Philips GoGear Muse 8 GB MP3 Player (Silver)

• FullSoundTM for CD-quality music and Surround for movies and sound-isolation headphones for best listening experience
• 3.2-Inch HVGA touch-screen
• HDMI out to watch High Definition (720p) video on HDTV
• MicroSD card slot for expandable memory capacity
• Philips Songbird to discover play and sync

The Philips GoGear is a nice AV player that doesn't hurt your pocket too much.

First of all, it has a great sound quality. The Philips FullSound technology enriches the sound and the earphones that come with the player are great (I have AKG K330 earphones which are great, and I now use the Philips earphones).

Video quality is good screen view is crispy. the only bad thing is that you can hardly see it in direct sun light. The player has HDMI exit which I haven't tried yet.

Lets talk about the player's interface: I bought this player after having Microsoft Zune 120 for a year (it dies after a year of moderate use... Microsoft). The Zune had a great intuitive interface. I can't say this about the GoGear. In Philips' player you can't choose songs by their genre and you can't add songs to "now playing" playlist.

One more thing is that if you set the volume limit, you can't cancel it while listening to the radio. You have to go back to "Music" and cancel it.

The touch screen is the player's weakest link. Although it supposed to be capacitive it has poor and inaccurate response. Scrolling to 'Z' in song names or artists names is really frustrating.

The software that comes with the player is Philips Songbird. After using Microsoft Zune software I understand how poor looking is the software and hence, much less intuitive. One thing that annoyed me is that although while installing the software I didn't want the software to update media info from the Internet as soon as I added my libraries to the software it started to chance the organization and the ID3 tags of the files. As soon as I understood that I started using Windows Media Player as my media organizer.

Radio I has a nice feature in which it auto tunes the presets. It also has RDS. In the American model, the radio recording feature is diabled.

To sum up, this could have been a great player if the screen was of better quality. Maybe next hardware updates will improve the player's user interface.

Buy Philips GoGear Muse 8 GB MP3 Player (Silver) Now

Having managed to lose my MP3 player (Creative), I was again in the market for one. I saw myself in the sad situation of having to change brands, since Creative no longer seems to be delivering the fantastic players they were once famous for. So it was back to the drawing board and loads of research. To my surprise I ended up choosing Philips because both the specs and user reviews indicated it was what I was looking for, and the price was right.

First reaction: what a beautiful, solid and hefty player the 16GB Muse is! There is nothing to criticize in its design, it's that sleek and eye-pleasing. I like it that it's not one of those plasticky products that feel cheap; I also like that it's not black, because it may make it more difficult for me to lose it... The big screen's quality is superb and the essential buttons (on / off, volume up / down, home) are on the Muse's sides. A microSD port, holding up to a 32GB card -great expansion! --, and an HDMI plug are located in the bottom. However, this kind of build comes at a price: definitely not the lightest player I've ever handled, and a bit thicker than what I'm used to. No deal breakers here.

Setting it up wasn't a problem, although you do need a magnifying glass to read the quick-start guide (you're better off loading the whole guide that comes in the player, or downloading a copy from Philips.com). I'm not used to touchscreens but am having no trouble with this one. It's responsive and accurate, in no way hindering my navigation. The menus are pretty straightforward and intuitive.

The Songbird software is another matter entirely. I did have some issues with it initially -perhaps due to years using Creative's software -until I figured it out. Help is patchy at best, and what the Muse manual doesn't mention is how to actually download songs and playlists into the Muse... Neither does the Songbird site. Would it really be that time-consuming to mention "drag & drop"?! Also, letting Songbird manage your music library creates another copy of it in the "My Music" folder, which is rather annoying (not to mention a disk space hog) when you've got your music folders already set up and organized in another directory. And I have to ask if it's me or having a viewing option organized by artist is superfluous... Songbird, even when you order your songs by artist, will display every single song in an endless list, which makes scrolling down looking for something specific a lot of work.

Back to the player. The earphone plug in my unit seems a bit dodgy, requiring me to really pay attention when I plug it in: there's some sort of intermediate position in which the earphones seem secure but are not. Quite easy to know when that happens, because you get sound in mono only.

I found sound quality somewhat different from my previous Creative players (three different models). Despite Fullsound and the different equalizer modes, my ears don't love the Muse's treble quality: they find it slightly brassy, through any pair of earphones or my car's sound system. In lower volumes it's better.

If you leave the screen on all the time, battery life definitely isn't the 24 hours stated in the specs. It's necessary to put the screen in battery-saving mode. No big deal except when you listen to the Muse through the sound system in your car -I'm on the road a lot and my player is always plugged in -and want to repeat or skip a song. Then you have to tap the screen to make it come back to life, and then tap the corresponding icon, taking your eyes off the road for a nanosecond. I hope that over time I get used to the screen layout and can do this without looking. Because here, exactly, is where I think there is a little flaw in the Muse: why have the "shuffle" option on the screen instead of in the Settings menu? "Shuffle" is right next to "Fast Forward", making it easy to hit the wrong command (or hit another car if you look down at the player for too long). In all my other players the "shuffle" option was something you could only change by going into the menu, and I don't quite understand why Philips decided to have it on the screen, and so poorly located.

The earphones that come with the Muse are good, but I still prefer my MetroFi 150 (which I luckily didn't have on my lost Creative player), as they are a more comfortable fit and cancel noise more efficiently. The USB cable is standard, but very short, making it impossible to use on a desktop computer.

And, of course, accessories for the Muse are nowhere to be found, which is hardly surprising. I found a case for it on Amazon but didn't love it (too bulky), and nothing else. It's what you get when you don't go iPod, and I knew it and don't really care.

Overall, I think the Philips Muse will be a good replacement for my lost Creative after I get used to it. Something I'm doing quickly.

* Still Dec. 2010. The Muse froze for no good reason at the end of a music track. I had to do a reset since neither buttons nor touchscreen responded. And yesterday, after I got on the road, I found out that a reset basically makes your playlists vanish... But, as I found out when I got home, Songbird had it and two clicks got it back into the player.

* Jan 2011. And the Muse did it again: once more I found myself without my playlists after I got on the road. The difference is, this time there was no crash before. My playlists simply vanished from the Muse. What made it even more annoying was using the touchscreen while driving to skip tracks -it seems it isn't as responsive as it was when I first got the player. Sometimes I had to tap the "next" icon several times to get some reaction from the player. I'm on the market for a new player, because I'll end up in a car accident with this one. Any non-iPod, non-touchscreen suggestions, anyone?

Read Best Reviews of Philips GoGear Muse 8 GB MP3 Player (Silver) Here

Pros:

Sleek silver(not plastic) design and good noise canceling earbuds.

Large, responsive touchscreen display

Great sound quality, Fullsound for music and Surround for movies. useful EQ presets

SD expansion card slot and HDMI output

Compatible with subscription services and supports many formats including loss less formats

Songbird software is OK. You can import your i-tunes library with ease...but you don't have to use Songbird.

Supports audio books including bookmarks, and has decent text reader and sound recorder.

Folder view

Cons:

Slightly heavy, very short usb cable

No Wifi

FM radio signal is hit or miss

Touchscreen menus are less intuitive than I would like. The most often used icons are very small

Playlists created in songbird sometimes don't sync properly to the device.

Philips Muse looks good and has high sound quality and a smart design that feels solid.

It lacks the features of Ipod touch and newer android based PMP(Portable Media Players) but it's also about 100-200 dollars cheaper. If you don't need wifi and you use your device primarily for music the Philips Muse is hard to beat.

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I'm 17 years old and don't have any money to waste. One of my best friends was going to be turning 16 and that's a pretty big deal. I remember her saying that she wanted a mp3 player and I figured it would be really cool of her "bestie" to get it for her. I did a whole lot of browsing and wanted to find something perfect since I'm a bit of an mp3 geek and I came across the Phillips Gogear Muse. The reviews ranged from positive to mixed with a couple negatives. After weeks of going all around the web, reading reviews from critics and consumers and even watching video reviews, I decided to take a chance and buy this player.

It came way before delivery estimate (took about 2-3 days with free super saving shipping). Since I also had to put all the music she wanted on to it, I was able to open it up. It's a very stylish and sleek. It's thick enough to have a firm grip(unlike iPod touch) but thin enough to not appear beefy or unappealing. I turned it on and was wowed by the bright display on the 3.2 inch screen. The touch screen isn't as smooth as the iPod's. You have to apply a slight amount of pressure but it's not as bad as some people are making it out to be. I'd say the touch screen feature gets 3.5/5 stars. Flipping through pictures was especially nice and I wasn't expecting the screen to be so nice.

There is absolutely no reason to feel the need to use the phillips songbird software unless you're trying to add playlist. I just used Windows Media Player which works great. After loading a couple songs (which didn't take long at all) I decided to test out the sound. The sound isolation headphones are better than the ones that come with the iPod. These seem like higher quality headphones that wouldn't normally come with a player and you'd have to buy separately. I was really impressed by this. The sound was amazing! It brings new life to songs you've been listening to for the longest time. You can adjust the sound to your liking with the EQ presets or even customize your own EQ setting. 5/5 stars for sound.

I added some pics to the player and they look clear and crisp on the screen. Display gets 5/5 stars as well. The extra features are pretty much all you NEED in an mp3 player. You have video, voice recording, FM radio, audiobook, text reader etc. 2 really big ones that the touch does not have are the Micro SD and HDMI slots. Expanable memory and the ability to put videos from your player on the big screen is really cool. Features gets a 5/5.

Overall this player really gets like a 4.56/5 which is basically 5/5. It does some things a touch cant do but there are also things touch can do that this thing cant. In a nuttshell the muse is a touch without the games, extra nonsensical appa, internet and camera. But the muse is priced to compare more with the nano. This is cooler than the nano for sure. My friend now has the player and she loves it and uses it everyday. If you need a basic player with the basic features (plus a few extra) with awesome display and sound (with great headphones. You cant hear anything with them on!) then this is the player for you.

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I purchased this device out of curiosity regarding the quality of Philips products. I have a lot of ownership with other MP3 players, largely with the Creative Labs Zen product line, which in many ways should be comparable to this product. In some ways, this GoGear product is superior, but it falls short in so many areas that I would seriously urge you to consider purchasing a Zen or Sansa player.

The most major issue with this product is its firmware. Its about as stable as a house of cards. The more stuff you put on it, the less stable it becomes and really needs little or no help in crashing (this is with the current, fully upgraded firmware). Its really remarkable how you can't scroll through the albums without it crashing nearly ever time. There are other random things that it does that defy logic. My GoGear has inexplicably booted up in Chinese. Turn it off and turn it on and its back in English. This is stuff that shouldn't happen to products that are released.

Now, provided the item actually works correctly, its interface is a little strange. Its not necessarily bad, but its definitely quite a bit different than I am used to with a Zen. One nice thing that this has over a lot of the newer touch-screens is a physical volume control. The power switch operates as a lock command, and then the player can be unlocked by pressing either the power button again or the home button on the front and sliding the little lock up the screen. It is probably worth mentioning that this locking feature is pretty much the only way you're going to get a significant amount of play-time out of your player.

I will take a little aside to speak about battery life. I don't think the 22 hours listed is very realistic. My estimates (though I haven't actually run it down to zero) would put it more in the 12-15 hour range. I don't think you'd be able to watch a full movie on this, "5 hour" battery life. This rather inflated estimation, mind you, is pretty common for all manufacturers. It is, never-the-less, unrealistic what they're advertising.

Returning to navigation/user-interface, the manner in which you select albums is pretty strange. There are three columns that appear and you can scroll through them all. They are alphabetized by artist, then by album within the artist, and finally by song. This will drive you insane if you want to listen to an album in order, unless the song titles happen to be in alphabetical order. The album will play, and then whatever the next album is will play. This can lead to some rather bizarre transitions when you go from Mendelssohn to Metallica. This is unlike pretty much any MP3 player I've owned where you can ask it to stop at the end of an album or repeat the album. Basically, this player wants to organize your songs into a rather random list and just keep trucking through the whole thing.

One thing you will like about this product is that it has a very responsive touch screen. It may be a little too sensitive as it will pick up brushes from clothing as input, so if you're going to put it in your pocket, its best to lock it first. The color screen is vibrant and responsive and definitely on-par with other items in its category (recognizable/affordable off-brand MP3 players). I would probably enjoy this touch screen if it was on another model.

Another interesting positive, this has an SD card and an HDMI out attachment. I don't know who demanded an HDMI output on portable electronic device, but its kind of neat that its there. It uses HDMI-mini out. I don't own this type of cable, so I haven't tested if its worth its salt. The SD card is well integrated. It will actually act as though the expanded slot is part of the normal memory while it is attached. This is superior, in concept, to other MP3 players that force you to access files on the SD card through other menu's.

Another note, the headphones they give you with this player are garbage. This kind of defeats the purpose of any savings you might have purchasing this player.

This MP3 player is very heavy in comparison to others. It is actually made of steel. Its kind of impressive, but probably unnecessary. It also means its slides around easily.

In closing, these are my thoughts on the GoGear. I would avoid if I were you. There are a good deal of other products in similar price ranges that are so much more usable and polished. The unfortunate thing about this is that it really does excel in all the ways that don't matter since it is basically unusable due to its heavily flawed firmware.