Philips SA6185 (8 GB) Digital Media Player

Having recently gotten more jealous of everyone and their video iPods, I decided to do something about it. As so often happens with us students, while I possessed the desire, I lacked the means. So, I did what students do: I went and got myself the second cheapest knockoff out there. I found and bought the Philips GoGear SA6185. While not the worst thing on the market, this is a fairly uninspired and bare bones music player. While it won't make any other technophiles jealous, it does get the job done.

As with any video player, the screen is essentially the most important feature. This unit has one of the bigger screens in its price range at 3.5". The iPod classic, which retails far outside of the GoGear category, has a much smaller screen. While this screen has a decent amount of real estate, it is not really of the highest quality. The screen resolution is 320x240 and is standard ratio. These low numbers mean that the clarity is not fantastic and any videos shot in widescreen will cause wasted screen space. The playback of the videos looks pretty decent if you can sit far enough back and you can really focus on the screen, but if you are using this device in a moving car or train and need to get in close to see the screen, the quality shows through a bit too much. Further compounding the screen size/quality issues is the fact that all videos must be in the WMV format. Everything has to be converted through either Windows Media Player or the included software. The conversion means degradation of quality is happening before the screen even gets to try its hand at displaying the video.

Controls on the unit are more than adequate. There is a navigation pad on the right that does just about everything. There is also a volume rocker and a hold switch on the top of the GoGear. The only other button is the playlist button which allows quick access to media stored on the drive. While the buttons are workable and intuitive, they lack all the refinement of the higher end plays. Again, Apple-type styling and design cannot really be expected on a video player in this price range and the controls do what you need them to do just as well as those on the iPod.

The menu design is similar to the buttons: lacks refinement, detail, and style, but is works perfectly fine and does everything you need it to do. While I am not blown away, I am satisfied and I have never found the menu to be lacking in any way or to have any annoying bugs in it. One nice feature of the menu is that it offers few options. You don't need to navigate through long lists or multiple screens to find what you want. Everything is available quickly and easily.

Also included in this player are what I consider to be the largely and completely useless features: music, FM radio, photos, and voice recorder (those were in order btw). The music is the only extra feature I have ever really used. Since I already have an iPod, it is rare that I even do that. Because of the limited space on this device, I have preferred to keep it available for video and only have a few songs for novelty purposes. Playing songs is just as easy as videos and the quality is fairly decent. While not as good as that of the more mainstream music players, it is good enough for me and probably the average user as well.

The FM radio is a nice touch, but again, not one that I have made much use of. IT only operates when there are headphones plugged in to be used as antennae and even then, the reception is not all that great. Also, I can never really see the purpose of a radio on a device like this since if I wanted random pop tunes, I would carry a cheap transistor radio and not spend the money to get and personalize a custom media device. The photo viewer is completely useless. While I cannot deny that its use is simple and the display is decent, I have no idea what type of user drags this device around so they can sit and look at pictures scrolling by. To make it worse, photos cannot be placed on the device - they must be synced through Windows Media Player. The voice recorder is the most useless part of this unit. While I have no doubt that a need exist for voice recording, it is simply not present within the user demographic of this device. I have never personally had an idea worthy of recording and doubt that I ever will within the time frame that I own and use this device.

The battery life on this device is one of its nicer features. Philips claims that it gets 20 hours of audio playback and 5 hours of video playback. I assume they measure that in a single session and since few of us listen to music for 20 hours straight, that number doesn't mean all that much. In my personal experience, I find that I usually need to charge the device about once a week. This is with using the device on a daily basis for my 40 minutes of subway riding and as an occasional music player. The battery has never run out on me but I am generally fairly low by the end of the week.

This device will not win any awards for being the prettiest or turning the most heads, but it does what it is supposed to do. It plays back video, albeit only one type, audio (two types), and a bunch of other useless stuff. The one thing it is really meant for is decent and more than respectable in its price range. I have to believe that Philips worked backwards from the price when designing this player but they really did a good job in that respect - it's a great device for the money.