|
Philips EXP431 Pocket MP3-CD Player with Song Title Display
- 3-inch pocket CD/MP3 CD player; pocket recordable CD-R/CD-RW media let you store more than 3 hours of music on one MP3 CD
- 32 to 320 kbps and variable-bitrate MP3 files; offers full ID3 tag display, shuffle play, album/folder navigation
- 480-second Magic electronic skip protection (with MP3 at 128 kbps); 200 seconds protection for audio CDs
- 8-hour playback with 2 AAA Alkaline batteries; includes 2 rechargeable AAA batteries, stereo headphones, AC power adapter, and remote control
- Firmware upgradeable; offers hold, resume, favorite track selection
The Editors Desk:
It's small, it's thin, it spins hours of music at a single sitting. It's the EXP431 pocket player from Philips, a potent little unit custom-made for 3-inch recordable CD-R (write-once) and CD-RW discs. It'll play your commercial 3-inch CD singles, of course, but you won't get much mileage out of them--21 minutes at best. Using MP3 encoding, however, you can get more than 3 hours of near-CD-quality music on a single disc, and the EXP431 is compatible with files encoded at anywhere from 32 to 320 kbps, including variable bitrate files. The player also offers a jaw-dropping 480-seconds of Magic MP3 skip protection--and 200 seconds with audio CDs. Magic indeed. Electronic skip protection automatically stores digital music information during play using a large memory buffer and inserts it in place of lost information when the CD player is bumped or shaken, preventing interruptions caused by shocks and vibration. Playback options include resume (a bookmark function that picks up playback where you last stopped), repeat (track, album, or disc), and random play. MP3 features include full ID3 tag recognition for convenient song and artist name displays and a navigation system that lets you scroll through discs by either album or by individual track. Navigate using the top-panel controls and the unit's dot-matrix display, or use the supplied LCD remote control if the player is, in fact, in your pocket. The onboard one-bit digital-to-analog converter renders digital audio as smoothly and accurately as possible. The player also offers shuffle and repeat modes, a heat-resistant body for outdoor use, and a hold switch (which prevents unintended interruptions in playback and saves batteries by negating playback when the player is stopped). Auto power off kicks in one minute after playback has ended, an additional battery-saving convenience. The player runs for approximately 8 hours (with either MP3 or audio CD playback) on two alkaline AAA batteries. It comes with 2 NiMH rechargeable batteries and an AC power adapter/charger, though it's unclear how long the unit will run when using the rechargeables. What's in the Box CD player, stereo headphones, car cassette adapter, 4.5V car cigarette lighter DC power adapter, a belt clip, a user's manual, and free MusicMatch software.
Avg. Customer Review:
Wonderful, Speechless This player is amazing small, sleek and beautiful. I have the Philips 401, loved it for it small factor using 8cm cds, but found it a bit too bulky. When I got this, Philips 431, my jaws dropped, 3/4 as small and twice as beautiful. I personally think this is the best deal for money for mp3 players. Here are my reasons:1. Size. It's true that you can fit 2-3x times more songs on a normal size cd, but the normal size cd player are much too big compared to this. I have the iriver-350 as well, thin and nice but still too big compared to this exp 431. 2. Storage. One could argue that memory-based/hard disk based mp3 players are much smaller than this. But what about the cost? I find the cost for memory/hard disk mp3 players way too expensive. If a cd get scratched, we simply write another cd. But if you hard disk gets screwed up, there goes your couple of hundred dollars. As for the memory-based players, it's too much effort and time to download different songs each time. And for that money that you are paying??? Oh, and did I forget to mention that this wonderful player reads id3 tags as well, so you know what song you are playing!! And with the 480sec skip protection, you can easily bring it with you anywhere :)
I'm 100% satisfied with this product I bought this awesome Mini CD/Mp3 player two day ago... IT'S EXCELENT!!! Seriously, don't serch any more. It has hundreds of functions, it works prefectly well. I dicided to buy exactly this player because of several reasons: 1º-It is amazingly small, you can take it around in any pocket 2º-Lots of songs fit in 1 Pocket CD if recorded in Mp3 format (between 40-45 songs, 4 and a half minutes each) 3º-The music quality of Mp3 format is as good as WAV (wich makes it better than a mini Disc that uses ATRAC 3) In fact I couldn't beleive the amazing sound quality that PHILIPS has put into this particular player; I'm a maniac when it comes to music quality and both the player and the headphones ROCK! Mini CD/Mp3 players are not common at all but definately SHOULD! Believe, me if you are looking for the same things I wrote above in a player, buy this one... you won't regreat it; seriously.
This is great! Stop shopping, this is the one to get. And this is the store to buy from, with Amazon's top service. These are the things I like about this MP3 player: Quality construction, small size, nice layout of controls. It has a slide switch on the back to disable all the buttons, so you won't disrupt playback when it is in your pocket. The skip and search controls act like the ones on a CD player. You can press the forward and reverse buttons to go to the next or previous song. If you hold them down, they scan through the song. There are album forward and reverse buttons to skip directly to the next or previous album on your disc. Albums are a group of MP3's in a directory or folder on the disc, which you determine when you burn the disc. It recognizes and displays title and artist tags in the MP3 files if they are there. It also recognizes Joliet-formatted discs so you can use long filenames for the songs. I recommend keeping the filenames to less than 50 characters long because some players have trouble with very long filenames. This player displays the first 39 characters of long filenames, and otherwise does not appear to have a problem with long filenames. There are 2 levels of bass boost and 1 level of treble boost. The battery compartment is inside the lid underneath where you put the CD. The compartment has a hinged lid, so it won't come off and get lost. A remote control comes with the player that can optionally be used between the main unit and the headphones. Other accessories included are a wrist strap, AC adapter, and one blank disc. These are the things I like about the pocket CD format: Pocket CDs are so much fun. This format gives you more freedom from your computer, compared to relying on your computer's hard disk space and repeatedly downloading onto just a few memory sticks. You can actually afford enough blank media to convert your whole CD, tape, and record collection to pocket CDs. Disks are typically 210 MB each and very inexpensive when you buy a spindle, and each will hold 3 to 4 hours of music. I like putting whole box sets of Cds on one or two pocket CDs. The CD's you burn for this will also play in most DVD players, so if you have your DVD player connected to your stereo, there you have another way to listen to your collection.
| |