Philips SA2920/02 GoGear Spark 2GB MP3 Player with 1.5-Inch LCD

Mr. George Johnson

at 3:12 am

I have owned an iPod shuffle, several Archos PMPs and an iRiver player over the years but nothing compares to how much has been crammed into this fantastic little gadget!

This player has practicaly everything you need in a tiny mini-compact MP3 player. You have all your standard shuffle, playlist, display stuff you would expect, plus some neat little things like folder display, so you can simply pull the MP3 file from the disk directly without the need to have it’s tags set correctly. You can display any picture slide show during music playback, nice little feature.

The unit measures about 7cm x 7cm x 0.75cm, the enture front panel is the typical plastic covering, it is not touch screen. Volume control down one side, power and lock on the other. Phone socket and microphone on the top.

It will display JPG and GIF easily and I threw some reasonably large 5MB JPGs ( 4200×3000 px) at it and it only took about 2-3 secs to “re-code” them and display, best to stick to smaller ones around the 400x400px size for super fast results.

The playback is one of the best I have heard in the ultra cheap devices and far outstrips the limited sound quality from any iPod I have heard. You get preset EQ and you can set your own custom EQ settings.

After 6 hours of continous playback I think one bar has dropped on the battery indicator which suggest about 12-15 hours of playback on a 45 min charge, not bad for a gadget with full colour screen.

The navigation is via the fron screen, whereby the entire front screen rocks in all 4 directions to whatever the buttons have been set to on screen so, up for last track, down to for next, pause/play on the right, luckily they have put a lock on the unit, else you would be pushing the buttons while it was in your pocket…

Which brings me to the one major, serious failign of this wondeful device, the clip! It is a piece of utter rubbish! The worst designed thing ever! You thread a plastic clip through a rubber cover, then slid the device into the rubber cover, but only just about enough to cover the outside of the unit, not the front screen though. So one swift jolt and the whole thing falls out and on the floor if the earphone plug doesn’t hold it from doing so.

Connectivity is perfect. I utterly despise having to use specific software for MP3 players, I want simply connect and copy type devices, I own a Mac and hate iTunes with a passion, it is seriously awful. This device is perfect, plugged it into my Mac at home and my Linxu box at work, came up perfect and simply left me copy my files over and unplug and go. Even better they use standard size mini-USB plug, which 90% of the cameras and players use all over the world! Well done for a great design decision, makes up for the rubbish clip thingy!

A fantastic device, well worth every single penny, but seriously let down by what can only have been a last minute design thought, adding a clip to a tiny portable device! Despite the utter rubbish clip thingy, it has now replaced my iPod shuffle.

Only 4 stars, the rubiish clip ( come on its always going to be carried about for flip’s sake! ), docked it a star!

Rating: 4 / 5

Mark Davey

at 6:31 am

I have been looking for a MP3 player for a while now, and although I have been tempted bythe iPods, their prices have put me off. I finally, following much research, opted for the GoGear Spark 8Gb. I set it up, loaded about 300 songs onto it, and started listening. The device is very small and fits easily into your pocket. The sound this little device produces is fantastic, although I do find the headphones are not the most comfortable, but acceptable. I haven’t tried out all the features yet – for instance, i have not created any playlists, but Iam sure these work fine.

However, BEWARE. There is a big negative. I have my player on Shuffle and use it for my short journey to and from work. When on Shuffle, the 2nd song that is played after I switch it on is ALWAYS the same song. The 4th song is always the same song. The 6th song is always the same song…..you get the idea. The 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc songs are always random. I contacted Philips and they just told me that is how Shuffle works !!!

Because of this ‘feature’ I think I Will be returning this little device back as faulty!!
Rating: 3 / 5

doggebreth

at 10:12 am

This neat little mp3 player provides excellent sound quality and is straightforward in operation.

Music can be copied to it using drag and drop or windows media player. It is not DRM compatible – but if you support DRM sales outlets you should be ashamed. It has a good capacity non-replaceable battery which can only be charged through a USB connection when the player is not in use. I expect that this will progressively reduce but you can expect it to run all day and night to begin with.

Start up has been designed for the product’s intended user. It assumes sufficient PC competence to respond to screen prompting when connected via mini USB – and an aversion to the printed page. The process is intuitive but if you choose to update the firmware at the wrong time this can be slow – with no indication of progress. Incidentally this review is for the non radio version 2940 – it is possible to download the firmware from the 2945 version and I would be interested to know if anyone has used this to unlock the radio functionality. Not important to me…

The little 1.5″ 480 pixel square screen is not bad – but can’t be seen easily outside. Controls work well once you master them – locking them is essential to prevent tracks skipping. The locking slider also turns the player off. There is no futile attempt to provide video playback and I haven’t tried the recording facility. Philips have an agreement with Audible to provide playback of their recorded material which may be of interest to some.

On first use the sound quality was poor – congested and bass heavy. I believe that one of the equalizer settings must be used as a default although there is no indication that this is so. Using the custom setting adjusted to a flat response provides an enormous improvement. For the purposes of review I tried the supplied in-ear phones – not too bad – and the player has a ‘full sound’ equalization setting that is probably complementary to their reproduction. With better quality listening gear this ‘full sound’ demonstrates the usual over weighting of bass and treble response that you would expect. All the mp3 players I have owned appear to benefit from a brief period of running before the sound opens out.

This is an extremely likeable player. Compared to the Sansa Clip the sound quality is first rate. It comes with a silicon case that provides limited protection and feels nice – but does compromise the ‘phone socket – if you are not using the standard in ear ones provided. It also means that the belt clip is not integral – not as neat but functionally satisfactory.

Start up times are acceptable – even when the player capacity is fully utilised. Playback options are well designed and comprehensive and the player does remember where it was when you switch it off. Judging from earlier reviews there have been worthwhile firmware improvements.

You will not be disappointed if you buy this player.

Rating: 5 / 5