Philips EXP 200 MP3 CD Player

Amazon Customer Reviews

(5 out of 5)

Perfectly adequate

When I go on holiday I always end up filling a good portion of the case with CD's and almost always forget one I regret later. What I was looking for was a way to take my music collection with me as simply and cheaply as possible and a CD/MP3 player seemed ideal. I had seen reviews of the Rio Volt products but rejected the lesser ones on lack of skip protection and the better ones on cost. The Philips Expanium seemed to fill this gap.
It is fair to say that this player is not stacked with features, but it is also among the cheapest, particularly with a known brand. The display shows album and track number rather than any descriptions but you soon overcome this by organising your MP3's into directories before you burn them to CD (each directory is an album on the display).
The playback is very good, the anti-skip is excellent, and the start-up delay is acceptable. It comes with a two-stage bass boost which really comes through. It also comes with a switch to hold your last position, so that unless you open the lid you can turn the unit off and on again and the last track you played comes back on screen.
I've seen other reviews of older Expanium units which talk about difficulties when burning the CD's but I have used very standard software and I have had no problems at all.
I haven't used the unit enough to comment on battery life except to say that the couple of hours I have used it for have shown no drop in the on-screen battery meter.
All in all this product does exactly what I wanted it to do

(5 out of 5)

Expanium 200 series

The first thing that strikes you about the Expanium 200 is it's physical size is very little over that of a CD, and it is very light. The display, although it has no back-light is an easy to read, large black font on light gray LCD type and very clear. The instruction manual is in plain English. Functions include Playback resume - for starting playback from the last track before stopping and Electronic Skip Protection - handy for using the unit in a car or on the move, although I did manage to trip it up by lightly tilting the unit back and forth for 45 seconds - which is the buffer limit. It does not appear to be able to play MP3 files that are marked as "read only" under Windows 98 file properties, so you need to make sure if compiling a CD from existing CD's that you highlight (CTRL + A) all the files you are going to burn once they are copied to your Hard Drive and press "Alt + Enter" to bring up the properties panel to un-tick the "read only" option. There is no "wall-wart" power supply, although the two AA battery's will power the unit for 10 hours and there is a 4.5V DC power socket for use with an optional mains power adapter. There is no belt clip on the back of the unit, but there is an aperture for attaching an in-car anti-vibration platter (not supplied). The unit does not display ID3 information, so if your files are named by artist, album or year etc. this will not scroll across the screen, but if you are creative with your CD burning you can easily organize your files into "albums" and find particular tracks quickly. The supplied in-ear style headphones give good reproduction of low end frequencies, something usually missing from small diaphragm phones. The sum of its parts go to prove that Philips continue to be a quality brand and the unit "feels" much more expensive than it is. If you need a simple unit that actually does what it says it can do with no fuss you will not regret buying an Expanium. If it's advanced features you are after think about spending a lot more money.

(2 out of 5)

You get what you pay for

I think I'm right in thinking this probably the cheapest MP3 CD player on the market - there's a reason for that.

Functionality is ok, though without playlists or track names you have to be careful how you label your tracks, basically the track number has to be at the start of your track filename.

The real problem I've found is with the sound quality: when playing back MP3s you get pops and squarks all the time (I know it's not the encoder as I've listened to the same CDs on other MP3 players). The general sound of the unit (including normal CDs) I can only describe as grungy, this is further distorted by the DBB bass effect which is, quiet frankly, crap. Oh and the ESP anti-shock doesn't work and the ear-plugs are like some strange surgical implements that have to be the most painful ear-plugs I've ever tried.

Don't think your getting a bargin cost you're not.

Feels solidly built though - I wonder if it would withstand me throwing it out the window.....

(5 out of 5)

smart product !!

If you are looking for a good mp3 player, this is the right product for you. As:

- The sound quality is perfect. When it is turned on; during the first 10-15 seconds the sound quality may be low but after that it becomes ok. Dynamic Bass Boost feature makes the sound quality superb.

- It is very light and it has very compact design. It is a handsome product !!

- Battery consumption is quite low, especially if u use chargeable batteries - it would cost you almost nothing.

- It is almost impossible to skip any track thanks to ESP. I cant remember how many times I jumped and rolled to test this :)) Other than burning some calories, it did not do anything....

- You can programme up to 32 tracks, which provides nice opportunity to lie to around about the content of cd and listen only your favorite songs :P

- When I connected it to my hi-fi, the result was amasing and I was very pleased to know that I have mp3 playing hi-fi since than.

- The price, compare to any other product in the same class, is incredible - thanks to Amazon !!

- Only missing thing is screen light. If there was a light for the screen, so it would be possible to see it in darkness.

If you are not a perfectionist (if u r this a different story!), I am sure you would be glad to purchase this product.

(5 out of 5)

A Real Beauty (Mac users read this)

Very impressed... Don't let the fact that this is only 50 quid put you off. Mine arrived this morning and I had major reservations, as I'm Mac based - not a problem! As long as you burn your CD-R or CD-RW's as a Files and Folders format, this little beauty will do the rest.

On the downside, there's no display of the name of which track or album you're on, it's all done with numbers, but if you arrange your albums into folders you can't go far wrong and anyway you can't really complain for £50!

No more lugging masses of CD's anywhere, and I've got a fair few, but when you can fit over ten albums on one CD in MP3 format... Also on the plus side, for those of us who regularly buy CD's, it'll play standard CD's as well.

A real little gem. For people who want a quick, affordable, portable MP3 solution and you can't get anymore affordable than this. (The more serious MP3er should consider opting for an Apple iPod.)