Philips EXP303 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit

by Philips

Product Details

Product Manual [1.28mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches ; 8.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005ABEE
• Item model number: EXP30317
• Batteries: 2 AA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Philips's EXP303 eXpanium portable MP3-CD player lets you spin your favorite CD, CD-R, and CD-RW discs. It also plays MP3-encoded CDs--a feature that lets you carry more than 10 hours of music on a single disc (depending on the bit rate of your MP3 tracks). The EXP303 supports all common MP3 playback bit rates (32-320 Kbps) and can even handle variable bit rates within a given track.

A heat-resistant body makes the EXP303 perfect for daytime car listening, and Philips even throws in a car kit with this model.

Antishock technology developed by Philips called Magic ESP offers 45 seconds of shock protection on standard CDs and up to 100 seconds with 128 Kbps MP3 files. Philips claims 20 hours' playback time from four AA batteries.

Standard CD player features include 30-track programming, random play, resume, hold, intro scan, a 1-bit digital-to-analog converter, and digital dynamic bass boost.

From Digital Living Today

With all the formats you can use to record music onto a CD, it can be tough to find a portable CD player that can playback all your Cds. Philips's EXP303 eXpanium portable MP3-CD player lets you do just that at a price you would expect to pay for a portable CD machine without any format flexibility. The EXP303 will play, CD, CD-R, and CD-RW discs, as well as MP3/Cds recorded in a wide range of compression options (32-320 Kbps). This can allow you to get up to 10 hours of MP3 sound from a single disc. For those who like to listen on the go, the EXO303 offers up to 45 seconds of anti- shock on CDs and up to 100 seconds with MP3s. Other features include a bass boost, various playback options, a heat-resistant case, and a one chip, high quality digital to analog converter. Throw in a free car adaptor kit from the manufacturer and you've got a budget-priced, versatile, high quality portable CD player that you can use on the road at the gym, or hooked up to your system at home.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a RAVE in and out of the car!!!!, November 12, 2001

By 

"edward_bagdasarian" (Mount Joy, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips EXP303 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit (Electronics)

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!!!!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No skipping, fantastic sound!, January 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Philips EXP303 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit (Electronics)

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!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Perfect Solution, December 28, 2001

By 

Ex-Cape Codder (Greenfield, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips EXP303 eXpanium Personal CD Player with CD-MP3 Playback and Car Kit (Electronics)

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.