Customer Reviews

Philips GoGear Vibe 4 GB MP3 Video Player with 1.5-Inch Color Screen (Black)

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

With a large outdoor project looming on the horizon I decided to purchase an MP3 Player to listen to my tunes as I work. After a lengthy review process both locally and online I finally decided to purchase the GoGear Vibe 4Gig player.

Overall I am very happy with my purchase. It plays my music very well. I even hooked it up to my full over ear headphones and some external speakers and it did quite well. I really enjoyed the equalizer feature as this did an excellent job of improving the music that I like to listen to. There are multiple presets based on Music Genres plus there is a custom setting as well. I advise you to try all the presets as I found the Rap setting improved my tunes the most, though that isn't the music I listen to. The controls are well laid out though the front panel toggle can be a bit twitchy causing mistaken key presses.

The device synch's very easily with your PC and I use the standard windows explorer to edit the files that are on it. The Rapsody player it is bundled with is a bit annoying. Take care when you have the Windows media player synch with the device for the first time. The darn thing went across my entire hard drive and synched every single WMA it could find! My only complaint with that is that it isn't perfect. It took compilations and created folders for each and every artist who was involved making it almost impossible to listen to the work together. Plus I have some older works that I have collected from several different sources that it insisted on making up lots of folders that would contain only 1 song in it. Then it would simply confuse some tracks and place them in the wrong folders. The best way I have found around this is to edit all those songs back into 1 folder to play those selections from the folder option and not the artist option. So far it has randomized my tracks well and I haven't been able to detect a pattern. I would like to try track editing software to attempt a more professional solution but I haven't tried this yet.

I'm afraid I can't evaluate the player for anything other than an MP3/WMA player as that is all I have been using it for although the album art does show up rather well on the very tiny screen (The screen is about the size of those keychain photo viewers.) I did use the FM also and it works well. The device has no expansion slots so you should make sure your music can fit in the 3.6 Gigs of formatted space. I don't have a massive collection of music so 4 Gigs was enough to carry my current collection and still leave a good amount of space for more music or some snapshots. I use the Phillips athletic armband carrier (Not included but I recommend it)to lug it around as it has no belt clip, but the carrier does a great job of protecting the device and gives you easy access to all of its features.

It plays for a very long time on a charge. I have let it run for better than 8 hours and it was still going. I don't yet know how long it will play before it needs a charge. It recharges very easily from a PC USB port fully in about 3 hours. It does have an extremely short recharge cable that only measures 4.75" long from tip to tip, but I have found any standard large port to small port USB cable (Like those of camera stick readers) allows it to recharge. The headphones that it comes with do an okay job of playing but they bothered my ears after a few hours so I bought some JVC in the ear buds for it that I like much better.

A Word of Warning! Only use the reset button in absolute emergencies. I used it casually to try to get it to the set time function and completely locked the player down! It would refuse to do anything after that. I thought I was going to have to take it back to the store, but I was able to get the Philips GoGear VIBE Device Manager to finally see it (Hold the + portion of the volume control down until it sees it) and it was able to update the firmware and restore the device to working order. This was great except it completely erased the Player! I had to restore my entire collection to the device again.

Other than that 1 hiccup (caused by me) the device has performed flawlessly ever since and I am really enjoying it. It has an excellent array of features compared with devices that cost twice as much.

Called Philips twice and confirmed the rechargeable battery can not be replaced. When the battery fails the unit should be recycled. Philips customer service said perhaps the battery will last several years, but also admitted some fail within the first year, and there is only a 90 day warranty. Here's the statement on the Philips website that mislead me into believing the battery could be replaced, "Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced. Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings." According to Philips customer service the batteries can be replaced by recycling the battery, and then purchasing another GoGear Vibe.

First off, this is a good audio player. The sound is crisp and clear, good for a reasonably cheap player. However, I would buy new earphones as the ones it comes with are a bit on the cheap side. It has some good features, although it would be nice if, like the Zen Mosaic it had a feature where you could save your place in an audiobook, its a bit annoying having to constantly fast forward to reach the place you were at. The video function...well I can't even get videos onto my player. The converter sftware doesn't convert videos no matter what format they originally were, and I can't imagine the screen is big enough to prevent headaches when watching something.
All in all, a good player but don't buy this if you want a video player.

If you don't want to break the bank, and hate those crappy Ipods, then this might be the player for you. It does what it does well, plays Mp3/WMA very nicely, and shows there Album covers if there in the file. Jpegs, and video look decent for the screen size, but remember you have to use the software to convert videos and photos for the screen size. FM Radio does decent as well, but I guess that depends on where you are at. For those people who can't find the rewind and fast forward on this player should not be owning it to start with LOL. It's like a lot players, you have to "HOLD" down for fast forward, and "HOLD" up for rewind. the manual even states it. the Earbuds that came with it tend to hurt my ears after 10mins of use, but they sound ok for stock buds, and might be useful for some people. Also if you don't set it to MSC connection mode, and leave it in MTP mode it will crash Winamp 5.56, but when in MSC mode it works perfect. I was also surprised to be able to find a good case for it made by Phillips at only $10. You don't usually see cases for Media players at this price range. Almost forgot to say the USB cable is short about 3in, so if you don't have a longer one, and need it, don't forget to pick it up. It will be a MiniB USB 2.0 cable. The player will also charge with a standard Motorola MiniB cell phone charger, or any USB wall charger, and USB 2.0 MiniB cable. :-) If this thing last longer then my Sansa 2GB clip (one year before battery crapped out, and out of warranty), I will have gotten my $60 out of it, and that $60 is for the player and Philips branded case. Final verdict 4.5 stars on personal rating, and 4 on Amazon system. :-) Good Luck with your new player :-)

I bought this product due to the positve reviews and apparent features. Should have listened more to the negatives. After a little over two weeks, the unit has started just shutting down after an hour or two of playing music. I keep it in my pocket while I walk, read, etc. and it seems to be getting warm. After it cools off, I have to RESET and only then it comes back to life (just plugging it into the USB cable won't work by itself. The battery seems good - even after two or three hours it's still full bars, but the video is dreadful. Looks like about 50 X 50 pixels. Also, it's a little bit of a pain to stop and start songs. Sometimes I stop a song, try to 'close' music by going to the main menu and then shut down. When I restart music is already resumed and I don't even have the headphones on yet. On the minor annoyances side, it's a little too easy to press two buttons #both sides# at the same time even when just holding the unit. Also, turning it off sometimes just doesn't work - I have to let go and retry a couple times. One last thing - Philips ought to be ashamed of selling a product with only a three to four INCH USB cable - it's next to worthless, but fortunately I have several other 'normal' length cables with the same plug.

Basically, this is a product I wish I had NOT purchased. I'm about to see how good customer support is and will update this review.

The Philips Go Gear Vibe is a stylish, multi-functional player with INCREDIBLE sound and the convenience of Rhapsody To Go (a music subscription service that literally fits in my pocket - really cool...not expensive, and I never want to be without the To Go subscription...it's awesome). The physical functions of the player (play, power, hold, volume, reset, and options) are intuitive, well placed on the device, and all you need to enjoy music, video, pictures, radio, and voice recording. The display is crisp and fun. My favorite feature on the Go Gear Vibe is the sound...an equalizer produces a NOTEWORTHY difference in the sound...and it depends on the type of music you are listening to...so play with it while listening to your favorite song and you will hear the difference and appreciate the sound from this tiny little device. I love the size of this thing, too...although I have and like iPods, the discreet Vibe seems more 'portable'...it is my preference when going to the gym, taking roadtrips, and at work. My ipod has become more of a docked music library, and instead, the Go Gear really does "GOOOO" with my busy lifestyle!

There is nothing like this little gadget anywhere on planet earth. Philips packaged a whole lot of features in this little box. FM radio, a voice recorder, video player with amazing picture quality. It is also amazingly intuitive. I am a professional musician, and an audiophile yet i am very impressed by the sound in this mp3, it is comparable to anything 5 times its price. Get this thing and you will be happy!

Although I've never owned an Ipod, I have had several other brands and am leaning towards the Vibe as my favorite mp3 player. It's small, the sound is sharp and clear and once you figure it out, displays album art. The FM radio stations also come through nicely. If you're on a budget and even if you're not, it's a very good deal.

I've read the complaints about the controls being difficult to use. Perhaps they are compared to the Ipod but after reading the instructions, I didn't consider it a problem. As a matter of fact, I bought one for my 60 year old mother as her first mp3 player. She is not technically proficient but after 5 minutes of instructions from me, she found this player relatively easy to use.

It's easy to put music on the player particularly if you sync it through Windows Media Player. You don't have to subscribe to Rhapsody.

The only issue I really had was the lack of feedback from the Phillip's help desk regarding how to display the album art on the player. They were no help whatsoever and told me it wasn't possible to display the art with Windows Media. After checking both the instructions and website and finding nothing, I ended up plugging the player into my computer, opening up the album folder and figuring out how to do it myself.

Okay, I admit it--I bought this 4GB MP3 player for the price. Didn't do much research on it, but bought it primarily to download audio books since they take up a tremendous amount of space on the MP3 player I use for music.

I must admit I am surprised at the rave reviews the other reviewers gave the Philips GoGear Vibe. I would rate it 3.5 stars.

It is a nifty little gadget, but I have the following issues with it:

*The battery seems to run down rather fast and it also seems hard to replace.
*The case seems rather fragile--it almost seems like if you were to press too hard you'd displace the plastic.
*Seems to freeze at odd times for no reason.

On the positive side:

*downloads are easy
*good support from the website
*easy to use

I don't regret buying the Vibe, but the freezes have been frustrating and the battery dying has been a bit of downer when you are out and about and can't recharge.

Easy, fast and fun! With all the functions, how can you go wrong? Great sound from the preset equalizer plus you can create your own. The radio works great too. I did research and for the money, this is tops for me. For $50.00 isn't it worth a try?