Philips EXP103 eXpanium Portable MP3-CD Player with 45-Second Anti-Skip and Car Kit
By: Philips Average Rating: 4.0 Total Reviews: 171
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 On: 2004-08-11
When I first bought this product, it was a brand new concept on the market - burn your MP3s onto CDs and play them wherever you went!
This product has stayed with me through extreme winters, summers, rain, humidity. Its practically lived in my car for the last 4 years and it works like a CHAMP.
I am so impressed with this, that I came back to amazon to review it. BUY IT!
On: 2004-08-10
When I first bought this product, it was a brand new concept on the market - burn your MP3s onto CDs and play them wherever you went!
This product has stayed with me through extreme winters, summers, rain, humidity. Its practically lived in my car for the last 4 years and it works like a CHAMP.
I am so impressed with this, that I came back to amazon to review it. BUY IT!
 On: 2004-01-14
now.. it plays first track and it wouldnt willing to play next song.(mp3 files) keep searching... and searching... have to stop and play it again.. and I get to listen to the first track over and over.. press FF? tried and Im tired -_-;
dont waste your money.. get a better one
 On: 2002-09-09
Now that Ive had my eXpanium 103 for over a year and a half, I would like to update my previous review and summarize my long-term experience with it. As Ive already stated, its skip protection in MP3 playback mode is nothing less than phenomenal. Even after all this time, when my eXpanium has seen heavy service and has largely replaced FM radio in my mobile listening habits, I STILL have not been able to make it skip in MP3 mode! However, it has not been entirely smooth sailing - I have encountered a few other minor problems, but they are generally rare.On a few occasions, the eXpanium has locked up and refused to play certain MP3 tracks. When this happens, the <> buttons often fail to work as well. This usually requires turning off the unit to clear the problem and, in some cases, making sure it doesnt try to play that particular track again. I had one disc from which the eXpanium never would play one certain track at all - maybe the disc had a minor defect there, or maybe there was something about the MP3 itself that the eXpanium didnt like, but it just never wanted to play that one track. Again, though, these lockups are rare - the eXpanium usually plows happily through MP3 discs for hours at a time. Since I use mine almost exclusively for MP3 playback, I have little experience with standard audio discs, but it has performed beautifully with the few Ive tried. I havent tried using it to play a standard audio CD while Im on the road, so I cant say whether its skip protection there is as good as it is in MP3 playback mode. Other reviewers have mentioned that the output of the headphone jack is weak, and I have to agree. Even with a proper set of headphones, as opposed to the included "ear buds," it still just doesnt put out much even at maximum volume. I wouldnt recommend it for personal listening in noisy environments. However, I generally use my eXpanium in the car, with the included cassette adapter, and the output level from the "Line Out" jack is perfectly adequate for that. The "resume" feature usually works well - note that, in MP3 mode, "resume" simply restarts the most recently played MP3 track from the beginning - but Ive noticed that it sometimes resumes the wrong track. This MIGHT be due to the fact that I tend to run it from the car DC adapter and seldom have batteries installed in it, but the eXpanium seems to have a non-volatile memory to keep track of its "resume" location, as unplugging it from the car [even without batteries] usually does not make it forget which track was last played. Sometimes, though, it just forgets where it was. The DC power adapter in the car kit seems to be somewhat poorly designed and does not correctly fit my cars lighter socket, nor does it fit well in a friends car or in the accessory power socket I installed in my car. The adapter seems to be just a bit oversized, making it a very tight fit indeed. As a result, its connectors were soon damaged, and the adapter could not be inserted, so I bought a universal DC adapter from Radio Shack for use with this unit. That works just fine - at least it fits into my power socket! The display IS strictly bare-bones and does not display any ID3 tag data, but as I have stated in my earlier review, I already knew about the display before I bought mine, and I bought it anyway, on the strength of the reviews about its skip protection. Keep in mind, though, that the eXpanium 103 IS a first-generation model! Philips has broadened its eXpanium line, and newer models do have more informative displays - including ID3 tag support - and a wider array of features. If price is a factor, and you dont mind putting up with a completely basic display and sacrificing some features found in newer players, then the eXpanium 103 is a very good choice. If you dont mind paying more for a newer and more advanced player, then by all means, buy one of the newer models in the eXpanium line. To paraphrase an old advertising slogan... Hasnt skipped yet!
On: 2002-08-23
I bought my EXP103 last January. In the past 8 months this unit has seen some heavy use. Four times a week I use it at the gym and also in my pickup truck. This unit does not skip, is easy on batteries and for the price any short comings are easy to overlook. Consider - MP3/CD Player, Power adaptor, car cassette converter for this price. If you dont need the ID tags this is a deal.
One down note: The earbuds are not that great, I replaced them with a set of inexpensive wraparound headphones and am now pleased with the sound quality.
by: Anonymous On: 2002-08-14
I was very impressed when I bought this player a year ago but it gradually broke down to the point where it no longer reads any type of multimedia.
On: 2002-07-06
I just wanted to add my comments to the many others on this CD-mp3 player from Philips, many of which I found helpful before my purchase. I have found the Philips EXP 103 to be a reliable, solid player with a few drawbacks which I am willing to overlook at the present price point (...). I have the EXP 103 model that comes with the wall outlet 4.5 v transformer and car kit, which makes it a good value. It does have the problems in that it lacks the "tag" reading ability so the songs are identified only by their number on the disc (in AIFF), or by their folder ("AL" for album) and number (in mp3). The display is indeed really tiny and lacking backlighting, especially for knowing which mode youre using (repeat, shuffle, etc.). And you cant fast forward through a tune in mp3, though you can in AIFF (audio CD) as you would with a typical CD player. Others have mentioned this, which I am willing to overlook for the price and accessories. On the PLUS side, it has a great sound when played through the home and car systems. It handles typical jostling well (no skipping) at home and in the car with the buffering off, though I have not yet used it during jogging, walking, etc., with or without buffering. The earphones are loud enough for me though Philips may have upgraded the amplifier or found more efficient earphones since the original complaints. I am able to burn mp3 CDs using Toast Lite on a Mac as long as the .mp3 suffix is used. I have not had luck with session writing. Only the last session is recognized, but this may be an artifact of my system and software since the manual suggests that a Windows machine can add songs in separate sessions. (**Please note that the packaging materials say CD Creator is NOT compatible with this player.**) On my Mac (OS 8.6) and software I must burn all my mp3 songs and folders at once. No big deal, to me. BTW, the player does not recognize the number in the name of different songs but plays them back in the order they were burned. So you may have to number them to get the burner software to burn your songs in a given order, but the player simply plays them back in the order they were burned, within each folder. It also does not matter what the folders are named or numbered but you probably should not place folders within folders but keep all folders at the first level on the disc. Thats enough for now. I hope other buyers find this info useful. Overall, I find this first generation CD-mp3 player to be a good value, worthy at this time of 5 stars. Dan
by: Anonymous On: 2002-06-26
I wont duplicate reports of the various shortcomings of this item, but would only like to add that mine broke after one year - soon as the warranty expired! It no longer plays MP-3s, and has become useful only as an ordinary CD player which skips a lot. Infuriating.
On: 2002-06-04
I bought this system about 4 months back. It came with a complete car kit and the player. I am highly impressed by its quality. It has played almost every cd that I have thrown in including some scratched cds that cd-roms refused to read ( including the new panasonic mini system I bought recently ). It refused only one cd which had some data file initially I guess. This is an extremely minor issue though. Also displays only the song number. But you can program the tracks ! Anyway even if you had song display support until you have a browser like winamp its not much of a help. This player has never skipped in any of my decent cds. While moving around the house it has never reacted to movement. With the car kit you can play the mp3 on cars, tape players ( I was surprised at the innocuos looking electrical to magnetic converter though). Sound quality is very good. The earphones are good but were not very comfortable after wearing for long time . You could do better buying good headphones. Overall I would highly recommend this for the price , reliability ( important ) and sound quality.
On: 2002-05-17
I use this cd player as often as I can ... but recently, Im forced not to. It skips, actually it jumps from song one to song five playing 2 minutes and 3 seconds into the song. It always jumps, and I may not be moving the car at all. It plays regular cds somewhat ok, and mp3 cds are pretty much based on luck. It was good for the first five to ten minutes of its use with me. Now, it just screws up, gives me error when I listen to cds, and jumps from song to song. I advise you to NOT buy this cd or from this brand, its hard to trust them when they manufactor a cd player that doesnt do what the advertisements says it should.
On: 2002-04-24
This cd player is a very good product at a good value. I use it in my car and it is great. You can fit hundreds of songs on one cd and it never skips. I had the cd player fly to the back seat of my car hit the seat then the floor and it never missed a beat!It reads mp3 files as every folder is a seperate album and you can navigate to different songs in each folder. PROS: great sound quality for regular cd or mp3
Never had a problem with skipping.(i also run with it)
Pretty good battery life (about 9-10 hours)
good quality car kit with the tape that still sounds cd quality
some basic features like hold (so you cant acidentally hit a button, and a very good bass boost CONS: lcd small and hard to read if not in good lighting
cant read mp3 tags
No fast forward or rewind when playing mp3
On: 2002-04-09
this product was the first of its generation in 2000. it was exactly what i was looking for to make the transition from cds to mp3. i used it and loved it for a year, and then it just up and died. inconveniently after the warranty ran out. im going for an ipod.
by: adead_poet@hotmail.com On: 2002-04-09
I dont have any experience with other portable mp3 players (though i have quite a bit of experience with portable cd players), but I havent had any problems with this one, and only have good things to say. The sound quality is good. Battery life is phenomenal. Rarely skips, and I spend a lot of time walking with it. I love it, wouldnt trade it for any other one out there, and I would recommend it to anyone. Sure its a little pricey, but with so much poorly made equipment out there, sometimes you have to spend a little more for a superior product.
On: 2002-03-23
This player works really fine, almost no skipping in my bike rides. Havent tried it for walks or jogs.
It reads MP3 of any bitrate 320Kbps, 128, 160 , you name it , even vbr (variable bit rate) ones. Thats a really important feature. My Panasonic DVD player, for instance, will freeze with some files (I had never seen an appliance "crash" before)
It comes with a car kit (cassete and & lighter adapter) and AC adapter.
Sound is OK. No hiss or other noise.
The only drawbacks are:
1. It does not display folder or file name or MP3 -ID tags. Though while cycling, I dont really care.
2. Headphones , though this is something easy to correct with cheap SONY ones or others.
3. No EQUALIZER, but sound is fine and has a bass enhancer.
In summary a great product if you find it with Amazon like prices (more than 40% off list price)
If you just want to set RANDOM and listen away this is the product for you.
3 years after purchasing this product, it still works! Its fallen to the floor several times and still works. Reads MP3s way better than my DVD player. Being a first generation MP3 player it will not read some CDs and definetely doesnt like multi-session CD-Rs
On: 2002-02-18
I bought the expanium expecting "magical" skip protection, which did suffice while driving, but not for walking or working out at the gym. as far as the mp3 cds half of the time I end up hitting play three or four times as it tells me there is "no disc" quite frustrating. looking to return it and get a higher end player.
On: 2002-02-17
I bought this unit a year back (oh yeah, when it was 149.99) and I am a little disappointed with its temperamental attitude. I leave it in my car all the time and it serves my purpose. But... you have to be patient. Yes, this might test your patience.. Sometimes, it recognizes the CD you have put in but sometimes simply it keeps telling no disc inside even though there is a disk. You have to keep trying at least 10 times then it starts going. Once it starts then no problems. But at the time of my purchase there werent many good ones out (like Sony or Panasonic or Aiwa) and I ended up with this one. Volume is low (even when it is in its highest setting). But for [price]it is worth buying. (Still the sony and panasonic SL-MP50 ones are in the range of [price]to [price])
by: Anonymous On: 2002-02-02
The quality and value of this unit seems nice, however, I was compelled to return it. I bought it to listen to mp3 recordings of old time radio shows I purchased on CD-Rs. Each track is typically 30 minutes in length. I found this player to suddenly stop and start over while playing a track. This annoyance became unbearable as you are unable to scan forward or backward in mp3 mode to get to where you were so rudely cut off. The CD-Rs are perfectly replayed without interruption on every computer that I tried to use them on.Some other observations...
1. Display is very hard to read, even in a well-lit room.
2. Because the individual tracks are labeled only by a track number, I cant figure out how the unit determines what order the tracks are replayed. When looking at Windows Explorer and WinAMP and sorting the files in every imaginable order, the order as replayed on the unit does not make sense.
3. As stated above, in mp3 mode, you cant scan within tracks. The amazon.com technical info implies that it does. I was only able to scan when playing regular CDs.
4. Included accessories make it seem to be a great value, perhaps the 40 kBit/s tracks are the reason I had trouble.
by: Anonymous On: 2002-01-30
I had been looking forward to getting this product. Since Ive received it Ive gotten nothing but headaches. It skips on just about any CD I put in, including brand new ones. Sometimes it registers original (non copy) CDs as "NF DISC" which I assume means "Not formatted." Sometimes it says "NO DISC" which is even more frustrating. I sometimes have to try to press play over and over again until it is recognized. When reading an MP3 CD it takes quite a long time to read all the tracks. When playing from track to track, there is a slight delay between them, as opposed to having a nice flow from one to the other (terrible for mixed DJ CDs). And its bass boost isnt that powerful. I had a...normal Philips CD player before this one, and it performed much better. Dont waste your money. Its not worth it.
On: 2002-01-30
I bought this for using the MP3/car kit features on a 16 hour road trip. I was skeptical, particularly about skipping and the car kits sound quality. Neither was a problem. Sound quality and volume on my home burned MP3 CDs were excellent using the car kit, and the unit never skipped once, despite potholes and bumps along I-95. I also loved the resume feature, with which the unit would pick up at the beginning of the last track played when turned on- very convenient w/169 tracks on a CD. My ONLY complaint with this product is that you cannot FF/search within MP3 tracks, but thats a small trade-off for such excellent performance at a bargain price. I highly recommend this player.
On: 2002-01-26
Lives up to the Specs.
One in the house and car. I have owned 2 Philips EXP103 for almost a year. If you want a "reliable" MP3 player. This was, and still, is a best value. Ive tried other low cost units like Memorex and had to return them, typically skipping/reading problems. I tried a new EXP201 and returned it because it had the typical skipping problems, especially without ESP on.
The EXP201 also sucked the life out of batteries, not so with the EXP103. Im looking to buy another unit for my family and Im tempted to stick with reliablity, even though I miss out on some new features.
On: 2002-01-13
The eXpanium is a sold piece of hardware. Its sturdy and does everything Panasonic advertises it can do. However, many shortfalls may hinder its likeability. After receiving this as a gift a year ago, here are my thoughts about it:The eXpanium was the first to come out playing MP3-CD on a portable disk. What it lacked though was an ID3 display. The display was only single lined (showing only Track and time) no backlit display for seeing in the dark. Furthermore, the sound quality does not seem to be good at all, especially on airplanes. Keeping my constants the same (CD and headphones) I tested the eXpanium against a regular Sony CD player. Sound wise, the Sony CD player (4 years old at least) performed much better. In addition, the loading time for the MP3s (not so for audio CDs) are long. Sometimes you just want to listen to a track immediately, but the hardware holds you up, especially if you have a CD jammed full of MP3s. Overall, a year ago eXpanium was the best MP3-CD player on the market. Now, its not. If I were to buy an MP3-CD player now, I would not hesitate to purchase the RioVolt SP250 MP3-CD player. Just check out the reviews.
On: 2002-01-13
I purchased the Expanium with the hopes that it would perform as well as my friend said it did. Unfortunately, that was not the case. My first problems were with getting it to play MP3s on a CR-RW. It kept reading the disc as "data", even after I contacted Philips to ensure I was completely the transfer of MP3s correctly. After several attempts, on both CD-R and CD-RW, I gave up and decided I would try an audio cd. Even with the ESP on, it skipped frequently, just walking with it, which my Sony CD player never does. I found the fastforward button did not work well at all. The volume was also very low, even at its highest setting. Finally I just returned it, displeased with Philips customer service attempts.
by: Anonymous On: 2002-01-13
Im glad I bought a well known brand MP3 Player, I have listened to hours of music on it already. I have not used any batteries in it, it comes with a car kit, and I only use it in the car. So far, not ONE skip. It does take a while for the songs to start up if you are skipping around. Not a problem for me, im patient. It is very difficult to read the display at night. I would try to memorize what each button does, and not ever try to look at it while driving. It recognizes folders as "albums" and is very easy to skip from folder to folder.
Update: Ive been using this for almost a month, I am Not as happy as i used to be. Im getting more frustrated that I cant fast forward MP3s!! WHY CANT I!!??? Some of what I listen to is 60 minutes long! (Internet Radio shows.) [....]
On: 2002-01-12
Bought one last year and was able to use for only 2 weeks. Now it plays (both ordinary cd audio and mp3s) sometimes but most of the time it will not recognize the cd at all. The player did not undergo any rough handling or anything. If all the reviews about how good this product is true, then I guess Im just unlucky.
On: 2002-01-11
I bought mine as a cheap alternative to a CD changer for my car. On the whole, its a nice toy. I have several qualms with it, however..
Driving on long trips, it will randomly just shut off, for no reason whatsoever. Power isnt interrupted and there are no disc errors. It just turns off.
Random play.. probably skips over a good 40% of the songs on a CD. That becomes very irritating.
The car power adapter doesnt fit in my cig lighter well, its as if its too long.
The skip protection is great, however. Once you get past the long load time, the poor random, and the unnecessary skips, its a decent player - and a good deal for the price.
On: 2002-01-08
I love this item. The sound is very clear ive had no trouble with it skipping. I bring it to school and back every day never skips with regular cds or mp3s. Its worth the money.
On: 2002-01-06
The best thing is the anti-skip. Other than that you will have to make a playlist on paper for every CD you have. You will need better grade CDRs. It is very picky on CDRs. The support is good, but doesnt make up for the lack of backlight, ID3 Tags and the limit of 8.3 naming convention.
On: 2002-01-04
I bought my unit just over a year ago and I am still in love with it! I am very into the gadgets, any kinda of electronics will make my day. I have to say that that this is still my most favorite of purchases ever. I love the fact that I packed a very small, 10 cd carrier and had with me over 90 cds worth of high quality digital music in MP3 format. I have gone on drives on vacation, put 1 cd in the unit, hit shuffle, and with 203 tracks on it, I didnt have to put in another cd until over 10 hours later!! This is awesome! The quality of this unit is unmatched by any other. Sure, I undertsand that dont mean that the occasional bad unit will sneek through, but that doses not mean that the entire product like is that way despite what some people think, Il might want you to believe. Bottom line... BUY THIS BABY! You will be so happy you did. 14 months later and counting for me and I am still in love :)
On: 2001-12-31
Bought this unit just before driving from Ann Arbor, MI to Tucson, AZ. Seemed just the thing to play some of the 5GB of my napsterized collection, with their car kit and all. It worked fine for the first day, then one MP3-CD was not recognized. Soon it would only play regular CDs.
Called Philips support line and was told they would send a pre-paid RMA shiping label. They did that and the next thing I know I receive a replacement unit, THE NEXT EXPANIUM MODEL EXP-503/17 with MP3 file readout and all. This model has been advertized at Best Buy for $...
Ill certainly consider Philips the next time Im looking for electronics, they have excellent customer relations. Something hard to find these days.
On: 2001-12-31
It almost never skips. The screen is only hard to read sometimes. The price is great compared to other mp3 cd players and cd players. It has great sound.
On: 2001-12-31
Ive used this player in my car and found it to be unable to keep track of where it leaves off from one session to another, despite setting it on Resume. The display is almost impossible to read, so it is difficult to tell what Mode is set, except by memorizing their sequence. The earbuds that come with this -- EARBUDS! -- are wholly inadequate. Despite the good quality of sound reproduction and the versatility of this unit in allowing you also to play MP3 recordings as well as CDs, it was not entirely what I expected. I have a lower-cost Phillips CD player that operates very well, though it doesnt handle MP3 format. This player does function, and does have good sound, but it has these annoying problems: poor display, rotten earbuds, and inability to Resume properly.
On: 2001-12-29
This has got to be the best cd player I have ever bought not only because its been through a lot but because it can do a lot. by this I mean that you can drop it numerous times and still expect it to work. See, I accidently dropped it 3 times, left it on the roof of my truck to blow off on the highway, and then another 2 more times from about 10 feet in the air. It still works GREAT and doesnt skip at all! Thats why I rate it "5 stars." Dont stop and think about buying it, just do it! Its well worth it, trust me, I know! In other words...(It takes a lickin, and keeps on playing)!!!
On: 2001-12-27
The player works real well,maybe a little slow. The biggest drawback to it is the fact that you cant read the tiny program modes either while driving or stopped. But definately stop to do this mode change.
On: 2001-12-26
i just recevied the EXP 103 as a christmas gift. i dont know what i am doing. is it able to play MP3s without burning them onto a CD, cause that takes a while? i dont understand the technical jargin they use to decribe the stuff about the MP3s. all i know is that if it cant download songs from off of the internet, they i will return it. i already have a CD player, i dont need another.
On: 2001-12-23
I recommend this product to anybody who is looking for a portable CD player that also plays MP3s. It has not had any problems and I have owned it for quite a while.
by: pet8 On: 2001-12-12
As always, I will concentrate on the cons of this item:
I use in a car, and I found that after I turn on the car, I have to go through this sequence to put it in the right mode:(1) press play button
(2) wait 30 seconds or so for it to scan the CD
(3) press the mode button to select shuffle mode It has a resume feature where it remembers the last song when it was turned off. Unfortunately it does not remember the shuffle mode. Very annoying. Also, there is no light on the LCD display. But I guess its ok because there isnt much to see on the 7-segment digit display anyway (looks like calculator display) BTW, my unit came with a defective car cassette adapter. Only the right channel has sound. I hope there is a repair center near me because I dont want to return the whole thing. I have no other complain. Overall I still prefer it over my cassette player.
On: 2001-12-05
It takes batteries or power from a wall outlet. It comes with a tape adaptor and head phones. Its light. It has anti-skip. Ive seen complaints about it not having support for ID3 naming for the MP3 songs, but seriously once you put a disc in and start playing it in your car do you really need to read the title? I would say that as a car unit its great. As a portable player Id look for something else.
On: 2001-12-03
This item was purchased for a LONG plane trip overseas. I needed something to pass the time, and I wanted to pack light. SO I was looking for a mp3/CD player that would play the mp3 without converting to CDA (cd audio) I could easily pack 4 mp3 filled CDs better than a whole 48 CD carrying case! The accessories (ac adapter,car cassette adapter and car power adapter) are sure to fit any need. I use rechargeable batteries in this device, but the back up ac adapter is nice to have as well.The item does work well and is very intuitive. Its ease of operation gets high marks from me. It claims 10 hours of mp3 music, 100 second skip protection, cd/cdrw compatibility, and program and shuffle. The bass boost is a nice touch too. You cant go wrong with this purchase if you are looking for a nice portable mp3 player. There are smaller items available but no way will you get the same amount of music out of them. It is much simpler to just pop in a burned cd, than to download and transfer songs to a device. If you carry a portable CD player already then you know how easy they are to take along. This is the same size as those! My only word of warning is to be prepared to buy a new set of earbuds. The ones that come with this item are cheap and dont last long AT all!!
Happy listening!
by: Anonymous On: 2001-11-28
I couldnt believe I wasted my money on this. 4 problems: 1. Volume not good (I listen to metal and its not even for classical, volumes so low). 2. The bass system is not good, most of beats sounded different from other players while others make me jumps up and down and blew my ears away, this one like knocking on the doors or tables in that case. 3. It skips sometimes - skip protection... okay... 4. slow as mofo when you press Previous Track or program the tracks. The tracks take about 2 - 5 secs to load the song out...
by: Anonymous On: 2001-11-20
This is a best option in the market, because this MP3 player has a very good quality and the basic options for integrate with the home audio systems and car audio systems.
On: 2001-11-10
I love this gadget! This is a wonderful, sturdy, high quality MP3-CD player. Euro design, euro quality. I researched a lot of players before I settled on this one - the price/ value ratio cant be beat! The sound quality is great. Mixed encoding rates are not a problem for this player. The accessories are great too: car cassette adapter (or if you have a home stereo, it works in that too) car power adapter, AC adapter and headphones. The headphones are solid, not flimsy, are nice quality and are ergonomically designed to sit firmly in your ear - great for sports activities. The 100 second skip-protection works well too, I shook it like hell and it didnt skip a beat. The display is not the greatest, but usable and you get used to it. Once you use it for a while, youll get as to how to burn your CDs. Overall thumbs up! Highly reccommended!
On: 2001-10-30
wow, I must say when I first got this I was really hopeful. After about two weeks later reality set in, this thing was garbage. DO NOT BUY THIS!!!! Aside from not showing any of the tags for the mp3s, dont plan on listening to a whole song, because this mp3/cd player decides when it wants to cut through to a new song and skip a few. And dont plan on listening to your regular cds fluidly either. This bad boy, with its "powerful" esp can barely play a cd fresh out of the case without skipping, even with the esp on. I feel as though Ive been had. Please dont let yourself fall into the same trap.
On: 2001-10-27
I have mine in my car, and for the most part it plays songs quite nicely, Ive found though, that some times it gets up to 11 seconds or so and then stops playing. Im not sure if its due to bumps in the road, or poor CD quality (Ive only tried CD-RWs).The lack of ID3 support and back light is a bit irritating as well. However few other players could allow me to cary my entire collection of CDs (well over 6GB) for as low a price as this does. My next player will likely be a jukebox type, but for now Im not unhappy...
On: 2001-10-26
I read everyones reviews before I made my decision to purchase this. We were about to go on a long road trip and I wanted to listen to my music without worrying about storing a hundred CDs to keep up with my familys diverse musical interests. MP3s are the way to go, I fit 167 songs on one disc, plugged the Expanium into the cigarette lighter, popped the cassette adapter into the stereo, and we were off! We never had to listen to the same song twice in what ended up being around 32 hours of time in the car!! It never, ever skipped -- I even tested this by banging it around, tossing it in the air, etc. just to try and get it to skip, but it never did. Who cares if its square. I didnt buy it to look at, I wanted to press play and forget about it. And thats exactly what I did with it. Its small enough that it can be stuffed into a little cranny in the car where its out of the way but still keeps the music coming. What a perfect gem this is. With the resume feature, you can turn off the car and come back and hit play, and boom, theres the same song playing that you left it on when you got out of the car. Its got excellent sound through ANY car speakers. I cant recommend this enough!!! Got a road trip on your planner? Dont pass this up, dont consider anything else!!!
On: 2001-10-09
Avoid this. There are better MP3 players on the market with more features at the same prices. Very surprising display is so limited - with 150 songs on a CD it would seem like a basic requirement to show the songs title and length (as most newer ones do).Frankly, I think this is an overstocked item that YOU are paying to clear out.
On: 2001-10-09
This is the fist time I use a portable player. I use it in my car. To me, it is very useful. I dont have experience with battery life. I can go through directories and files easily. The only problem is I cant fastforward in the same file.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-10-05
It looks nice. But thats the only good thing about this flawed MP3-CD player. Long startup time, small display, problems reading certain CDRs, problems playing certain MP3 files, bad skipping. Biggest issue? Its not flash upgradable, which means youre stuck with these problems and they can never be fixed. I returned the EXP103 and now own the excellent Riovolt from Sonicblue. A superior MP3-CD player in every way.
On: 2001-09-18
I bought this product because Im a jogger and am training for the NYC Marathon. I do many long runs and this product is useless for joggers. It skips and if you listen to mp3 files there is a long delay between songs. I had to return this product with no problems given to me from Amazon. I buy all the time from amazon.com and am disappointed they are selling this product. I will still continue to buy from amazon.
On: 2001-09-07
This was a fine product until december of 2000. But the competence is harder like Rio Volt and TDK (The BEST!!!!). I sold it after 3 months because I upgraded my CD MP3 Player to the TDK Mojo and I can tell you that is the BEST than ever exists in the whole world !!!!. If you want to save $80 dollars you will regret yourself to havent bought the TDK Mojo. Anyway the product is regular quality, but there are better choices...
On: 2001-09-01
I hate walkmans! They are useless, annoying and use a lot of batteries. So why give this MP3 player a 5-star rating? Because the Philips Expanium is the cheapest way to listen to your MP3s away from your computer.
It doesnt come with inbuilt memory (which only allows you to listen up to one hour of music) but accepts CD-ROMs with MP3 files, which permits up to more than 10 hours of listening pleasure.
The only reason I bought it were the accessories, especially the car kit is very useful. Instead of buying a CD-changer for your car, just get this MP3 player. You wont only save money, but also space (10 CDs fit on 1 CD-ROM).
Some people criticized that you cant fast-forward into songs, but while driving, that would just take my attention of the street, so that didnt really bother me.
By the way you can also listen to regular audio CDs.
On: 2001-08-31
I bought the Philips EXP103 Expanium Portable MP3-CDPlayer not less than a year ago. I use it very often for my rides to school and whenever Im going out. The mp3s burned onto a CDR when played on the CDPlayer takes a long time to examine the CD and finally playing it. Sometimes, it wouldnt even play a fine mp3 CDR.
Anti-skip?. What a joke. I havent dropped it many times and yet it skips like a maniac. Just moving it slightly and trigger a skip in a regular audio CD and a mp3 CDR.
This thing sucks lots of batteries. The mp3 component made it so cheap. I had to buy batteries everyweek just for playing a regular CD.
Definitely an over rated product.
On: 2001-08-28
...I got this for my husband - a big music lover and also a lover of stereos - so he knows a good player when he sees it! And he is in love with this mp3/cd player! We would both recommend this to anyone!! And we had NO PROBLEM using our previously burnt mp3 cds!! So dont let those other reviews scare you away from a great product!
On: 2001-08-21
In order to make this unit play MP3 you must have a great MP3 utility. I use Easy Creator 4.0 and do not max out the CDR. I use it in my car and have not had any problems. I also use the player at my work and plug in my Harman/Kardon speakers that came with the Dell Computer at my work. It takes a while to get to a specific track, and it does not display the artist. But for the price, I highly recommend this unit! The unit from Amazon comes with a car kit and a set of earphone speakers. The car kit is great and works well in my Alero. I dont use the earphone, they hurt my ears! Anyway if you burn your MP3 correctly this unit works well!
On: 2001-08-19
I absolutely could not get this thing to skip, I did everything short of breaking it...I dropped it, crushed it, tossed it, shook it, and...it still, wouldnt skip while playing an mp3 cd.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-08-11
Occasionally I listen to MP3 songs on my Expanium. However most of the time I use it to listen to MP3 lectures on the way to and from university (for revision purposes). I received my Expanium three months ago, and so far Im pretty satisfied. Like many things ofcourse, there are pros and cons.I like Expanium because: (1) The sound quality is very good. You really need to listen to it to know what I mean. (2) Anti-skip works fine. My home is one hour drive away from university, with quite a few uphills/downhills/bumps/sharp turns on the way, and yet never once did the player skip. I dislike Expanium because: (1) The display has no light and is difficult to read in darkness. (2) Expanium CANNOT fastforward or rewind WITHIN a song or lecture. Most songs are no longer than 6minutes, and so this is not too much of a problem. But my lectures are 1-hours in duration (ie. each CDR contains roughly 12 individual lectures). At times I wished I could rewind a few minutes just to catch a particular equation, enzyme name, or relisten to a difficult concept. This is not possible on Expanium. (3) Way too expensive for poor guys like me. Overall, Expanium serves my revision purpose quite well, and I am happy with it.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-08-10
this is a good item to buy. but its not that good for the money. its esp is very good, the screen is very very diffecult to read, and the sound is some-what poor. i am not returning it because it would be a waist of time. it is a very very good cd player. i have no idea avout the mp3 playback yet because it is diffecult to understand. i am begening to be able to read it better. i have not tried others but i dont think i would suggest this one.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-08-10
The first couple of CD-Rs I made played only a few of the songs that I had put on the CD. I made a call to tech support and was told that I couldnt use CD burning programs like DirectCD that use the packet writing method. You need to use the programs that do the track at a time or entire CD at a time, such as EasyCD creator. Once that was done, everything worked great. The sound is good although the start up time is a slow. The car adapter and the AC power are usefull addons
On: 2001-08-10
The only reason I gave it 5 stars is because that is the maximum they would let me have. This product is excelent. I use it for my car, and it never skips a beat. I have 152 songs on my cd now. ...with a car kit included how can you go wrong. And for those of you who want to spend the extra money for a different MP3 player because this one is lacking a remote, dont bother. A remote can be ordered seperately once you get the player in. Cheap and affordable, futhermore a great product. How can you go wrong?
by: Anonymous On: 2001-08-08
I bought the Philips EXP103 Expanium Portable MP3-CD Player so I could listen to mp3s in my truck. And now that I have this product, I do. Overall, I dont regret buying it ... . However there are some problems: 1. It is TO light, its construction is very cheaply made. 2. The LCD screen almost serves no purpose, in low light situations you cant even see it, and it doesnt display the name of a song. 3. It takes to long to start up, the first time I put in a mp3 filled CD, I thought something was wrong with my cd (or the player); after just leaving the CD in for a little while (probably around 45secs) it started playing. I have found no problem with the sound, it is plenty loud enough with the headphones, or with my factory sound system using the provided car kit. The headphones are a little cheap, but they work good enough.
On: 2001-08-07
I just bought a car that had CD changer controls, but I do not want to splurge on the changer just yet. I opted for the MP3 CD player, since I could use it while travelling anyway. I love this thing. Rarely has a problem and never skips.. The only issues I have is the long loading time and it occasionally stops for no reason. But overall, it is a great little toy, and an awesome value. Oh, and sometimes I hit the power adapter when I shift into 5th, but thats just the car design! Its so nice to make a 5 hour drive without changing a CD and not hearing the same song twice. I highly recommend it.
On: 2001-07-31
Ive been agonizing over what to choose among MD recorder/player, MP3 player, CD player... After thorough research, my conclusion was nothing is perfect, so I had to choose a relatively "better" one. MD has less compatibility, CDP cant play mp3 files, MP3 players are less cost-effective and it has limited memory... This Philips Expanium MP3CD player is not perfect, but it is better than other options at this time; it can play as many mp3 files as you can, in addition to CD/CDR/CDRW. It doesnt skip very much, its anti-skip system is pretty good.
On: 2001-07-26
By now you know what this thing is capable of and what its drawbacks are. All I want to say is the volume and LCD screen were the 2 largest drawbacks for me. However, remember this is a 1st generation product. When I bought this, there were only 2 other MP3 CD players available. I must say this was by far the best buy then, and still is right now.
On: 2001-07-25
This little machine is great. There are, of course, a few small features that Id prefer (like a more detailed display) but that really doesnt matter. I yank a CD full of mp3s and pop it in my car cassette player using the adapter. Push the random button and Im good to go for about two weeks of commutes to and from work.The thing is obviously pretty durable since its been sitting in my car since I bought it over 6 months ago - It has been frozen in the winter and sat for hours in the blazing sun - still works like a charm. Glitches have been *very* rare - maybe one skip in every 50 tracks played. Money well spent!
On: 2001-07-18
After a few months of light use as a desk-top player, the player shows signs of not being able to read music CDs or recognize that a music disc is there. The display is inadequate as there is no backlighting. The controls are tiny and not intuitive. The anti-skip function is also inadequate. This unit would not work well being bounced up and down by joggers.
On: 2001-07-08
I jog alot so I previously purchased the TDK Mojo (since it claimed to have an 8 minute buffer), thinking that its anti-skip feature would be perfect. Well it wasent. After approximately 2 minutes it would just skip or even stop completely. A friend of mine recently purchased an AVC Soul MP3 Player for jogging, and that one also skipped!! I began to wonder if there was actually a CD/MP3 player that didnt skip. I then skeptically purchased the Philips Expanium. I took it jogging and to my suprise, this unit did NOT skip at all!! (I used a MP3 disc...not sure how it does on CDs). Now I know this player lacks a couple of features, such as Id3 tags, and a backlit screen....big deal/so what? The only real drawback was that the volumes level was not high enough for me, but I tend to like my music on the loud side anyway. (I just ended up buying a boosteroo to take care of the volume issue). The sound is exellent and thats important. I am very pleased with this unit.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-06-29
Everything about this product is good, except the fact that it is useless for jogging. I bought it because one of the primary features is 45 second buffer for CD, 100 second buffer for MP3. I turned on that feature and went out. By the third mile, it was shutting down completely within 1-2 steps. When it shuts down, that means stop, restart it, wait 30 seconds for it create the play list, and then advance blindly into the songs to try and pick up where you left off. Oh-- thats one other feature which is a bit disappointing -- I fit 112 songs onto a CD, organized into folders by type or artist, and the player seems to rearrange the structure. Its very hard, for example, to go the the third album and listen to the fourth song. If you dont mind just random everytime, then its fine. Otherwise, youll need to do some planning and experimenting on how to create the directories when burning the MP3 CD to find out how to best work with this player. Bottom line: If youre buying one of these for jogging, choose another brand. If youre buying for other walkman like uses (or for car listening), then its a good one.
On: 2001-06-25
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 youre 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 Ive had it a few months it can only play from the first song (resume no longer works, very annoying) and often it wont 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...
On: 2001-06-09
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. Im 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 Im not getting my best 100 album of cassette with my huge bag! Im 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.
On: 2001-06-02
I use this player at work to play MP3s, to keep the load off of my CPU. (I dont 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 dont hear any flaws at all in the sound. (I dont 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. Its also useful with the cassette adapter: most cassette players dont like it when you use a cassette adapter with an amplified output. Speaking of the cassette adapter, I dont know if its Philips adapter or the player itself, but disks with heavy bass caused my cars 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 its 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 dont: 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 dont 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.
On: 2001-05-31
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 CDs and MP3s, 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.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-05-30
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 Im staying with it. The other two skiped like crazy (one was Rio, the other- I dont even remember the brand, I bought it in the computer store)even if you would gently move them an inch or so.
On: 2001-05-29
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-Rs 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 CDs 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 havent looked back. The Volt is the best damn thing Ive bought since I purchased my first Sony Walkman back in 1982. Maybe Sony will do even a better job...
On: 2001-05-25
Its 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.)
On: 2001-05-23
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 CDs but has no idea where to start when playing MP3s. 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.
On: 2001-05-22
Bought it. Returned it.Pros: -It reads mp3s -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 isnt.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-05-21
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 doesnt 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 dont 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 doesnt 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 isnt 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. Im out the driveway and halfway down the block before the music starts playing.
On: 2001-05-20
I bought one for my daughter on a vacation trip to florida and I used it with a car fm transmitter the unit was on the passenger seat and it played flawlessly no skipping at all, the sound quality is very good.The unit could only read 85 mp3s on my recorded cd, when I got home I shortened all my mp3 files to a maximum 25 characters and I burned a new cd at only 2x speed. Now the unit reads 224 mp3 files on my new cd and plays all the tunes with superb sound quality.I only give it 4 stars because it has small flaws that are not important for me.I recommend it!
by: Anonymous On: 2001-05-15
Ok. Pros and Cons1. ... covering- I dropped it one time and it stoped reading Mp3 Based Cds 2. ...! 3. Need a Burner on ur computer BEWARE YOU CANT USE THIS THING IF YOU DONT HAVE A BURNER! 4. No little..(charectors)..in your Song titles. Doesnt Read the file if you have these! 5. Scrolls through REALLY slow takes a long time to get to High Numbers in your play list 6. Horrible SOund HORRIBLE DONT BELIEVE THE OTHERS. I take this on my bus and i cant hear the darn thing. 7. Sound Quality is ok. 8. Need Quality cds 9. Of course the Ear phones are horrible and hurt my ears. 10. Want Something good?? Intel Pocket Concert is the bomb mp3 Player. Overall dont get it not worth your precious money
On: 2001-05-10
I buy this mp3 player in december last year, but 5 months later i discover some bugs (i primaly use it in the car stereo), it takes too much time to start playing mp3s, the resume feature dont works all the time, it skips some files in playing, from time to time an error ocurs and it reset the play to the first song of the first album, in the car is kind of dificult to operate it, if you want a mp3 for the car i recomend you one with remote control, besides the ESP works fine even in rocky roads
by: Anonymous On: 2001-05-05
i recently bought the philps expanium and it works great! the only problem i encountered was the inability to play properly, cds that were still open. i recommend closing your mp3 cds before playing them. other than this little problem, its perfect. the resume function is great, and the accessories are wonderful. the manufacturers of the riovolt should take note and do the same instead of charging for the cassette adapter to be bought separately
On: 2001-04-05
I have been waiting to buy a CD player that plays both audioand MP3 files. Glad I waited for this one! I bought mine fromAmazon.com ... Greatest buy I ever made on sound equipment! Works like a charm and sounds great too. Plays all my MP3 CDs with no problem. Sounds great on the car stero using the supplied car adapter kit. The supplied earphones were not very loud, but once I changed to my own headset the sound problem was solved. Sounds terrific. I liked it so much ... I bought a second one for my daughter. And she loves hers, too!
On: 2001-04-01
Ill admit that I had difficulties right out of the box, but I would later find that this was due to my trying to play a slightly defective CDRW disc which had been giving me problems in other applications anyway. Once I burned a new copy of that layout on a CDR disc, the eXpanium loaded it and started playing it with no problems at all, and none of the three discs Ive made so far [on CDR] have given me any trouble. The first two discs I burned are in ISO9660 format, but for the third disc, I tried using Joliet format just to see how the eXpanium would handle it. It reads that one perfectly too. The time required to scan the disc before playing does not seem excessive to me at all, and the sound quality is actually better than I expected. The anti-skip features are every bit as amazing as other reviewers here have claimed - Ive had my eXpanium for a week now and still havent been able to make it skip, and thats certainly not for lack of trying. When its being used as a road trip jukebox - a task for which it seems especially well-suited - it would take a mighty rough road [off-road?] to make it hiccup at all. The skip protection alone makes it the perfect companion for a long drive. My only real complaints with the eXpanium are its total lack of a title/ID3 tag display, lack of a "time remaining" display [it shows elapsed time only], and its inability to search through an MP3 track [the <> keys simply go to the previous/next song in MP3 mode]. If you can live with a display which shows only track numbers, elapsed time, and some small icons, then by all means, get the eXpanium. I knew about the display before I bought my eXpanium, but I bought it anyway after careful research and comparison shopping. In short: Rather basic controls, poor display, good sound, thoroughly incredible skip protection.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-03-31
I am impressed with the Philips EXP103. While I love the players music sound quality, and think it sounds great, I really bought the Expanuim to listen to spoken word audio (mostly OTR). Of the mainstream .mp3 CD players on the market today, the Expanium seems to support the widest variety of bitrates. As most of my files are under 128 Kpbs (usually 32/22) this is about the only major-vendor .mp3 CD player that will play all my files. The player doesnt skip (especially at the bitrates Im using), it sounds great in the car (though the car cassette adapter and included headphones are poor quality- replace them if you want great sound!), and I now have the ability to listen to 30 or 40 hours worth of spoken word audio before having to change my CD. The reasons this product didnt receive 5 stars? I have an average of 60 or 70 files on each CD. It would be nice if Philips had included Id3 tagging so I could see track info. In the car its not an issue (I dont want to be looking at a display anyway), but it would be a nice feature to have. I also miss the ability to resume an .mp3 track. As most of my files are at least 25 minutes long I hate the fact that I cant pick up in the middle or a track. I also wish the Expanium had upgradeable firmware like the AVC Soul player. It would be nice if this player was "future-proof." Despite some missing features Im convinced that the Philips Expanium is the best .mp3 CD player on the mass market, and, especially if you listen to spoken word audio, you wont be dissapointed with this product.
On: 2001-03-31
After reading most of the reviews on this web site for this MP3/CD player, we bought one for my husband and he loves it. I ended up liking it so much that I just bought one for myself to have in my car. Yes, the display is dark and a little hard to read, but since I know whats on my CDs I really dont need to see a display. As far as sound goes, regular audio cds or audio cds burned to the same audio cd format sounds great. Some MP3s dont sound as good, but I expected that and its not because of the player (they dont sound any better on anything else either). It rarely skips in the car. In fact, it didnt skip when I would have expected it due to bad roads. It seems to handle folders fine. Sure, you dont get the name of the folder (theyre numbered), just be sure to print a list of your folders and songs to keep track. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to have the flexibility to play both MP3s and audio cds.
On: 2001-03-31
I purchased this player off Amazon back in December forChristmas time and have used it pretty much every day for the past 3months. All I have to say is... this is the best invention ever made,almost as cool as those post-it notes you can bookmark pageswith!Seriously though, the Expanium has worked in every case forme. I have never had it skip one time on me using any stream of MP3 orCD, and it plays all formats and all CD brands. You just have tohave patience to really accept and appreciate what Philips did forMP3-CD players that preceeded it. This was the first-gen player, andstill I have yet to find a player with any different features than theExpanium (besides ID3 tags being present... which I have yet to findone at an affordable price). Pros are the great playback and awesomesound, even in my 1996 Saturn. Though it is difficult to find a songin the dark or in the car at night, just turn a light on. Lights wereinvented for times when you cant see something, youknow.... Overall, the player is everything I personally wanted. Ivenever complained once about the player. Yeah it doesnt have ID3 tagsor search within an MP3, but that is really no big deal. There are fargreater tragedies in life than that. I made 7 CDs with roughly 170songs each, and I just take the time to memorize the order of thefolders and the albums that I put in each separate folder. If yougot 150 bills, shell them out. If you want to wait and think somethingbetter will come, be my guest. But, it was $... well spent in myopinion.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-03-30
I was looking for a car MP3 CD player and was really disappointed with AIWA CDC-MP3 reviews. So I decided to purchase a portable MP3 CD device and have occasionally found the Expanium. Now Im a happy owner of that wonderful thing with a crystal clear sound and a car kit. It loads MP3 CDs pretty fast - it takes only 26 seconds to load a directory of a CD with 220 tracks. Controls are very convinient, especially for the in-car use while driving. On the other hand, Expanium has a completely unreadable display. So if youre looking for a MP3 CD player to be used during car trips Expanium is the excellent choice.
On: 2001-03-26
Heres the good points-- Sounds better than every other MP3 player (no kidding), no hiss, navigates between folders easily Heres the bad points-- The tiny not backlit screen SUCKS!!! If my $20 watch can have a backlit display, then my $150 MP3 player should have one! Does Phillips think no one will use their product after the sun goes down? I guess Im supposed to carry a flashlight with me whenever I want to see what song number Im on? All that stuff about not skipping is false. If you play any MP3 thats 128 kbps or less, then it may not skip, but all my MP3s are 192 or higher, and mine skips all the time. Ill just be walking down the street with it in my coat pocket, and it will skip! Im beginning to wonder if mine is just broken, because it skips on audio CDs too, so Im thinking about exchanging it. I bought it because it was the only Mp3 CD-R that could play higher than 128kbps, and I think anything less than 128 sounds like crap, but if ESP only works on 128 Kbps or less tracks, then I might return it. In spite of these two major flaws, I still think its the coolest Mp3 player on the market, and its defintely worth $150. Some people say its not loud enough, but if you have good headhpones, then its fine. (I could hear it over the NYC subway!)
On: 2001-03-22
I mean it sounds great, has everything i need like AC adapter, headphones and car kit. The batteries give a lot of time of playback, and Im using rechargable batteries. Im only missing the line out cable, but for 150 bucks i think i got more than enough. If you want a high quality and easy way to play your mp3 collection, this is a must have!
On: 2001-03-20
Well, if it werent for its disability to search music in MP3 tracks, less-than-easily-read display and lack of a remote control, I would take it with me to the grave. For the time being though, I take it anywhere on earth, especially off-road in my 4x4, where it has proven to be not virtually, not practically, but absolutely skip-free. I doubt if any producer can come up with a better MP3 player in a conventional case for in-car installation. And, how else can I listen to my most favorite 136 tracks, in recorded or random order, anywhere, in just one CD-R lasting eight hours straight? My tank, players batteries and my trip cant last THAT long.
On: 2001-03-19
I bought this player when it first came out and it is an incredibly solid and reliable unit. The only major flaw is that it does not fast forward (search) or rewind (reverse search) through individual MP3 files (it searches fine on CD Audio files). It also searches fine through folders/directories, both CD Audio and MP3s. The LCD isnt that great but thats not important to me. It doesnt read id tags but I dont care about that either.If id tags and FF/REW doesnt matter to you, Id say buy this one. It will play ANYTHING you throw at it. ANYTHING! 32-320 bitrate, 22,44,48Hz, CDR, CDRW, ISO9660, Joliet. I was thrilled with the player, but I really need a FF/REW feature because I listen to many MP3 books. Some of the chapters are 30-45 mins long. If I have to stop in the middle of a chapter, I end up having to listen to the first half all over again!! bummer. So I bought a RioVolt to solve that problem. Anyway, my Expandium is still alive and well and used for MP3 songs, not books. I highly recommend this product except for that one MP3 seach flaw. I hope Philips gets the hint and will fix this in their next rev. -The case is well made and sturdy. -The hold button works fine. -The sound is good (if you dont use the included earbuds). -The separate Line Out works great. -Ive never heard it skip a beat. Ever! and Im not exactly dainty with electronic gear. -The Resume feature resumes to the begining of the last track played. note: This is another less important flaw (to me)--it doesnt resume to the exact spot where you powered off, but at least it goes back to the folder and file you were last listening to. Many players dont resume at all! Supposedly, the RioVolt resumes to the exact spot with a firmware upgrade--havent tried it yet. Bottom line: Buy it if you dont need to search thru individual MP3s and if you dont need id3 tags.
On: 2001-03-12
when i first got my expanium, life was good. when it first came out, it was the best mp3-cd player of its time. the only things i didnt like is no ID3 tag support, lack of searching a song, and the long start-up time. the more directories i had, the longer it would take to start, up to 45 seconds. now i have a Rio Volt, which starts in 15 seconds, had a backlit display... its the best CD player ive ever had, and the best mp3-cd player.
On: 2001-03-12
when i imagined the machine i wanted to play mp3s, this was it. i can put up to 10 cds in mp3 format onto a cd instead of hauling 10 cds around, or having to buy more REALLY expensive memory on top of a REALLY expensive mp3 player, and still not be able to play as much music. the "hold" feature to freeze the buttons is nice, so if i have it in a bag or jacket pocket, it doesnt accidentally change tunes or turn on/off. in-ear headphones are great, so is the car kit. it mentioned the remote, which would be handy, but that wasnt included in the package. cant turn off the esp for some reason, to add battery life. could use a light for display, and fast-forward capability per song. also doesnt seem to recognize my multiple-session cds. i have to admit, i havent bothered with the documentation yet (its a guy thing), which may have all the answers. overall, as a first attempt crossover device, this is outstanding.
On: 2001-03-09
I use mine in my car, where the great accessories to power it and adapt it to a tape deck work flawlessly. A good CD-MP3 player is one that you dont notice at all, and for the most part it fits the bill. The sound is great, and Ive never had a single skip. The position memory takes off at the song I leave off at when I last park the car, which is really nice.My peeve with it is the fact that it takes *so* long to start up. It does a full scan of the CD, even if its the same CD that was previously in there. This usually takes between 30 and 60 seconds, which is a big distraction if youre making short trips. It should store the CD ID and song contents in its buffer and only rescan if it needs to. It would also be nice if it had a song title display, but thats not a big issue for me.
On: 2001-03-08
I use mine in my car, where the great accessories to power it and adapt it to a tape deck work flawlessly. A good CD-MP3 player is one that you dont notice at all, and for the most part it fits the bill. The sound is great, and Ive never had a single skip. The position memory takes off at the song I leave off at when I last park the car, which is really nice.My peeve with it is the fact that it takes *so* long to start up. It does a full scan of the CD, even if its the same CD that was previously in there. This usually takes between 30 and 60 seconds, which is a big distraction if youre making short trips. It should store the CD ID and song contents in its buffer and only rescan if it needs to. It would also be nice if it had a song title display, but thats not a big issue for me.
On: 2001-03-04
This product was not good. I bought it, and the sound quality was great, but it took like a minute to start playing. I returned it and got a cd/ AM/FM radio player (Aiwa)and it was great. I do not recommend this.
On: 2001-03-04
I bought this player about three weeks ago now and i am fairly impressed. The player works how it should except for the battery life. The instructions read that you should get about 10 hours of mp3 playback with alkaline batteries i recieve about 3 hours. Another bad thing is that the display is very dark and it doesnt read song titles. I think the expanium is a good product but if i would have know about these problems i would have waited untill the technology got better.
On: 2001-02-25
It has only two cons: Slow to start. Cant go forward in the same track in MP3 format
On: 2001-02-19
It doesnt have a radio, and the headphones suck, but what do you want? It plays CD full of MP3s, you can fit like 150 songs ripped at 128, if you rip at lesser quality, you can fit a lot more, but you will surely lose sound quality. It only takes 2 AA batteries and the batteries will die before you hear the whole CD, that rules. You can fit about 14 albums on 1 cd, so it is so easy to carry around hours and hours of music. If you sort albums into folders before you burn the cd, it is much easier to sort thorugh on the CD, however you can stick all the tracks into 1 folder and have a big cluster of 150 tracks, either way this thing is amazing. The Nomad is a comparable machine, but it takes 4AAs as opposed to the Expaniums 2, and the Nomads battery life is only 4 hours as opposed to the Expaniums 10. You also cant use the Nomad in your car. The Expanium doesnt skip and it has a ton of options, and accesories, it is so worth the money.
On: 2001-02-19
I got the expanium for a Xmas present. The sound quality is great. The earbuds were a slight disapointment, but I took off the rubber rings and put some earbud foam on them and they are fine. It doesnt skip.
On: 2001-02-17
This eXpanium is the best, I think, of the MP3/CD players. It does not display text, but does a CD player? And I am not personally interested in short, one line text displays like the Rio Volt anyway. When they come out with a text SCREEN like display that displays multiple lines of data, so you can search through folders, then I will upgrade.The eXpanium worked flawlessly out the box. Others I have tried did NOT, and were returned. I kept the eXpanium! I think it is very reliable. It has never failed to read any brand of CDR. It does read CDRW, but I have never tried one. And it wont skip! Even in MP3 mode! The ESP skip protection is switchable for CD, but always on in MP3. Strong Points: No skipping. Good battery life. Handles folders well (some brands dont). Has good bass boost. HAS A RESUME FEATURE!!! With RESUME turned on, it will remember the last track played, even if you remove CD or the batteries go dead! Love that feature! Good feature, if you have 150 songs on a CDR, and the battery dies at #75, and you were not watching what track you were playing! The RESUME switch has three positions: OFF/RESUME/HOLD. HOLD turns off buttons, you dont inadvertantly press one. You can program it easily. You can scan through tracks or folders easily. Has LINE OUT connection. Analog/dial type volume control. Has many modes, like repeat and shuffle. Comes with AC adapter, DC CAR adapter, cassette deck adapter. Sound quality is very good. Better than my other CD players (portables). Good quality construction. Good manual (some players come with manuals that look like photocopies). AND THE WARRANTY IS A ONE YEAR EXCHANGE, NOT FIX WARRANTY. The warranty says they will REPLACE the unit if it has a problem the first year, and take it to dealer or Philips. How many portable electronics items do you know that do that????? Ok, now the downsides...... Display is dim, and basically, slightly yech. Hard to see in dimmer light, or if you have eye problems. The output power to the headphones (volume) is not impressive. It is barely adequate..I use max volume or near to it sometimes. So if you want to destroy your hearing with loud volumes, this may be a limitation. The battery compartment cover is a very tight fit over the batteries, and sometimes you have to work it a bit to snap completely shut. It will "fast forward" within a track in CD mode, but NOT in MP3 mode. If you press the ">>"/fast-forward button while playing an MP3 CD, and hold it down, it will just jump folders. Out of curiosity, I connected the eXpanium to my $6000 stereo via the LINE OUT of the unit. I did not expect glorious sound better than my home components! I wanted to see if the sound was "nasty", like some devices that use audio compression are, especially at low bit rates. The lower the bit rate, the smaller the mp3 file, and more you can fit on a CD or MP3 device. But the lower the bitrate, the worse the sound, and it can be nasty in some cases. I use freeware CDex encoder/ripper program, with the "LAME" (yeah, thats the name) encoder option, set to 256 kbps. Sounds fine on my stereo. No nasties at all. 192kbps was also great for my classical music. Very good for what the eXpanium is. For rock and roll and many other types of music you can do fine at 128kbps, or in some cases as low as 80kbps. You can really store a LOT of songs on a CD with the low bit rates. At 256kbps I can get about 6 albums on a MP3/CD disc. In summary. I love the eXpanium. The only other contender for me was the RIO VOLT. I had my reasons why I chose the eXpanium, even though they are about the same price. I am 51 and have been an audio enthusiast for many years, and do have a background in electronics. My choice, the Philips.
On: 2001-02-16
This is the greatest mp3-cd player ever! Ive owned an expanium for about 2 weeks now, and it is the best purchase I have ever made! No kidding! I have 220+ songs on one 800mb CD-R and the mp3s NEVER skip! Amazing! Even if you put it in a washing machine, it probably wouldnt skip. The sound quality is amazing with 128kbs and 96kbs, but 192kbs does not seem much better than 128kbs. It is extrememly easy to use too!I would HIGHLY recommend buying one of these expanium even if you are even slightly considering mp3 digital audio. I had a Diamond Rio 500 which I bought. IT WASNT WORTH IT! I got my Expanium from Amazon and it is soooooo much better! *Pros:* -Crisp, clean, high-quality MP3 Playback -Reads CD audio & mp3s on CD-Rs or CD-RWs -Up to 125 seconds of Electronic Anti-skip on MP3s -It looks cool too! *Cons:* -NONE, ZIP!, 0!, NADA!
On: 2001-02-16
OK, mine just showed up in the mail, so some thoughts:1. Lets start with the sound. It sounds great, but the earphones do suck, and the volume is too low. I knew the earphones would suck, though, so I replaced them with some Sennheiser 495s, which sound fabulous. On the volume thing, I think it may have to do with safety -- youre not supposed to blast headphones, and this unit will not let you. 2. The thing does not skip. 3. It does not play all mp3s perfectly. Now, I get all my mp3s at 128 bps over Napster (but not for long!) whether this has to do with the quality of mp3s Im getting or not, I dont know. I create my discs with Easy CD Creator, which the unit seems to handle just fine. 4. The display is fine. s far as not displaying the name of the song, what CD player does this? I think were getting a little spoiled here. 5. The display does not look cheap. 6. When these things actually get down to what they should cost - about 60 bucks -- this thing will rock. Until then, its an expensive toy.
On: 2001-02-13
Im listening to my Philips Expanium as I write, and I only have one complaint. Okay, make it two. One, earbuds. I havent found my other headphones yet, but Im working on it. Secondly, the day I recieved my Expanium, it was announced that Napster would be forced to shutdown. I have no problem with them charging fees, dont get me wrong and Ill gladly pay, but if they shutdown completely Ill be stuck with the one CD I already have. No matter how the Napster deal turns out, Ill be happy with my Expanium for as long as Ive got it. The sound is excellent, it can have more music than anyone could possibly want on a single C.D. As long as you have a C.D. burner, youll be in great shape with a Philips Expanium. I even went out and got a Philips CD burner just so I could burn my own CDs and not have to use my dads computer frequently. I cant tell you its the best Mp3 CD player because I havent used any others, but trust me, this one is worth the money.
On: 2001-02-12
First of all i want to say that just for be Philips this MP3-CD player is one of the best in the market because this is a very good brand for all kind of electronics and I always preffer to buy a well known brand product than a brand that i have never known. The cd player is perfect if you want to play any kind of mp3 cd you can roll the Expanium and its still playing, the esp control is awesome, ive got a mp3 cd with 170 songs the Expanium read it in about 35 second and then it rockssss!!! also the program mode, scan and other features are very well developed and the sound quality is perfect ! If you want to buy a MP3-CD player this is your best option !!
On: 2001-02-12
Ive had mine for almost two weeks now and have really enjoyed it. Two negatives: (1) it is very quiet - I turn the volume to 10 and find that it just isnt loud enough. Ive three sets of headphones (earbuds, the ones they sent, and a $70 studio set) and find that it just doesnt have much of an internal amp. (2) It does take a long time to "spin up" when you have a lot of files on the disk. Ive been listening to Audio Books (usually with 400+ tracks per disc) and it can take almost 15 seconds to begin playing. But over all Ive been happy except for the support/manual. The way in which you burn the tracks to a CD is fairly important. There is NO sentence in the manual that explicitly tells you how to do it. There is a diagram and "Example" but it doesnt answer all the questions. Im currently on the phone with their support asking for an answer: Is it based on filename? ID3 Tag track name? Is it alphabetical? Are there special forbidden characters? etc. It can be a complicated machine when you try to use it to the max - and they dont help you much.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-02-12
I am sorry to say that I am returning my expanium , rio just came out with a new one that is the same price 169.00 the rio will do everything this one does plus it is firmware upgradeble to future formats like WMA and AAC , MP3 is a great format but lets face it, its not the future of digital music, not to mention the rio shows the name of the song you are playing and most likely from what I have heard the rio sounds better.
On: 2001-02-12
It is a value for money product.I bought this much be4 the one from Casio came out in the market. However,philips is the BEST.the sound is too good.Also attach normal desktop speakers to it,and u realise u no more need the standard Stereo System. dont think twice....just buy it !!!
On: 2001-02-10
Well as mentioned befor you cannot scan in mp3 mode. Which furthers my frustration is when I burn a cd and the mp3 player Plays the mp3s OUT of the order I placed them in befor i burnt the mp3-cd. This is brand new technology and it is bound to improve......... If you can afford to drop the bucket in this item go ahead...If not wait for the refinded technology!
On: 2001-02-08
We decided to purchase this after reading some of the reviews of the Memorex MP3 cd player. I got exactly what I expected--a portable CD player that plays my mp3 tunes! The ESP is fairly good. Considering that an mp3 song takes up only 1/10 the space compared to a regular CD, if the lens moves in the slightest bit, the song is over! I havent tested the player with it sitting on my dash yet, though.It doesnt recognize ID3 tags, but it does have a pretty neat organization of the tunes. Each folder on the CD is an "album" and then the songs in the folder are tracks on that album. It plays the albums alphabetically by the 8+3 short DOS name, and likewise for each track. So, heres a tip if you want to order them how you like. As DOS naming is curious, add the track number to the BEGINNING of each mp3 filename, then the Expanium will definitely play the tunes in the necessary order. I learned this after my first CD mix! Since the display simply shows only the album number and track, I recommend using a utility like mp3lister to generate a list of all the tracks. I sort the list in Excel by folder then by filename. Its a very simple design and it plays all my mp3 songs, so I have been very pleased. I cant stop making CDs now!
On: 2001-02-08
My friends.. I just got my mine yesterday and I couldnt be more pleased! I will admit, there are a few things that could have been better (seek time, battery life, disk load time) but hey, this is the first reliable MP3/CD player to be produced!! Give them a break! Think about it like this... Buy a player for $175.84 (after shipping and handling), go to Best Buy and get yourself a stack of 50 700MB CDR Disks for $20 and be sure to pick yourself up a 48 Disk wallet while your there for $14. Then go get yourself a new pair of Labtec MP350 headphones at buy.com for $13.95 (for supreme digital quality listening). You just spent about $223.79 and what have you got? Lets say you have tracks that are an average of 5MB each on your 700MB disk. Thats 140 tracks on each of those 48 cds for a grand total of 6,720 tracks you can take with you!!! Try to do this with a CDs.. Ha ha.. you would have to carry around 373 CDs with you!! (think about buying 373 CDs at a music store.. one disk is $15, 373 disks would be $5,595) And what does all that mean? You could spend $223.79 for a music collection worth $5,595!!!!!!! *if you dont know where to get 6,720 tracks try www.napster.com *make sure you use adaptec easy cd creater pro to make your disks
On: 2001-01-30
This player is one of the first of its kind that I could find. Forget buying a memory only MP3 player for $300 and only get the capability to play 12 songs! I now have the capability to play around 200 songs! The car adapter was the deciding factor for me as I travel frequently. Like many previous reviews have mentioned, the only drawback is the lack of ID3 technology. But come on, if you cannot figure out what songs you have on your own CD then maybe you should not be operating electronic devices. The sound quality is great and the shuffle logic is good too. I would recommend not creating any sub directories though, just put a straight list of MP3s on the CD. Thumbs UP in my opinion!
by: Anonymous On: 2001-01-28
Id have to agree with most of the reviews here. I just got my Expanium today, and I havent stopped using it. If you make the CDs correctly, and buy your own headphones (the included buds suck), then the advertised 10 hrs on 1 CD is a reality. The sound quality is great, although it doesnt get as loud as my discman, it still gets really loud.Slight problems: Poor included headphones (cmon, ear buds?) No ID3 tag support (have to memorize what number is what album, but I write that on the CD anyway, so its not a big deal) Poor LCD (it was not designed to be looked head on, but if you look at it from an angle, it gets a lot better) Cannot shuffle independent albums (no big deal as long as you make CDs that are all one genre...) Takes a while to initaially read a CD (not too bad though) Slow to switch tracks (even on an audio cd) Expensive (but its the best one out there, so I hear) If you can live with those faults (which I can), then this is one great MP3-CD player...
On: 2001-01-27
I couldnt be happier with this unit...especially considering it is more or less a first-of-its kind. Sure, there were a few others out there, but none from anyone I ever heard of. None of those others seemed to handle variable bit rates, etc. And sure, I cant see the artist and song title on the screen, but the thing is in my inside jacket pocket on my walk to work anyway! I really couldnt see paying for an mp3 player and then hundreds of dollars for memory when blank CD-Rs are 50 cents a piece! Sounds good, stands up to a beating. Great unit.
On: 2001-01-25
Not sure if Philips corrected the problems mentioned by others (the dim lcd and the absence of cue and review), but my EXP103 arrived yesterday, and let me assure you: lcd is FINE, and cue and review can both be accomplished by pressing and holding down the >> or << button for long enough to invoke this feature (its possible that these folks just didnt bother to read the instructions carefully).Let me also assure you: THIS PACKAGE ROCKS! Ive tried it stand-alone with both mp3 and music cds. Plenty of volume and good sound. The earphones included arent my type (I dont like the kind you stick in your ears), but so what, you can get a good headset reasonably priced right here at amazon. Ive tried both mp3 and music cds with the car kit -- very good sound and plenty of volume, and I have a generic cassette player. The anti-skip feature works great. I havent even tried some of the other features, but Ive tried all the essentials I want, and Ive come to this conclusion: THIS DEVICE IS KILLER! Philips included basically EVERYTHING you need. Even though I know prices will be dropping, I can already tell on day one of use that it was worth the price. Go for it!
On: 2001-01-25
This thing is actually not as bad as people make it out to be -- at least based on what youd read here about it.There are only two things that I really dont like about it: 1.) The display. Youve gotta lean it back a bit before you can truly see the numbers on it. But hey, people should be spending more time listening to the music itself rather than worrying about how far along they are in the song. There are quite a lot of people on here complaining about its lack of ID3 tag support -- but are they really necessary? If you burn a CD with MP3s that _you_ choose on it, you should be able to remember _which_ songs you put on it. 2.) Power-on. When you first turn it on, itll take about :30 - :45 secs. searching for all of the MP3s on the CD (if its a CD with only mp3s and nothing else on it -- dont try putting in a CD with MP3s and other stuff on it, it takes an ungodly amount of time to search through them =P). For most people, :30 - :45 secs. isnt too big of a deal, but judging from the reviews of people on this site, :30 ~ :45 secs. is too long a wait for their important and time-dependent lives. Buy a friggin memory-based player if you dont wanna wait (and then pay horrendous amounts of money for memory for the dang things). All in all, Id have to say this unit is about as good as it gets for right now. Maybe in 5 years or so, therell be a cd-mp3 player that will please the rushed crowd and the people who cant remember the names of their songs, but for me, Im quite happy with this unit -- even if it is a bit on the pricey side.
On: 2001-01-21
I have owned for a short while each of the following players:MPTrip D-link Classic Each of those players skipped. I feel Expanium is the only dependable MP3-CD player in the market. The 105sec ESP really works! I tapped the lid of the player continuously but couldnt get the player to skip. The classic which also has 105sec ESP could not withstand the continuous tapping for long. Another feature that the Expanium has that none of the other players have is the resume feature. The resume feature on the other players works only when the player is powered on. Expanium seems to remember the album(directory)and the track number even if the batteries are removed from the player. This is an invaluable feature to have, especially if you are dealing with over 150 tracks. In summary, I feel that though the Expanium doesnt have some of the advanced features like, ID3 tag display and text search, it is bug free and reliable. None of the other players that I have come across is entirely free of glitches.
On: 2001-01-17
Tuve la oportunida de probar este aparato y es la neta, 1.- tiene capacidad de leer CDs de 700 megas cosa que las demas unidades parecida a esta no tienen. Lee CDRWs para que pensar en flash cards. 2.- Suena sensacional, igual a la computadora tiene suficiente volumen inclusive me puede tronar los oidos. Si tienes problema con algun mp3 es cosa del archivo no de la unidad. 3.- Aguanta todos los bitrates habidos y por haber, cosa que las demas unidades no hacen ni siquiera la pine. Aguanta inclusive 320kb/s 4.- No aguanta id3 tags? a quie chingados importa que acaso alguien tiene un discman que le diga los nombres de las canciones? y si lo tiene, chingon por ti a este le caben 11 horas 5.- Tal vez sea dificil buscar entre 150+- canciones, pero para eso hay directorios, creas 10 directorios con todas las rolas de 10 discos, y tienes una caja de cd de 10 discos. 6.- Talvez no le quepan 6gb, pero dime cuantos cds puedes quemar? 7.- El equipo que trae vale 30dlls o mas, el conector para coche es de excelente calidad. 8.- Tengo 170 o mas rolas que me facinan, pero no caben en un cd, no caben en 1 cassete, y quiero oirlas en desorden, excelente pon un cd con random y se feliz durante las siguientes 11 horas, lo tienes que dejar de usar pero no quieres oir las canciones que ya oiste, excelente deja el modo de resume activado y seguiras con la misma lista y en la misma cancion, ni WinAmp puede hacer eso. 9.- Es mas caro que muchos de la competencia, pero que jodidos, es mucho mejor, si acaso la unidad pine le puede hacer competencia, lee id3 tags pero caray seguro le vas a poner random y lo vas a dejar tocando. La unidad de aiwa no se vende en america ni europa auqneu presuma ser mejor. Ademas pagas 200 dlls por 650 megas, no por 64 megas 10.- Es excelente para el coche, podria decirles que no van a volver a oir el radio. Unico problema, si tu coche no tiene casetera, nimodo usa los audifonos, o puedes comprar un interceptor de banda blanca fm. 11.- Saltos en las canciones, no pieneses en ellos no existen para esta unidad, si tienes alguno. mal por ti. Cualquier duda pregunta aclaracion o lo que quieran decirma envienme un email a cafre2001@hotmail.com
On: 2001-01-17
Tuve la oportunida de probar este aparato y es la neta, 1.- tiene capacidad de leer CDs de 700 megas cosa que las demas unidades parecida a esta no tienen. ademas lee CDRWs a la perfeccion, no mas targetas de memoria. 2.- Suena chingon, igual a la computadora tiene suficiente volumen inclusive me puede tronar los oidos. Si tienes problema con algun mp3 es cosa del archivo no de la unidad. 3.- Aguanta todos los bitrates habidos y por haber, cosa que las demas unidades no hacen ni siquiera la pine. Aguanta inclusive 320kb/s 4.- No aguanta id3 tags? a quie chingados importa que acaso alguien tiene un discman que le diga los nombres de las canciones? 5.- Tal vez sea dificil buscar entre 150+- canciones, pero para eso hay directorios, creas 10 directorios con todas las rolas de 10 discos, y tienes una caja de cd de 10 discos. 6.- Talvez no le quepan 6gb, pero dime cuantos cds puedes quemar? 7.- El equipo que trae vale 30dlls o mas, el conector para coche es de excelente calidad. 8.- Tengo 170 o mas rolas que me facinan, pero no caben en un cd, no caben en 1 cassete, y quiero oirlas en desorden, excelente pon un cd con random y se feliz durante las siguientes 11 horas, lo tienes que dejar de usar pero no quieres oir las canciones que ya oiste, excelente deja el modo de resume activado y seguiras con la misma lista y en la misma cancion, ni WinAmp puede hacer eso. 9.- Es mas caro que muchos de la competencia, pero que jodidos, es mucho mejor, si acaso la unidad pine le puede hacer competencia, lee id3 tags pero caray seguro le vas a poner random y lo vas a dejar tocando. La unidad de aiwa no se vende en america ni europa auqneu presuma ser mejor. 10.- Es excelente para el coche, podria decirles que no van a volver a oir el radio. Unico problema, si tu coche no tiene casetera, nimodo usa los audifonos, o puedes comprar un interceptor de banda blanca fm. Cualquier duda pregunta aclaracion o lo que quieran decirma envienme un email a cafre2001@hotmail.com
On: 2001-01-16
I have had an Expanium for a month or so. It is a bit pricey, but some of the cheaper units may only work with MP3 files encoded at 44 khz. This unit seems perfectly happy with the lower bit rate formats used on the internet oldtime radio and 78rpm era newsgroups. One can put 40-50 hours of oldtime radio on one CD, maybe more if I can figure out how to write all of an 80 minute CD-R with my HP CD-Writer Plus.Main disadvantage is the inability to move around within an MP3 file. This is a drag with hour long files. Plenty of volume with the supplied earbuds. Sound quality on audio CDs and suitable MP3 files is fine. There doesnt seem to be any way to update the unit to play newer formats (LQT, MP+).
On: 2001-01-10
This thing Rocks! If you are thinking of buying a MP3 player with solid state memory, STOP! Imagine getting 640 Mbytes of MP3 music on a single CDR... Its an awesome convergence on technology. Easy to use, works as promised, sound quality good. In my opinion, this is the most under-rated product of 2000. Get one!
On: 2001-01-07
I got this for a birthday present and was pretty excited; I popped in a CD-RW and got "DATA" on the LCD. Nothing happened. After reading the documentation; I came across "does not work with Direct CD". Basically, if youre hoping to use this with a CD-RW, how do you format it? When I got through to their support (they have electronic chat support), I was told I should use Real Jukebox and that other methods (e.g., Windows Explorer) wont work for putting MP3s on a CD. The chat support person then tried to palm me off on their 1-800 number (voice-mail hell). The advertisements are misleading, the volume is very low, and the support is non-existent. Philips should have done a little more research and worked on their marketing and support (try hiring people who have a clue). Im very disappointed and feel this reflects poorly on all Philips products.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-01-05
This is my second review of the product. For me, I find it very user friendly. The buttons are spaced so it is not crammed together. The display is the worst ever. No ID tags. But wait, for those of us who know our music, we can tell what song it is without having to read a title. I can fit about 150-180 songs per CD. I have never had a problem with any of them and Ive done about 20 so far. My main reason for buying this was because I was tired of listening to my mp3 files using the computer. I feel music was meant to be heard on a good stereo system. I have my Expanium hooked to my stereo and couldnt be happier. Also, a note about making mp3 cds. I use Musicmatch and have no problems yet. Just beware of real long file names(rename them). Thanks Amazon for providing Expanium.
On: 2001-01-04
I dont think that the player is bad in its purpose, but rather it doesnt meet the requirements that an mp3-CD player should. The biggest limitation of this product is the difficulty to navigate between songs. Lets say you have a CD full of mp3s.. but you want to find a song, or want to know what your playing, shouldnt the player display the already included mp3 info? Like title, artist, etc. I think that it would have been a lot better if it did that. Kindof like how the Creative Nomad Jukebox does, but a player that plays mp3s through CDs and not through the built-in harddrive. Lets face it, CDs are a lot cheaper, and they burn a lot faster than going through the USB or any other port. And you can carry more than one CD at a time.
On: 2001-01-04
O.K., we all know that usually the first line of any product seems great at first, which the Philips Expanium does, but after a closer look, its just not all the way up to par with current tecknology.1. The positives: a. Good sound quality. If you think otherwise, I suggest recording at only 128 kbps or better. This will keep you from hearing too much distortion. b. Easy to use. While the features are limited, they are easily navigated throug without ever touching the instructions. And if youre like me, thats a plus. The shuffle and playlist functions work especially well. Not to mention the anti-skip feature also is all that it claims to be. c. Accessories! Philips was kind enough to include all that you need to put this thing in your car, which is exactly why I bought it. They include the ac adaptor plug, tape adapter for the car, head phones (not needed for the car but also included), and a regular ac adaptor. Even though I believe the price is a little steep, you would spend about 30 dollars extra on all this stuff. 2. The negatives: a. Not enough features. No fastforward or rewind, no id3 support. Cmon, you guys could have done better. b. Pricey. Although it is the MP3 capability you are paying for, not worth the suggested retail of 200 dollars, even with all of the accessories. c. Terrible LCD display. Just too dark. Just plain bad. 3. The skinny: a. If youve got to have it right now, its not a bad investment. I recommend finding a better deal than the retail price though. Even with the limited features it still offers good sound quality with the convenience of MP3 from CD (10 hours worth at 128 kbps) and not to mention tons of accesories included. If you just want one and can wait, do. Something improved will definitely come along at a better or comprable price.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-01-03
I need too know what the socalled car kit it comes with, does it adapt to a traditional car tape player or do you need a cd player? I want this to play in my car. Someone please respond
by: Anonymous On: 2000-12-31
I am really impressed with this device. If you are looking for a cd player that will hold ten hours of almost cd quality music definately get this. The mp3s sound great, I hardly can tell a difference, it sounds like a cd. I have had no trouble from the skip protection, the bass boost is decent, the headphones are pretty good, and i have had no trouble with the mp3 discs, I dont know what all these other reviewers are talking about, they just must not know how to use it. A few problems: loading an mp3 cd every time you turn it on takes a while and is a little frusturating; the display is not so good and it doesnt display the names of the songs, even on mp3; you cant fastforward or rewind an mp3 song; battery life on mp3 is a little short. But I really like it, its great not having to carry around a bunch of cds.
On: 2000-12-31
This is a great player. It has recognized all our CDRWs just fine. I bought this for my wife for Christmas and she loves it. I can understand the complaints about the display, but since my wife and I our both blind, It just does not matter.
On: 2000-12-31
I am an MP3 believer so buying the Philips EX103 Expanium was the thing to do. So I bought it. My excitement turned to disappointment when I realised that this device: - has very low volume ability and it is very slow to read the disk. - my casette walkman has better sound quality than it - nomatter what they say IT SKIPS - when it Skips, it does not recover until you are fed up and switch it off - Its accessories are CHEAP. The headset was falling apart from day 1. The car stereo cassette adapter keeps getting stuck in my stereo - No search feature, no way of controlling what you want to hear. You copy 120 MP3s on a disk and you will harldy listen to more than 20 unless you are on your way to Vegas.What I liked about it is the fact that its a way to listen |
