Philips SA9345 help

Mr.Nice Guy

Does anyone know of any stores which might have this product in stock? I saw it in the Argos catalogue and liked the look of it but it turns out they've sold out and won't have it back in stock for 2-3 weeks. I tried Peats but they don't have it either. Can anyone recommend a place in the city centre which might have it?

Also I've never bought an MP3 player before so I'd appreciate any feedback on whether or not you think it's a good device to get. Here is what it looks like:

Philips SA9345

It's selling for €200.49 over here. I thought it looked good value and Philips products have served me well in the past but as I say I'm clueless about MP3 players so would welcome any thoughts you might have. Cheers.

Kintarō Hattori

I'll be honest and say that I've not heard anything about that particular MP3 player but my experiance from Philips players in the past hasn't been good. Have you done any research on it? Have you looked for reviews and what people are saying about it in the forums?

I believe you'd probably be better off spending a little less and getting something such as the 4GB Sony NW-A808. It's most likely only a Billion times better than the Philips with a superb screen and possibly class leading sound quality.

Or you could go for the Creative Zen V Plus. It's a good bit cheaper than the Philips and even it is possibly more reliable than the Philips.

I am open to being wrong about the Philips player, but my experiance has been that they look nice, are feature packed but then don't really work all that well.

Mr.Nice Guy

I tried a Phillips shop today and they said they don't expect it to be in any time soon and recommended I try another one so I guess I'll do that.

Do the Creative Zen brands work well with Windows Media Player do you know?

Kintarō Hattori

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

I tried a Phillips shop today and they said they don't expect it to be in any time soon and recommended I try another one so I guess I'll do that.

Do the Creative Zen brands work well with Windows Media Player do you know?

I can't say for sure what the level of integration with Media Player is like, but I imagine there is some. If you buy a Creative player such as the ZenV Plus it comes with MediaSource which is Creative's own program to load music onto your player. It works well enough, but it's annoying having to use software.
With the ZenV's you can use 'Drag & Drop' through windows explorer, but I've found it to be slow and unreliable at the best of times.

So it looks like your in the market for another player. What are your requirements really? iRiver have their Clix player which is highly reccomended by all, it's been getting great praise. It seems to be universally loved.
Another option would be Cowon's D2 which is above your budget, but with a bit of keen research you should find cheaper than in the link I've provided. One of the really nice things about it is that you can boost it's capacity with a secure digital card.

Another option is the Sandisk Sansa which has been getting universally positive praise also.

If you let me know what your looking for I can try and help you out with more detailed information and reccomendations.

As it stands my reccomendations would be this with the player at the bottom being the one I would choose last:

iRiver Clix
Sony NW-A800
Cowon D2
Sandisk Sansa
Creative ZenV
Philips- Any MP3 Player

Mr.Nice Guy

Thanks for the info. This helps a lot. I'm mainly looking for something that's easy to use and I'd like it to have FM radio. I've heard that Creative Zen brands have this option so I'm leaning towards one of them.

Have you any thoughts on the Creative Zen Vision:M 60GB?

It's quite dear alright but if it's reliable I'd be interested.

Kintarō Hattori

In fairness to Creative the Vision M is one of the players they've gotten right. While it's by no means perfect, it has alot of great features and it does them well. One thing to note however is that the Vision M is going end of life and will be replaced by a flash based player soon. So A- it's an end of life product and B- they are somewhat hard to come by at the moment, though some places do have stock left.

I would strongly advise you against purchasing a ZenV. I owned one myself a while back and couldn't wait to get rid of it. I ended up paying twice as much for a Sony NW-A808 as I did for the Creative player, but I feel it was completely worth it as the Sony player is completely superior in every way.

The ZenV does what it does, but not very well.
For example due to the algorithm used in the player, when you convert a videofile to a smaller resolution it actually ends up larger than the sourcefile. This really píssed me off, what's the point of that?
The sound quality on the ZenV is absolutely uninspiring. It's flat and lifeless. Almost all of the other models from major manufacturer's beat it on this.
It takes an age to charge the player with the USB cable as like most players these days, no mains charger is supplied ( a cost saving measure), but if you let the battery life drop below 5% the only way to charge it so you can use it again is to purchase a mains adapter. That's really crappy.
I really would strongly advise you against the ZenV. It has alot of features for the money, and I really like the styling myself, but it is a very mediocre player.

Both the Cown D2 and the iRiver Clix 2 hav FM radio's, have expandable storge via SD and are much more feature rich. The Sandisk Sansa also has a built-in tuner.

Unless you are absolutely limited by your budget there is no advantage that the ZenV has over these players. They are more feature rich and perform much better than the Creative player.

To sum up. The Zen Vision M is an excellent product, but within the next month or so it is end of life. It has much more storage space than the flash players mentioned above, and as a result is bulkier.
Flash players don't have the capacity of the HDD drives, but they are much smaller and lighter to carry around. The also start up pretty much instantly and have superior battery life. They are generally more reliable as there are no moving parts.
Do you want to have all of your music/video with you or can you live with changing it every so often?

Mr.Nice Guy

I wouldn't say I'll need all of my music with me. I'm mainly going to be needing a player for my long trips to college. Your experience with the ZenV seems quite head-wrecking and I wasn't aware of that battery life problem. I'll steer clear of that one.

If the Vision M is hard to come by I guess I'm left leaning towards the iRiver Clix, Cowon D2 and the SanDisk. I'd not heard much about the iRiver but after doing some research it looks a nice little device. Would you say it's good value for money?

Kintarō Hattori

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

I wouldn't say I'll need all of my music with me. I'm mainly going to be needing a player for my long trips to college. Your experience with the ZenV seems quite head-wrecking and I wasn't aware of that battery life problem. I'll steer clear of that one.

If the Vision M is hard to come by I guess I'm left leaning towards the iRiver Clix, Cowon D2 and the SanDisk. I'd not heard much about the iRiver but after doing some research it looks a nice little device. Would you say it's good value for money?

Well if you like the idea of all that space, don't give up on the Vision M just yet, have a look around town/web and see what you find.

The iRiver is certainly good value for money, but I'm not aware of anyone selling it in Ireland, though there might very well be. One of the big things going for the iRiver is it has a very nice screen, it uses a certain type of LED's which are better than average, so if your going to be using it to watch video as well as music that's the one to go for.

If video isn't such a big deal I'd stick with the Cowon D2, cowon's have legendary sound quality and the D2 has a 50+ hour battery life, it's also more readily available. Have a search on here for the D2 or alternatively PM a user called Mactard, he's a big fan of the D2 and had one at one point.

Now I hope I've helped and haven't confused you too much. I've tried to be as unbiased as possible but one man's treasure is another man's crap. Don't just take my word on what I've said. Have a read up on the various players and see what different sites/reviewer's are saying. You'll be shelling out a few bucks on this purchase and it'll most likely last you at least 18 months, so your going to be stuck with it for a while. You'd better make sure you choose the one that suits your needs!

Mr.Nice Guy

Thanks for your advice. In the end I plumped for the Creative Vision M 60 gb but alas it doesn't seem to be working properly for me.

I charged it for five hours like it said but when I turned it on I had no menu screen. Then I rebooted the system and did get the menu screen but the back button (bottom left) won't work. I'm stuck in a video section now each time I turn the thing on. Is this a common problem? I guess I'll have to return it if I can't fix it.

Mr.Nice Guy

Actually it does work properly for me. Just my stupidity to blame unfortunately.

Working very well for me. Thanks again eo980.

Kintarō Hattori

Heh Heh- Glad to hear it. Well have fun with it, it's a great device!