Electronics : Philips GoGear SA2840 4Gb MP3 Player

Rating: - Horrible rubbish do NOT be tempted
I got this delivered on the friday at 9am by 12pm i was on the phone to philips direct and suddenly whilst on the phone the thing came alive after sitting untouched for half an hour. I decided to try it over the weekend. Monday morning i try to charge, again not working!! On the phone to philips again plus emailing, they confirm the thing isn't working properly! It is rubbish takes about 2 mins to load up and is annoying to use as the screen doesn't flip with use. Absolute garbage i am never touching philips again! Oh and the phone system they have is crap too! Very bad product pay the extra for an ipod!

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Rating: - What you need to know...
I bought this a little over a month ago and i feel that there's some things that you should know if you're looking to buy this. I have never written a review before but feel that people should know in detail what they are getting.

I purchased this because I simply wanted a cheap MP3 player, and specifically not an iPod (expensive and my one i bought a few years back has just stopped working over time!) If like me, you have all your music in itunes then this becomes a very big problem. On itunes the songs are all stored as m4a files and when you download them to this player they are not recognised and you cannot play them. This player only recognises MP3 Files which meant I had to go through my entire library and convert them before they would play here. It was very very time consuming and very very frustrating, most probably because this is not explained anywhere and i had to figure it all out for myself!!!

However, once I'd done this, the player works very well. The drag and drop system is very efficient. It can take quite a while to go through all of the artists if, like me, you have a fair amount but the music quality is very good, probably better than my old iPod.

Unfortunately, there is no radio attached, which is a bit rubbish because it tells you that there is

Overall, it gets 4 stars because of the quality of the sound and the fact that it looks fantastic. It could of been higher (in fact it is probably closer to 3.5/5) but the sheer frustration of that earlier problem annoyed me greatly. Decent purchase though

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Rating: - Did not work
I've got an older Philips SA3114 (which connects great with my PC and hifi), so I bought this as it was a great price for the memory and battery life. But it would not connect to my PC properly, the connection was intermittent, it kept flashing on and off in my File Manager. I tried it with my hifi, that did not recognise it. I thought it was a problem with the unit, so I asked for a replacement, but had exactly the same problems. I looked on the internet, there seemed to be loads of information on MP3 player connection problems, and some very complicated advice. I tried some of the things, and while running the Device Manager, the unit froze competely, I could not reset it. By this time I had had enough, and sent it back the amazon, and got a refund, which I was really pleased with. I had been worried they were going to be difficult about it, but they were great, no quibbles. I had also contacted Philips before this, who suggested connecting it to another PC, but as all my music is on my home PC, that would have been pointless.

Maybe all this had put me off completely, but I did not like the feel of the item. It was too small (for me there is such a thing, I like something sturdier with a bit of substance to it), and I did not like the fact the whole screen is in effect a button, so you pressed on the top, bottom, left and right edges to scroll through your menu.

From now on when I buy an MP3 player I will do so with a view to in effect testing it at home, and I will make sure that anywhere I buy it from has a returns policy that suits this.

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Rating: - gremlins
If you press the play/pause to pause a track and accidently press the down click at the same time there is a software malfunction and it deletes the track? then there is a loading track problem and things just get worse. Tried reset key but problems continued. Could be that one faulty machine as everything else is worthy of praise.

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Rating: - Great looking, small, reasonable sound, average features
- Obviously the supplied headphones are low quality, so using this with my £50 Shure ones instead
- Sound quality better than average
- The unit is smaller than a custard-cream, I like that
- Expertly made, shiny front
- No radio, although mentioned in book
- Fast forward very good compared to others
- Rechargeable through USB
- Drag and drop your music via USB, no need for iLunacy or SonicStank :)

BEFORE FIRMWARE UPDATE (v2.04):
- Annoyingly does not resume playing at exactly the same point after pausing for a couple of minutes, like my old Sony Bean did
- Takes a minute to turn on

AFTER FIRMWARE UPDATE (v3.00):
- If re-used within a few minutes it resumes at correct point
- and takes only 11 seconds to start playing
- If left for longer it doesn't resume and you have to go through the menu and choose Resume Last, which starts at the *beginning* of the track you were on, not at the point where you paused it. Weird and annoying, especially if you are playing a long track, like a mix.

Overall I like it but just a bit annoyed about the resume. The update utility and firmware can be downloaded from www.support.philips.com/support, and its very easy to do. Don't dip it in your tea!