Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips GoGear Spark SA2940/02 4GB Colour Display 1.5" MP3 Player

I have owned an iPod shuffle, several Archos PMPs and an iRiver player over the years but nothing compares to how much has been crammed into this fantastic little gadget!

This player has practicaly everything you need in a tiny mini-compact MP3 player. You have all your standard shuffle, playlist, display stuff you would expect, plus some neat little things like folder display, so you can simply pull the MP3 file from the disk directly without the need to have it's tags set correctly. You can display any picture slide show during music playback, nice little feature.

The unit measures about 7cm x 7cm x 0.75cm, the enture front panel is the typical plastic covering, it is not touch screen. Volume control down one side, power and lock on the other. Phone socket and microphone on the top.

It will display JPG and GIF easily and I threw some reasonably large 5MB JPGs ( 4200x3000 px) at it and it only took about 2-3 secs to "re-code" them and display, best to stick to smaller ones around the 400x400px size for super fast results.

The playback is one of the best I have heard in the ultra cheap devices and far outstrips the limited sound quality from any iPod I have heard. You get preset EQ and you can set your own custom EQ settings.

After 6 hours of continous playback I think one bar has dropped on the battery indicator which suggest about 12-15 hours of playback on a 45 min charge, not bad for a gadget with full colour screen.

The navigation is via the fron screen, whereby the entire front screen rocks in all 4 directions to whatever the buttons have been set to on screen so, up for last track, down to for next, pause/play on the right, luckily they have put a lock on the unit, else you would be pushing the buttons while it was in your pocket...

Which brings me to the one major, serious failign of this wondeful device, the clip! It is a piece of utter rubbish! The worst designed thing ever! You thread a plastic clip through a rubber cover, then slid the device into the rubber cover, but only just about enough to cover the outside of the unit, not the front screen though. So one swift jolt and the whole thing falls out and on the floor if the earphone plug doesn't hold it from doing so.

Connectivity is perfect. I utterly despise having to use specific software for MP3 players, I want simply connect and copy type devices, I own a Mac and hate iTunes with a passion, it is seriously awful. This device is perfect, plugged it into my Mac at home and my Linxu box at work, came up perfect and simply left me copy my files over and unplug and go. Even better they use standard size mini-USB plug, which 90% of the cameras and players use all over the world! Well done for a great design decision, makes up for the rubbish clip thingy!

A fantastic device, well worth every single penny, but seriously let down by what can only have been a last minute design thought, adding a clip to a tiny portable device! Despite the utter rubbish clip thingy, it has now replaced my iPod shuffle.

Only 4 stars, the rubiish clip ( come on its always going to be carried about for flip's sake! ), docked it a star!

What a great little MP3 player and I have to admit I have got quite attached to it in a very short space of time.

Out of the box it is roughly 4cm square and about 1cm deep; possibly it is a bit too small. It comes with a fairly average set of headphones, a rubber protective holder (and belt clip) and a very short, but standard connector size, USB connector cable. It has 4Gb of memory, although a small part of that contains the device software and manual if you want it. You don't need this though as you just drag and drop the files you want (oh so easy).

The Phillips SA2940 looks good, but looks even better when it is switched on. The colour display can be customised to have your own wallpaper, have a personalised slideshow; you can store pictures on this which can then be used as a slide show.
Even numerous different screensavers can be selected; digital/analogue clock; current track name/artwork; graphic equaliser etc. Sound quality is about as good as you'd want from an MP3 player. It even has a voice recorder and playback!

Navigation of the menus is child's play; I did not even check the manual to work out what was what. The clear screen cover acts as a simple menu up/down/forward back push selector. It is quite sensitive, so you need to click the lock switch to lock the selectors if you put it in your pocket (volume up/down still works). There are a number of other personalisation's you can do too; repeat a track once or forever; shuffle tracks; play by genre, album, artist or playlist. All in all vary well thought out.

One huge benefit for me is that there are no batteries; purely a USB chargeable MP3 player. My only concern is the battery life. It claims that it can last up to 30 hours. Possibly true if you have minimal screen displays when active. I had a clock showing at all times whilst listening to several albums and changing configurations - the battery indicator showed half full after only 6 hours; still that is not too bad as I am never far from a computer and I can always disable the screensaver (which will stop the battery being eaten up so quickly)

It may not have the robust feel of an iPod or the popular appeal either, but if you want something slightly different that is a great little MP3 player with a few good bells and whistles, then this is for you.

Overall, and for the price too, top marks.

This neat little mp3 player provides excellent sound quality and is straightforward in operation.

Music can be copied to it using drag and drop or windows media player. It is not DRM compatible - but if you support DRM sales outlets you should be ashamed. It has a good capacity non-replaceable battery which can only be charged through a USB connection when the player is not in use. I expect that this will progressively reduce but you can expect it to run all day and night to begin with.

Start up has been designed for the product's intended user. It assumes sufficient PC competence to respond to screen prompting when connected via mini USB - and an aversion to the printed page. The process is intuitive but if you choose to update the firmware at the wrong time this can be slow - with no indication of progress. Incidentally this review is for the non radio version 2940 - it is possible to download the firmware from the 2945 version and I would be interested to know if anyone has used this to unlock the radio functionality. Not important to me...

The little 1.5" 480 pixel square screen is not bad - but can't be seen easily outside. Controls work well once you master them - locking them is essential to prevent tracks skipping. The locking slider also turns the player off. There is no futile attempt to provide video playback and I haven't tried the recording facility. Philips have an agreement with Audible to provide playback of their recorded material which may be of interest to some.

On first use the sound quality was poor - congested and bass heavy. I believe that one of the equalizer settings must be used as a default although there is no indication that this is so. Using the custom setting adjusted to a flat response provides an enormous improvement. For the purposes of review I tried the supplied in-ear phones - not too bad - and the player has a 'full sound' equalization setting that is probably complementary to their reproduction. With better quality listening gear this 'full sound' demonstrates the usual over weighting of bass and treble response that you would expect. All the mp3 players I have owned appear to benefit from a brief period of running before the sound opens out.

This is an extremely likeable player. Compared to the Sansa Clip the sound quality is first rate. It comes with a silicon case that provides limited protection and feels nice - but does compromise the 'phone socket - if you are not using the standard in ear ones provided. It also means that the belt clip is not integral - not as neat but functionally satisfactory.

Start up times are acceptable - even when the player capacity is fully utilised. Playback options are well designed and comprehensive and the player does remember where it was when you switch it off. Judging from earlier reviews there have been worthwhile firmware improvements.

You will not be disappointed if you buy this player.

When I received this mp3 player in its clear plastic cube packaging I was over the moon. The little player is adorable - it fits right in the palm of your hand and is cute, chunky and seemingly impossibly small for something that does so much! It is mostly black with silver edging and I think it looks really stylish.

The mp3 player comes with an instruction book which explains the basics, and a much more extensive set of instructions is available online on the Philips website. Also offered on the website are some firmware upgrades, but I didn't know how to add these so have left them well alone.

Music is very easy to put onto the player - just plug the player into your USB port with the provided connecting lead and drag your music files over to the folder which represents the player. You may need to change the properties of your music files if they are downloaded rather than ripped straight from CD, if you want the names to be correct, but this is easily done.

Photos can also be dragged into the folder without any problem at all, and once on the player they show up very well and look very sharp and true in colour, due to the screen's high resolution.

The player is easy to operate too, using the few unobtrusive buttons on the sides, plus pressing the rocking screen from side to side. The player can also be personalised, with different background themes, colours and pictures. You can even have your photos playing as a slideshow whilst listening to your music.

The sound that the player emits is excellent. Comparable to more expensive players, easily, and despite the complaints on here about the earphones I actually think they're fine - they give a good sound without too much bass and they fit firmly in my ears, unlike the ones provided with Ipods which are not quite as good.

Included in the box is also a flexible plastic case which protects the back and sides of your mp3 player to help prevent scratches (though doesn't cover the screen). This is a nice extra as with most electronic gadgets you have to pay extra for a case.

I only have two real complaints: the menus for the music are not the quickest to use or clearest to see and it seems you have to go through quite a few screens before you can select your song. The other complaint is that if you select to have a slideshow as your screensaver, then the player will only use all your photos, rather than allowing you to select one folder and have, for example, separate `family', `friends' or `pets' slideshows.

Still these are small complaints and I think this player is an excellent addition to the market. An Ipod nano may give you more street cred, have clearer menus and a bit more storage, but it's also twice the price. And the cheaper Ipod shuffle has far less features than this player (it doesn't even have a screen!). So for this price, I think this is a great mp3 player which I highly recommend.

The GoGear Spark is very cute. It's a tiny little thing that seems to weigh almost nothing, which is always a good thing in an MP3 player! The screen is almost the size of the entire top surface, so no space is wasted. The controls are pretty self-intuitive and arranged around the sides of the Spark as well as the four edges of the screen being buttons, the actions of which correspond to icons shown around the edge of the screen at various times.

I was a bit taken aback by the "Quick Start Guide" that is over 160 pages long until I realised that only the first 15 or so pages were the English part and the rest was just the same thing in other languages - phew! There are detailed instructions and an FAQ on the manufacturer's website but the Spark is pretty much self explanatory and you can do all of the basics nd a lot more without having to read beyond the Quick Start Guide.

Installation and charging are a breeze - the Spark doesn't require any specialist software or CD-ROMs. You just plug it in using the (very short) USB cable and you can a "Device Manager" piece of software that enables you to download firmware updates for the Spark. You don't need to install this in order to be able to put music or pictures onto the device though - you can simply drag-and-drop them to the appropriate folders (e.g. "Music") that show on the device, which appears on your PC as though it's a USB hard drive. I really like that feature - it's much more convenient than having to open up some specialist application to synchronise the device with a media library held on your PC, as you would have to do with some of the other portable digital media devices on the market.

The Spark comes with a rubbery sort of case that allows you to attach it to a belt or keyring and seems to offer some protection against knocks. The other accessory you get is a pair of truly terrible headphones. This seems to be a feature of digital media players though thesedays - no matter who the manufacturer is, the free headphones are always really low-end ones that don't even fit your ears properly and keep falling out. Maybe it's just my ears, I have no idea? Anyway, the headphones aren't great and the sound quality was much, much better when I swapped them for one of my other sets. With good headphones, I found the sound quality of an MP3 played on the Spark to be as good as you will get with any other digital media player.

In addition to music, the Spark also allows you to store images and view them on the display. I'm not entirely sure why anyone would want to do this, but fair enough. This does mean that your MP3 collection on the device can display the album art though, which is quite neat. The resolution of the screen is not great which was my second disappointment with the Spark, but it's perfectly adequate for it to do it's job and doesn't really affect performance when you consider what you're using the device for first and foremost - to play music.

To sum up, the Spark is great value for the price and a lot more convenient and simple to use than some of the competing models on the market. You may want to replace the headphones with a better quality pair but then you probably would with most any digital media player out there.