Philips SA238/17 256 MB Digital Audio Player

by Philips

Product Details

• Item Weight: 9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0001Q4BDK
• Item model number: SA238/17
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 15, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Join the digital music revolution with this Philips portable audio player, which plays both MP3 and WMA files. The device combines 128 MB of built-in memory with a 128 MB Secure Digital card, adding up to approximately eight hours of high-quality music. Listeners can also record their voices via the digital voice recorder, or listen to the radio through the digital FM tuner, which includes 10 presets for quick station scanning. Additional features include a shockproof housing that protects the device from jarring drops and an automatic power off function that preserves the battery. And as with any good MP3 player, the SA238/17 is expandable, letting users store additional songs by adding a larger memory card.

Product Description

Music in full motion with the new Rush SA238 Digital Audio Player of Philips

Philips Rush SA238 combines MP3 in full motion with a compact design and versatile wearability.

It’s as small as a credit card and weighs 50 grams enabling two hours of 100% shockproof MP3 music playback on the go. In addition, it uniquely combines up to 16 hours of voice recording with a digital FM tuner with 10 presets.

The Rush SA238 is a 128MB digital music player and is supplied with a 128MB SD OR MMC memory card to expand your music enjoyment. The SA238 can use memory cards of up to 256MB storage capacity.

Choose your sound and sequence:
The Rush SA238 has been designed to make listening to digital music files and voice recording very easy. The neckstrap and armband give the users the freedom to wear the products as they like.

The players unique program list makes it simple to create a playlist of favourite tracks and list them in order of preference. Navigation through its library is equally easy, with the player’s ‘jog’ selector controlling track access and all play modes. An automatic power-off function helps preserve battery life when the player is not in use.

The Philips Rush SA238 offers a wide selection of digital sound settings to equalise audio playback to suit music style and personal preference. The EQ function gives users a choice of two bass settings for deep, rich sounds, and a choice of seven frequency settings – Rock, Pop, Jazz, Classic, Custom, Bass1 and Bass2– to equalise output according to taste.

For easy navigation even in the dark, the multi-line graphical LCD display features a unique function-specific color backlight, orange for digital audio, green for FM radio, and red for voice. The Rush SA238 offers up to ten hours of playback from AA battery. (* battery life varies with use). Philips 256MB Digital Audio Player , Model Phillips SA238/00

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surprising performance, April 24, 2005

By	Panther Gadget Man (NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips SA238/17 256 MB Digital Audio Player (Electronics)

This unit has surprisingly good features for the discounted price that I paid (sub-$100). Decent audio, light weight, acceptable supplied earbuds, and handy neckstrap + armband made a good package. Pluses are that it can be used to hold data files as well as mp3 as a mass storage device. Also, the FM tuner is pretty good.

128 MB SD card limitation DOES NOT apply on my unit, however it is not explained how to make it function with larger cards. Simply hold the center button down until the unit powers up! For the supplied 128MB card it only takes a couple of seconds, but, for a 1GB card, it takes up to 8 seconds or so, but it will work if you are patient. My guess is that the player has to build a database of files on the card before powering up completely, and the processor is a little slow. 1.128 GB of storage gives a lot of files to listen to during the day.

Cons are that the batteries do not last more than about 10 hours if it includes time consumed by much moving of data to/from the unit with the USB transfer. Also, the latch that keeps the back cover on does not seem to hold too tightly, but I have not had a problem with it, yet.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Easy to use but some serious flaws, November 12, 2005

By	KJM (FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips SA238/17 256 MB Digital Audio Player (Electronics)

This is my 2nd Mp3 player. My first is a San Disk Mp3 Companion which worked fine but has some of the same problems as this one. First this unit does sound good and the addition of the FM tuner and the Voice recorder is a nice touch. If you buy this for Mp3 listening, you need to realize there are limitations. My biggest problem is getting a playlist to work or even get an album to play in proper order. Here is an example of the order I have saved in Windows:

Black Sabbath - 01 - Turn Up the Night
Black Sabbath - 02 - VooDoo
Black Sabbath - 03 - Sign of the Southern Cross
Black Sabbath - 04 - E5150
Black Sabbath - 05 - The Mob Rules
Black Sabbath - 06 - Country Girl
Black Sabbath - 07 - Falling of the Edge of the World
Black Sabbath - 08 - Slipping Away
Black Sabbath - 09 - Over and Over

After syncing with the Philips Rush here is the order it plays:

6- Country Girl
5- The Mob Rules
9- Over and Over
7- Falling of the Edge of the World
1- Turn Up the Night
2- VooDoo
3- Sign of the Southern Cross
4- E5150
8- Slipping Away

The limitations are frustrating and Philips customer service is a joke. I talked to 5 different people last weekend all giving me dead end solutions. Some reps were giving info that was contradicting other reps. One said this unit doesn't support playlists, yet the product manual decribes a step by step process (that doesn't work at all by the way)to create a playlist under Music Match software. The most laughable was a rep said keep checking on their website for firmware upgrades, since they are always coming out with new updates. Last upgrade was August 2004!!! Over a year ago!!! Looks like they aborted this baby...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple to use, works like they say, November 15, 2004

By	Darcy (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips SA238/17 256 MB Digital Audio Player (Electronics)

Purchased for use @ healthclub. Upgraded the drivers and works like a charm. Allows me to download unlike other users and plays exactly the songs I want. If people actually READ instructions, bad reviews on good products would not happen. I have used several other brand SD cards w/o issue as well. My only problem is switching songs because I have big fingers, but simply reprogramming my card to delete the songs I dont want works for me. Battery life is amazing. Its on week 3 with one simple AAA. We are purchasing a second one for my husbands use. The SOUND IS incredible! Comes with software you dont need as well but are nice to have. Just drag and drop songs onto memory card!