Philips EXP431 Pocket MP3-CD Player with Song Title Display

Philips EXP431 Pocket MP3-CD Player with Song Title Display
Manufacturer: Philips
Product Type: CE

Editorial Review:
Product Description
Rip It. Burn It. Spin It. With the Philips EXP431 you can take not only your MP3 files with you wherever you go, but you can also play audio CDs, CD-Rs, and CD-RWs. Take your eXpanium outside, to the library, on a plane - even your car. With up to 480 seconds Magic ESP, you are sure to enjoy continuous music enhanced with Digital Dynamic Bass Boost. Headphones, AC/DC adapter, and LCD remote control complete this portable CD player.
Amazon.com Product Description
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.