Rating: 
Summary: Great, while it lasted
Review: This player was one of the first, and I was worried (and still am) that these types of players will disappear when mp3s are not as easy to come by anymore. If you're like me though, at least half your mp3s come from CDs you own and an mp3-cd player is a perfect way to listen to your collection. This player was great for a while. It never skipped, and it still never skips. Only now that I've had it a few months it can only play from the first song (resume no longer works, very annoying) and often it won't play at all, it just says "no disc." I used it in the car and I bumped it around a little but not a lot. Now I am going to have to send it back to Philips to get it fixed. Also, the first one I bought died entirely...
Rating: 
Summary: The best one...
Review: I have serious problem when i decided to buy such pruduct. I really get confusud. There were lots of MP3 products. I also talked my other friends to dicide for the best one. I'm a drummer so i need really good sound in my songs. I tested lots of players but they are not what i want. One day one of my friend told me about expanium. I download the manuel and I collect information on the internet. I was not sure on buying before testing the product. I read some opinions from here.. The MP3 disk recognizing time is like calling someone from your cellular. I mean not too much! Quality of sound and skip protection is really important, and they were really good for me. Also it has a car kit. I can listen in my car. If you also have a RE-WR CD-ROM Driver and internet then you have heaven of the music with this product. First of all I'm not getting my best 100 album of cassette with my huge bag! I'm just getting my expanium and my best 100 album (with 14 song of each) in 10 disks (recorded 320 KHz) with my small bag.. If you are like me. Buy this product.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good player for the money
Review: I use this player at work to play MP3s, to keep the load off of my CPU. (I don't like the skips you get with WinAMP when the system is loaded.) I have this player hooked up to a Creek OBH-11 headphone amp which is driving a pair of Sennheiser HD-580 headphones. This is high-end gear, and I don't hear any flaws at all in the sound. (I don't claim to be an "audiophile", though: I think 192 Kbit/s MP3 sounds just as good as the original CD. :) ) There is no hiss, crackle, whine or hum. The player has a line out in addition to an amplified headphone out, which is nice if you want to use a headphone amp like I do. It's also useful with the cassette adapter: most cassette players don't like it when you use a cassette adapter with an amplified output. Speaking of the cassette adapter, I don't know if it's Philips' adapter or the player itself, but disks with heavy bass caused my car's speakers to crackle when played with a Sony Discman and Sony adapter combo I have, but there are no problems with the Philips combo. I suspect it's because of the proper "line level" output: the Sony may be overdriving it. This unit comes with many extras that most other [MP3] CD players don't: a cassette adapter, a car power adapter, and a "wall wart" power transformer. You only have to use the batteries when you want to use the player on the go. This unit would have earned 5 stars except for the fact that it forgets everything whenever you hit Stop: how many tracks there are on the CD, and what settings you had selected (e.g. "shuffle"). Also, it will only stay in Pause mode for about 5 seconds before turning off, even when running off of AC power. If I get up and walk away from my desk for a bit, I end up leaving it playing instead of pausing it, just so I don't have to re-scan the disk for tracks and re-enable shuffle mode. It would be nice if it would remember the number of tracks at least until you open the lid; better, it would be nice if it had a memory of, say, the last 10 disks.
Rating: 
Summary: I Expected More
Review: I purchased my Philips Expanium in March of 2001. I really expected more for my money. I was surprised of the quality of of the earphones. If I had it to do over again knowing what I have discovered, I would not buy this product. PROS: It plays audio CD's and MP3's, as it should and actually sounds good with quality earphones. CONS: The Display has very small lettering and is very difficult read. The earphones are very poor quality. The rubber cushions on the earphones are constantly falling off and are difficult to put back on. One of speakers actually split apart and no longer works. I had to spend a lot of time un-tangling knots in the wires. Different and better earphones are a must to enjoy this device.
Rating:
Summary: much better than the other two I tried
Review: Those who claim that it skips turn the skip protection on. This is the only way I could make it skip. And I had to shake it realy hard. This is the third one I bought, and I'm staying with it. The other two skiped like crazy (one was Rio, the other- I don't even remember the brand, I bought it in the computer store)even if you would gently move them an inch or so.
Rating:
Summary: EXP103
Review: I also purchased this player and promptly returned it. It was packaged nicely with a nice box, but little else appealed to me once I got the thing going. First, the player failed to play many CD-R's that would play fine on my computer. I checked to see if this might just be a problem with my writer/reader combination, however using other CD players confirmed that my EXP103 was the problem. The sound is poor. When the player did play CD's it did so with a lot of background noise with a relatively "flat" sound quality. This even occured with original audio CDs. I returned this thing and took a stab at a Rio Volt and haven't looked back. The Volt is the best damn thing I've bought since I purchased my first Sony Walkman back in 1982. Maybe Sony will do even a better job...
Rating:
Summary: Good Product, Good Sound, Works Well.
Review: It's obvious to me that those people who negatively reviewed this item did not do any research prior to making the purchase. I knew of the limitations of this item (display, seek capabilities, etc) but felt that it was what I was looking for. I have dozens of MP3 CDs and during my test period this product has played numerous tracks from those, as well as from burned CDs and normal market CDs. I am very pleased with the high quality of sound from this thing. The seek time between MP3 tracks is acceptable (about 2 seconds) and even the start time (when you load in an MP3 CD) is ok (about 10 seconds). The main reason I bought this one is because it has no BS software to play around with. You just stick the CD in and go, and it is not limited by MBs of card or on-board memory space. Also, Philips was the first company to develope CD technology - in my opinion that history of quality is continued in this product. Only three complaints: 1) the display angle IS annoying, and hard to see straight on and 2) the battery life is somewhat wimpy, especially in playing MP3 CDs. Use the AC adapter when possible. Lastly 3), the unit itself is somewhat squarish and ugly. More style next time, please. (PS: I think that one of the problems that people are having with this player is that they are not ripping MP3s with with clean file names and are burning CDs with multiple folders. These factors can create a huge problem for the player, slowing it down.)
Rating:
Summary: Phillips EXP 103 MP3 CD Decent At Best
Review: The unit plays well. My complaints are that the one line display is very hard to read, even when holding it close. Next is the resume mode does resume where it left off when last played for regular CD's but has no idea where to start when playing MP3's. My biggest complaint is that it does not display the MP3 album title, just AL01, AL02, etc. nor does it display the MP3 song titles, just 1, 2, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Whats the point??
Review: Bought it. Returned it. Pros: -It reads mp3's -It comes with a reciept. Cons: -Overpriced -Other models have way more options at almost 1/2 the price -skips -doesnt read folders names or songs -bugs galore, turn off it doesnt return to the same song, its sometimes skips 3-4 songs ahead. -sound is poor, and very low. I plugged it into my stereo, had to turn my stereo up full volume just to hear it..and it STILL was low! DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY! Buy the Memorex mp3 player, its everything this should of been, but isn't.
Rating:
Summary: Not perfect, but getting close.
Review: There are smaller MP3 players out there, but they use different memory cards that are limited in capacity and very expensive. With a CD/MP3 player, you really can get 10 hours of music on a single 50 cent CD. This one comes with a car adapter and an AC converter. All you need to add are your own (rechargable) batteries. It doesn't skip and the sound quality is very good. There are a few problems that keep me from rating this at 5 stars. 1. The sound volume is poor. I took this on an airplane, and could not hear it at all. I probably can go out and get better ear phones that will solve this problem, but it should come with decent ear phones. 2. The display. I don't usually want to look at the display to see the name of the song, but it would be nice to have that option. 3. I choose this player for the "resume" function. Unfortunately, it doesn't work when playing in "shuffle" mode. So if you like to hear your songs played randomly, you have to start over each time. With so many songs on a single CD, this isn't a huge problem, but it still would be an easy thing for the company to fix. 4. It does take a very long time to start up. I'm out the driveway and halfway down the block before the music starts playing.
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