't so good and I've replaced them with my favorite portable headphones. All in all, I'm pleased and would recommend it to anyone who doesn't want to spent a lot for a 64MB data card of whatever variety for one hour of music. UGH. Besides, my favorite CDs AND my favorite MP3 mixes can go with me all in one case. --Ruthie
Rating: 
Summary: Expanium Anyone?
Review: I bought the philips Expanium and have had no problems with it. ID-3 tag is not supported but when im driving down the road i should be looking at the road and not the cd player so id-3 tag support is not important to me. Anyone with a cd burner looking for a way to play and store there mp3s this is the way to go.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent product for the road
Review: Like many music lovers, my "essential" CD collection runs anywhere from 50-150 CDs. These are the CDs I like to listen to frequently. I've been a huge MP3 user for a couple of years and have been quite happy with the portable MP3 players out there. However, I was really unable to take the power of MP3 with me on my travels. The ability to turn 50 audio CDs into 5 MP3 CDs has made a recent trip a pleasure. The sound quality of the Expanium is really fantastic, much better than the portable MP3 players. It supports CBR of 32 - 320 Kbps as well as Variable Bitrate Recording, which was a welcome surprise, since that's what I use. I've found the audio quality rivals audio CDs. The battery life is pretty good but not stellar. I also use NiMH batteries, so mine probably fade a little sooner than alkaline batteries. The glaring omission from the unit, though, is a lack of ID3 support for artist and song title. The controls are straight off a CD player and not an MP3 player, and it shows. It's difficult to move quickly through songs in an album without moving to the next album. I consistently hit the program and mode buttons instead of the next and previous. The anti-shock protection cannot be disabled for MP3 files, which makes since considering the files are already highly compressed. The result of this is an almost shockproof MP3 player. True, it's not solid state like a portable MP3 player, so it can skip, but so far it hasn't. In the future, I'll make sure to bring a "legend" of the songs and albums in alphabetical order, the "sequential" order of the player. Given the size and weight of the device, it's not going to replace my portable MP3 player, but it is going to replace my portable CD player.
Rating:
Summary: Crazy Mad! Better get it!
Review: This is going to revolutionize the way people listen to music. I have had the player for about a day now and I think it is crazy! I feel as though it is so good, that in about a year or two, it will become standard such as DVD Players will. Here are some things I would like to clear up: · The ear buds are not as bad as other reviewers put it. As a matter a fact, they are not bad at all! But I prefer using the new Sony MDR-G59G headphones. These are great but the ear buds will suit just fine. · The car adapter is not bad either. I find it really great how you can turn up the bass in your car and have the DBB on the Expanium turned on! Great bass boost! Do not listen to other reviewers, the car adapter works just fine! · Yes, it does have 100 second skip protection @ 128 Kbps! The minimum protection is 45 second, which is still not bad and will still assure you that the CD will not skip. · I'm sure if you are going to buy this you are thinking, "Well, going through all those tracks must be a pain!". Speak no more! Hold in the next track or previous track buttons will skip through tracks in second! This does mean, however, that there is no skipping through a song (Such as skipping to 2 minutes and 10 seconds into a song, meaning you must listen to a whole song if you want to get to a certain part in it). · If you put Mp3s in subdirectories, you can travel to each directory by holding in the next track or previous track buttons. This means you can not fast scroll through songs in seperate subdirectories. · One thing I must agree on which the other reviewers have said is that the LCD display is horrible during the night! Make sure you have some light with you because the display doesn't light up at all. It is just a simple LCD display which is unfortunate for such a hi-tech machine! Well, that about sums it up. Personally, I would encourage all people who are interested in purchasing this item to buy it. I found when I bought it, that it was exactly how I imagined it. I'm sure it will be like that for you too! - BgM
Rating: 
Summary: Cannot expect much - 1st generation product
Review: Just bought it a month ago. My original intention was to - To carry along while I'm doing my walking exercise in the morning. - Listen to my collection while commuting to my office (It comes with a car kit) - Use it while I'm working. Pros: 1) Would read double-byte character filenames (and folders) Now this is big plus for me, or for anyone that use it to listen to Japaness, Chinese or Korean music. 2) Read 700MB CDR (I've bought a lot of them..) 3) Sound quality is great Cons: 1) The resume function doesn't live up to what it means. In shuffer mode when you pause the player for longer enough that it automatically turns off, it cannot resume to the last song that you listen to when you turn it back on. Now you have to press "play" -> "mode" to go back to shuffle mode, and if a repeated song is played and you don't want to listen to again, you'll have to press ">>" to skip. Since it is very rare that you would finish from song 1 to song 170 in any particular situation, this is quite annoying. I've to reset the playlist several times a day. 2) No cache for the file list. Everytime it stops long enough and you hit "play", you'll have to wait for 15 seconds for it to "re-dir" the whole cd. 3) It sometimes skips while I'm carrying it during my morning walking session. Maybe it's only a problem of my unit, I'm not quite sure. (I'm not jogging or running) 4) It can read CDRW media, but sometimes it fails (as for the majority of CD/DVD readers out there) I guess we'll have to wait for the 2nd generation MP3-CD Player for enhancement like support for ID3 Tag and more sophociated playlist.
Rating:
Summary: Nice but buggy.
Review: I just got the player today. I think it is a really nice MP3 player for the cost. The bugs that I noticed today: 1. If you have burnt a CD with both audio tracks and data files (mp3), the player will treat the CD as an audio cd, and will not be able to read the mp3 tracks. 2. Playback from data CD will depend on the quality of the CDR. Many CDRs that played well with my computer does not play and behave well with the player. I would still go for this player compared to the other mp3 players which use ROMs to store music. The main advantage being more music and cheaper media - CDRs and CDRWs. Shibu.
Rating:
Summary: Finally !!!!!!
Review: Finally an answer for us mp3 players cheap...... damn useful plays mp3 cds...... which by itself has alot of songs on it makes any mp3 player on the market outdated and this is the leading brand in this market!!!! wow wow wow.... and i thought it would cost much more for a product like this!
Rating:
Summary: Expanium vs MP Trip
Review: I bought the Trip and was very disappointed.....checked out the web page on how to correct faults, it almost needs redesigning. The Expanium is great, batteries are going on forever, works well in the car....I never noticed any hiss. Only complaint so far, could be louder, and I hate those in-ear phones.
Rating:
Summary: Not vaporware like all the rest
Review: You still waiting for your pine mp3 player with id-3 tags ?..hmm if that's not Cain's brother as in the mambox in the flesh fiasco then I don't know what is. Oh waiting for Santa to bring you that RCA player ...? Just get the expanium you won't be sorry. Well Philips is the only brand name that delivered on their promised date August 20th, 2000. That's when I bought mine. .... How I use it: right beside my computer plugged into the AC adaptor and plugged into my computer speakers. Hit play, wait 45 seconds, hit MODE button once for shuffle and play away. If I don't wish to hear a paticular song I just hit the >>> next button. Easy to hook into your existing stereo system. Just purchase a ... adapter RCA (white & red jacks) into 1/8" stereo jack. Pros-- it's played every mp3 I've thrown at it.. I have 15 mp3 cd's and it's great. The only test I have left for it is whether or not it'll play 32Kbps (minimum bitrate) at 22Khz or if it requires 44Khz...not sure yet. --Comes with car cassette adapter, AC adapter, and headphones. --Quality of sounds excellent to me. Now I ain't no pedophile or is it audiophile but for the average human it's great. --Cons (I'm going to list a few but don't think I'm NOT impressed with it..I love it..just letting you know so you won't say "Geez no one told me it couldn't do such and such") --LCD display has no backlight...well don't complain cuz your getting 8-10 hours from two AA batteries. --No filename or ID-3 tag display (can you say battery life?) --Takes 45 seconds to start playing a 150 song mp3 cd. (it has to read the track info and sort it alphabetically) --Changing to shuffle mode it skips to the next song immediately. --3 to 4 seconds when changing songs (big deal) bottomline: It's the best one currently available on the market right now. eXpanium Album List Prints out a listing of your mp3 cd with album# and track# exactly how the expanium mp3 cd player does. look for it sorry I can't provide the URL for it ...
Rating:
Summary: try try again
Review: The best is yet to come in this arena, from any brand, but for now the best (and the best buy) is the MPTrip. Definitely check it out before buying this if performance (rather than brand name and appearance) is your concern.
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