Philips SA238/17 256 MB Digital Audio Player

• 256 MB digital music player with MP3 and WMA compatibility
• 128 MB of built-in memory and 128 MB Secure Digital memory card
• Stores up to 8 hours of high-quality music
• Digital FM tuner with 10 presets; digital voice recording
• Expandable memory slot; shockproof housing

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.

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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:

6Country Girl

5The Mob Rules

9Over and Over

7Falling of the Edge of the World

1Turn Up the Night

2VooDoo

3Sign of the Southern Cross

4E5150

8Slipping 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...

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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!

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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.