Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips SA30 2 GB Flash Video MP3 Player with FM Radio and 1.5-Inch Color Screen (Black)

I have been on the fence for a long time, not wanting to pay too much, but wanted color screens and photo capability.

Pros
I can fit it in a pocket or purse easily.
Music transferred smoothly.
Great FM radio reception.
Very nice design, and user friendly

Cons
It does require a computer to charge. So not ideal for travel use.
I did have a few problems installing software.

If the Converter does not install, close everything then open the disk files and open the Converter folder and use the installation file from that. I think the regular set-up tries to do too much at a time.

I cant believe how stupid the design is for this player- you cannot create and organise your music into custom folders- its just lumps all the tracks together, and then gives you the option to sort by album, artist and genre, as found on the individual tracks of the mp3. so if your tracks dont have that info, you are pretty much stuck with a huge mess. This feature or lack of a feature is a deal breaker- Im definitely returning this product right away.

One of the frequently asked questions is "my music isnt playing in the correct order"- do you know what their answer is- prefix all your tracks with 001, 002, 003 etc- COME ON!!!! you cant be serious????

the software has an update facility, but it doesnt matter what you do, the software cannot pick up your player- I mean you are transferring files, and the brilliant piece of software tells you that no devices are connected.
Good luck if you hope to get any support from philips, they are completely incompetent- they dont answer your emails and the site bombs out all the time.
The player can only be charged via the USB port of your pc, so if you are going camping or somewhere where there is no access to a pc you can only listen for the 8 hours or however long your battery lasts, unless you purchase a separate USB charger.

apart from that, its good looking, small, the screen quality is pretty good, the sound is good, it has a radio, and does support videos-although it only supports WMA video files that need to be converted to its own format with a little utility program found on the installation cd.

In order to use with a Macintosh computer running OS X, copy your mp3 files to folders on the Desktop (one folder per album or playlist). Then copy the folders to the Philips, which upon connecting to the USB port will appear as a drive on the Desktop. The Philips will keep the files in each folder separate. It appears that this mp3 player is not recognized by iTunes. Don't bother removing the files already present on the Philips, they are re-installed by the device if deleted. In general: it sounds good; it's small, light, and relatively inexpensive.

This is my first MP3 player. I wanted to buy a player with video and color but I did not want to pay too much money. So, I decided on this $49.99 player that I purchased from Wal-Mart. The main dissatisfaction I have with this player is turning the player off. It is so hard to turn the device off. The instructions say to press and hold the button in the middle. This never worked for me. I end up putting the song on pause and then after a few minutes the device will automatically shut itself off.

I was happy with this product at first,as it was my first mp3 player.And i purchased it at wal-mart for a good price.I found transfering music amazingly simple for someone not too computer savvy,and was not too put off by the lack of playlist function. the radio reception was great as well. I used it only for music so i cannot comment on other functions.the size is also nice.However after about 2 months I had a super difficult time turning it off or forwarding a song, you have to press the buttons and hold over and over to get it to respond and then it might not be the response your after.then I started having problems with the way my songs would play. on random shuffle it kept playing the same 10 or 15 songs over and over in the same order, no matter what i did.( i called cust service 3 times, and did everything they suggested). I started having to scroll through and hand pick every song. I ended up deleting the ones that kept repeating because i associated them with frustration. also my sound went in and out no matter what heaphones i used. (I tried 4 pairs) it would be fine,then just stop to silence in the middle of a song(downloads not radio). mine may have been faulty and i had no warranty. so this might be a decent player but mine just sucked.I should have returned my warrenty papers. if you buy this product be sure you do this.Eventually mine was smashed by a hammer.(Bad babysitting gig that will never be repeated). I would LOL however im still kinda mad.I bought a sansa 8gb that im super happy with,great sound,easy to use, no problems.although not quite as easy to use and the radio reception is not nearly as good.In the end im grateful for the time that I was able to enjoy my philips,but would never repeat this purchase as it caused me a lot of frustration in the end.