Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips EXP303 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit

I got this player a couple of weeks ago and now I actually view my car as a vacation spot whenever I have to drive anywhere. I know I can just relax and chill in the car for hours and this player will perform no matter where and how I drive. When I get to the house, I take the player with me and just use the same car adopter to play MP3-CDs through my home boombox.

It never skips, as long as you have the ESP system activated. Other important features...you can fast-forward and rewind easily withing the same track and between tracks, move between albums (for the MP3-CDs), program the play-back sequence of up to 50 tracks, and make use of all the various modes of play-back, like shuffle, repeat, random, etc... Also important in the car is the fact that you don't have to select which kind of CD you're putting in: MP3-CD or Audio-CD(aka regular CD). I just grab any CD I want and the player recognizes it and plays it. I probably have about a hundred CDs in the car, and they are mixed - some MP3-CDs and others are Audio, so this was important for me.

Ok, I think that's about it. PHILIPS EXP 30117 model also sold on Amazon [..less money and..] is a very similar player, just without the car kit, so you may want to look at the reviews there as well. The reason I said "similar" as oppose to the "same" is because I noticed one of the reviews there said that 30117 unit plays up to 15 hours on 4AA batteries. My player (EXP30317) only takes 2 AA (maybe they mean it plays more than 7 hours on 2AA and so that makes almost 15 hours on 4AA, I don't know, that's why I have a car kit anyway). But other than that, I couldn't find very many differences. So get this player if you plan to use it in the car, and IMPORTANT get a CD holder somewhere so that all your CDs are easily accessible in the car, then you won't have to look under the seats for your favorite disk. ENJOY!!!!

Originally purchased a memorex MP3 player MP8507 - great on paper, but skips too easily in practice. Was not a keeper. See my previous review.

In reading reviews, we noticed that many MP3 players have skipping problems. After the Memorex, this became our number one concern in finding a replacement. In short, this Philips player has solved the problem - NO SKIPPING!

When this unit arrived, we put it through the test of orientating the player in all directions, running up and down the stairs, fast walking. No skipping at all! At last something that has an ESP that works! (We did not try the snowboard test)Works with all CD-RW's, CDRs and Silvers we have - even handles the DirectCD format.

To top things off, the sound was significantly better than the Memorex (which had a low level static sound). The ear plug headphones gave a very nice sound for their size.

Only missing feature was ID3 tag support that the Memorex had. This is not missed too much since there is no load delay when CD is inserted.

Note that some places claim that this unit supports WMA files - this is not the case. It does support AAC files which is a better format. ACC is not practical for us at the moment since our DVD player supports MP3's and a free ACC encoder (decent) could not be downloaded for the PC.

Using NiMh batteries, this player is lasting well over 4 hours for us - not a problem.

For the extra $... over the Memorex, we have ended up with a player that will be hassle free - well worth the extra money for us. The Philips also comes with an AC power adaptor and belt clip (removable from the player). Lastly, the sound is excellent - even with the provided plugs. Use market headphones for even better sound. Enjoy!

I've been looking for an MP3 player for some time but didn't want to spend $300 for one with a large internal hard drive. Worse than that are those with only 64 megs of storage, that's barely an album. This is the perfect solution. You can fit several hundred songs on 1 cd and have hours and hours of music for a reasonable price.

I just got this player for Christmas and I've used and abused it since. I can say several things about it: it never skips and the batteries last a long time. Let me give you an example: yesterday I wore the Expanium while snowboarding. I crashed a couple of times but the thing never skipped, not once. I also used the batteries all day (over 5 hours) and then played it in the car all the way home (another 2 hours). Today the batteries are still going strong.

I do have a couple of minor complaints though: 1) the "resume" feature (where you can listen to a track in exactly the spot you left off) is quirky. You have to make sure it is on and even then it doesn't seem to work if you turn the player off for a while. This is a big problem if you are listening to a huge file that is a single track long (like an audio book or album wrapped CD). Also the car adapter piece is kind of flimsy. The cap containing the fuse came unscrewed after the first use and I lost the fuse, rendering it inoperable. I got a new fuse at an auto parts store and taped up the adapter so it works fine now.

A minor complaint to some is that there is no titling on the player's display. I don't find this a problem as I can usually tell which song is playing within the first couple seconds. The key is to organize your cd clearly when you burn it on your computer and you won't have any problems finding your songs.

A feature that is really cool is that you can shuffle specific folders of music or the entire disc. Imagine loading in 250 of your favorite songs and hitting "shuffle," you'd have great music all day long. The "hold" feature is cool too. Slide the switch to this and the Expanium can be jostled everywhich way but the music will keep on playing, no accidental button pushing.

If you want a way to play your mp3 files this is it. It's reasonably priced, you can play it in your car or hook it up to your home stereo and it's convenient. Above all it works, no skips, no compromises.

I had been looking for a new personal cd for a while and I decided to upgrade to one that could play mp3 cd's as well. I tried two others first. I purchased and returned a Phillips 200 series first, It took a long time to start playing when I switched tracks, very annoying. I tried Emerson next, it would just stop playing, and the skip protection was not very good. Not one to give up on my favorite brand (Phillips) I bought the EXP30317 WOW, It does everything I want and does it very well. The sound is good although the included headphones are not to my liking. I took a 3 hour car trip and it did't skip once, I just tossed it on the seat and drove. The belt clip is a neat addition for the price, I don't even have to put the skip protection on for nornmal walking. Battery life is also quite good I'm still using the orginal ones I put in 9 days ago. I have owned 6 other cd players in the past and this is the best one to date. If you want a durable great sounding inexpensive cd Mp3 player check out this little jewel, you'll be glad you did!!

After buying 3 other units, an Emerson, an RCA RP2410, and a Philips EXP20117, I had to return all of them. They all were very badly flawed. I decided to do some research on these types of players. I found out by reading the reviews posted in Amazon's user review sections that my results with the first three were typical. Most of these CD/MP3 players just barely work and are loaded with design flaws that you would have to live with.

"NOT SO FOR THIS ONE" !!!!

This unit and it's less expensive version , the EXP30117 are virtually flawless. As other's have stated, they will not skip, even with the ESP turned off on MP3 files. I have shaken mine as hard as I care to and it doesn't skip, period. I've had this unit for 2 weeks now, and it's hardly been turned off at all. The battery life is as stated. I'm using NMIH AA's in mine and it lives up to the expected use average. The advertising on this unit requiring 4 AA's is an error. It takes 2. Actually, the only flaw that I've been able to find in this unit is a few product description errors in their advertising. I'm certainly glad that they erred in this area, rather than in the product itself, as the other manufacturer's seem to have done.

As far as it's inability to read ID3 tags, I don't miss that feature at all as this is a portable unit, and I don't want to have to look at it while I'm using it, while driving or whatever. I can write the folder numbers right on the CD when I burn it and then I'm aware of what album my songs are in.

The mentioned problem with the resume feature not working on these units is related to using the unit on the internal batteries. I have found that, probably due to shortened battery life, this feature is disabled in the full off mode, for MP3 tracks only. The resume is always active on audio CD tracks. However, it is fully enabled for MP3's when using an external power source, the AC adapter or car cord (as long as it's kept attached to the power source). You would have to keep it plugged into the cigarette lighter to keep the resume active. The owners manual does not mention the exact operation of this feature, a rather minor oversight on the part of the manufacturer.

If you want to be able to listen to your mp3's while away from your computer, this is the best unit made in this price range, only bested by it's big brother the EXP50117, with the ID3 tag function, which doesn't appeal to me.

Save yourself some aggravation and check this unit before you try anything else. From everything I've read thus far, it's the only one out there that does what it says.