Customer Reviews

Philips SA238/17 256 MB Digital Audio Player

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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...

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!

I am frustrated with the other reviewers, because, my gosh, the software has the manual right on your computer, and it the files can be dragged and dropped (it took us 4 minutes to use all 256MB) and it even tells you how to turn it off!! (UGH!) The sound is really, really good. And, we got some good deals on SD cards, and you can just pop one out and put another in! Like having hours of music on teeny tiny cds! Fun stuff.

I bought this item and started downloading all my music, but the only problem is, it will not let me download music to the memory card! I filled the internal memory with music, but can't get anything else to load. Any suggestions?? Otherwise, I LOVE this player. Sounds really great, and I can even use it in the car. Much better than hunting for CD's!

i read all the reviews on this page before i bought the mp3 player. well, i didn't see to many bad reviews so i bought it-big mistake! i have had two problems with this device. one, when i store songs on it it still does not recognize them. i went through my browser and opened the 2 mass storage devices to see if they were actually empty. all of the songs i downloaded to the mp3 player were listed-and yes they were all in mp3 file format. then a few days later it magically recognized them and started playing. now it has returned to its original non functioning state. when i turn it on it says, NO FILES! another problem i had with the device was with the SD card. i called Philips and they told me they just discovered in some units the SANDISK card does not work. well i guess i am just lucky! when i save songs to my sd card drive everything shuts off now. when i try and play only songs from my card only option, the mp3 player shuts off! so, buy it at your own risk, believe me i know how to read the instructions and even when i called Philips they acknowledged there are some problems. so i do not recommend that anybody buy this mp3 player.

hmm.. well this was my first mp3 player i ever bought i had no real clue about them but i managed to figure it out relativly fast with the software. with the internan memory you get is only 128mb had about 30 songs on it then i bought the 256mb card and i couldn't access the cards memory i think it was too much for it to handle i think i should have bought the 128mb card for it to work right but anyways long story short it is a good item but when you buy it you can only hold about 30 songs or so and with the card you can put roughly 60 songs on there. long story short it you just need something small to take around with you to hold a few of your personal songs to get it but if your seeking more memory i suggest you just get an ipod. i hope this was helpful, later

I had no problem getting songs on this player. Just used drag & drop in Windows Explorer. I never even installed the software they included. It even shows the extra memory as a separate drive, so it was no problem to divide the music up.
My problems with this...
#1 In Mp3 mode, it eats up the battery fast. I go through a battery in one day. Gets expensive fast.
#2 The battery will show 2/3 charge left, but the player will just stop. It won't restart without a new battery.
#3 The main button to go forward, back, change radio stations etc is extremely unresponsive. You have to hit the button 2 or more times to get it to do what you want. Try doing this on a treadmill!
I wasted over $100 on this and am now looking at other, better MP3 players. Don't waste your money.

Good, durable MP3 player. Center button is easy to use, makes things very simple to move through. Nice display as well. Great for those workouts.

I have read the online manual, but I am still having problems deleting files from one of the drives. The files keeps reappearing after I have erased the files. In addition, after deleting it from the player, once played back, it reappears again. Any suggestions out there. Otherwise, there are no other problems and the sound is wonderful!