Philips SA5AZU08KF/37 GoGEAR Ariaz MP3 Players - Black

This is a great player. It is large enough to easily use and not lose but still a convenient size. Easy to use, and works with Linux and Windows as well. It has a large memory so you can fill it up with lots of music!

How hard is it to get a working MP3 player with Bluetooth that recognizes all major codecs? It appears to be impossible. I settled on this one as a good comprise knowing I would need to convert the m4a files. What I didn't realize was the build quality and software would be overall substandard to the $30 Chinese player I tried before that only had the downside of not playing playlists over bluetooth.Bluetooth failed to recognize any device after two days. Resetting the device did not clear the issue. Phillips support forums recognize the problem, and numerous people report similar issues with multiple devices, but they offer no fix instead telling people to private message the support tech, removing any hint at a solution (or more likely the lack of one) from the public forums.

I would recommend it. It has a solid battery life and I haven't had any issues with it so far. It is relatively small and offers good storage capacity. When you use the "shuffle" mode, it sometimes tends to play randomly the same songs over and over again...some songs seem to be never played. But I would recommend this product.

This player is just "OK". I got it to replace an earlier version of the GoGear player which I liked much better. I use these when exercising so I tend to only get 10-12 months out of one before they fail, which I consider to be an acceptable lifespan given the abuse. The earlier versions worked pretty much flawlessly. This one out of the box would play for 10 minutes and go to sleep. Then it would take all manner of incarnation to turn it back on. I contacted customer support and found out it was a programming glitch that it comes with the sleep feature turned on. Automatically. On every start up. Every single time. I downloaded the software they specified but the tool said I had the most current software, however it hasn't done it to me since so I consider that matter resolved.Beyond that there are just a couple other nuisances about it. The other main grip is that any time you go back to the stored music folder it always starts at the very first song listed, regardless of if it is on random or not. I have 500 songs on it, I think it should be able to skip that first song every now and then.The rest of my grips are pretty much just personal preference, like the tile layout thing. I don't like that but it's just a style thing.It does have really good battery life. It's small and lightweight. All pluses if you use it like I do. It has a lot of other features which I won't comment on because I bought it exclusively as an Mp3 player and as such I only use the music playback and FM radio functions.Probably the only advantage I've found over the earlier version is this one actually allows you to delete files without being connected to a PC. But beyond that feature, I'd much rather just have the older GoGear.

I use it all the time for two years. But when I'm walking it doesn't always work unless I hold in my hand. Sounds cuts in and out if it's in my pocket. Sometimes it works in rt pocket. It works up to 10 yards away if I set it down but just in the pocket is enough to mess up the sound. I want to take it to throw the ball for the dogs and have to tape it to my shoulder. The interface sometimes seems to get scrambled so it won't work right and i have to restart. Now the bluetooth has started to turn off and on. I'm here looking for a player, and not this one . I'll keep using it in the house.

I like the large music capacity. The controls are simple to use and don't require reading manuals to figure out. Feels good to the touch as well. Fits the hand well. I don't know how long it will play before the rechargeable battery dies, but it lasted though a 7 hour oceanic flight playing continuously. Synched effortlessly to my Beats headphones.

The hardware is nice, but the software does not work. It uses songbird to sync music, however it can not sync songbird playlists. What good is a mp3 player without playlists? If you are a technical kind of person you can copy all of you mp3 files and directories directly to the Ariaz Players “Music” directory and then create your own *.m3u playlists (by modifying m3u playlists generated by some other software) using the path format “\Music\Path on the Ariaz of your music files\song_name.mp3". Put the playlists in the Ariaz’s Playlist directory.The Media Converter they tell you to download for Video support does not support this model.

a little quiet, hard to hear.