Philips Expanium EXP103 Personal CD Player
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Expanuim Great, but not for me
Pros
reads CD-RWs. Reads MP3s
Cons
large, slow between tracks
Recommended it?
Yes
I bought the Expanium basically because I wanted more music with me on the go. I had an MP3 player, but it's memory is too minimal so I decided to try a name brand MP3 CD Player. The Philips is the only current one out there, and it's only for sale at Circuit City and Amazon.com.
I also bought one of those no-name MP3 CD players a while back (well not no-name, it was the MPTrip) and that had too small of a battery life for me.
The Expanium's battery life is longer than that of my older one, however I do not think that it lasted the full 10 hours that the box boasted. (More like 8 or 9). It plays CD-RWs just like it should, and the MP3 CDs did in fact work with good quality. However, I did experience some problems on a few tracks, however I think that they were just bad files and not a problem with the Expanium. The MPTrip had similar problems with a few files, so I don't think it's a problem with the player, just something to consider. Another plus of this player was the switches for DDB, ESP, and Hold were all together on the side. I found that the placement of these buttons was better than usual.
Now for the complaints. The Expanium takes about 2-5 seconds between tracks (at least on MP3 CD's), which doesn't seem long but seems like an eternity when in use (for myself anyway). Also, the method of track selection isn't as good as I expected. On MP3 CDs, you can't fast foward on a track. You can only zoom through the songs, which do not have ID3 tags, only track and album tags. Another thing is that the player seems to be larger than it has to be, and it difficult to fit into a pocket (it does fit, but not easily). And the random feature works, however I would have liked a way to have shuffle work just within an album, not the entire CD. I know that's pretty picky, but any MP3 CD player that did that would catch my attention.
Overall, the Expanium is not a bad player, it's just not what I was looking for. It has between 40 and 200 seconds of ESP (depends on if you listen to CDs or MP3s at various bitrates)which is nothing to complain about. If you have $200 dollars to spend and want a name brand MP3 CD player then go for it, but if you are strapped for cash I don't think the difference between this and the MPTrip are so great that there has to be $80 price difference. MP3 CD players are still in infancy, so this one if really the first of it's type. Soon there will probably be better ones out there that are smaller and come with better features, but if you just can't wait another second and have the money, then I would recommend it.
I also bought one of those no-name MP3 CD players a while back (well not no-name, it was the MPTrip) and that had too small of a battery life for me.
The Expanium's battery life is longer than that of my older one, however I do not think that it lasted the full 10 hours that the box boasted. (More like 8 or 9). It plays CD-RWs just like it should, and the MP3 CDs did in fact work with good quality. However, I did experience some problems on a few tracks, however I think that they were just bad files and not a problem with the Expanium. The MPTrip had similar problems with a few files, so I don't think it's a problem with the player, just something to consider. Another plus of this player was the switches for DDB, ESP, and Hold were all together on the side. I found that the placement of these buttons was better than usual.
Now for the complaints. The Expanium takes about 2-5 seconds between tracks (at least on MP3 CD's), which doesn't seem long but seems like an eternity when in use (for myself anyway). Also, the method of track selection isn't as good as I expected. On MP3 CDs, you can't fast foward on a track. You can only zoom through the songs, which do not have ID3 tags, only track and album tags. Another thing is that the player seems to be larger than it has to be, and it difficult to fit into a pocket (it does fit, but not easily). And the random feature works, however I would have liked a way to have shuffle work just within an album, not the entire CD. I know that's pretty picky, but any MP3 CD player that did that would catch my attention.
Overall, the Expanium is not a bad player, it's just not what I was looking for. It has between 40 and 200 seconds of ESP (depends on if you listen to CDs or MP3s at various bitrates)which is nothing to complain about. If you have $200 dollars to spend and want a name brand MP3 CD player then go for it, but if you are strapped for cash I don't think the difference between this and the MPTrip are so great that there has to be $80 price difference. MP3 CD players are still in infancy, so this one if really the first of it's type. Soon there will probably be better ones out there that are smaller and come with better features, but if you just can't wait another second and have the money, then I would recommend it.
