Since my Creative FX200 died (never buying another Creative product again after my disappointment too with a 7-speaker set), I had been after an MP3 player which would make use of the rechargeable (AAA) batteries.
The Philips GoGear SA2620 is a no-frills and no-radio MP3 player, and comes with a USB Cable stickered, "IMPORTANT - Install software first", but I doubt whether it's necessary to do so - surely you can just drag and drop without installation.
The cap protecting the USB plug felt too loose a fit and comes off easy leaving this end exposed.
The interface is quick and easy (I never needed to refer to the manual), however, following a battery change, the SA2620 is sometimes shown to be 'Updating' which can take a while. (It can't be a Windows update via Satellite can it?)
2GB memory is more than sufficient for me, but 16MB must be left free, otherwise the SA2620 is not able to play music or recordings, and these can only be deleted through a computer. (This should perhaps be pointed out in the Quick start guide provided.)
The earphones were a cheap pair, and although they were prone to interference I thought they sounded decent - I was pleased with the low-end. But this is the third pair of Philips earphones which I have damaged/destroyed within a year.
Of the settings, the SA2620 has six equaliser presets - not that I needed them, as well as support for 19 languages, so it was able to display song titles with Traditional Chinese Characters. The Volume Limit feature is handy.
There's also the option to change the backlight timer to save on the batteries, but the best thing about this MP3 player is the battery life, which comes close to around thirty hours on a single AAA.
Sadly, there's a major setback to the SA2620, and that is the playback is not smooth - every so often there the slightest of pauses that is sure to throw music fans off.
This was sold as a customer no return model (got it like new) on eBay, so I could forgive the SA2620 for its faults, but as you can see there are a fair few of them. The battery life is great however the playback not being smooth makes it a risk. And it is a basic MP3 player. This is not the first Philips product I've found to be below-average, so I'm unlikely to buy from this brand again.
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Jul 6th, 2009
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