Thursday, October 02, 2003 7:05:36 PM
OT: Philips HD100 review:
http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/hardware/storage/0,39007104,39015983p,00.htm
CNET Review
By Farihan Bahrin
(29/9/2003)
Although there's healthy competition in the MP3 arena these days, there's still not a jukebox player within a hundred miles that can lay a finger on the iPod when it comes to stylish exuberance and sheer geek appeal. In terms of design, the current collective have tended to be aesthetically underwhelming. Enter the Philips HDD100: Half futuristic Star Wars design, half retro-industrial styling, this Darth Vader of MP3 players boasts enough features to send even the iPod to an early eBay grave--a 10-hour battery life, high-res display, WMA support and direct digital recording are just some of its impressive repertoire. Sadly, weak volume and a lockup-prone firmware just leave this S$749 (US$430) player shy of getting a formal recommendation.
Design
The designer gurus at Philips have probably been working overtime with this one. Measuring 106.4 x 64.4 x 19.9mm, and weighing a pocket-friendly 167g, the HDD100 is one of the slimmest and lightest hard drive players you'll find, and one of the best-looking, too. Compared with the iPod, the HDD100 is about half a cm longer and a quarter cm thicker. It lacks the iPod's feminine contours, but the sides are elegantly manicured with a striking silver finish to complement the glossy-black magnesium shell, a nice touch that should appeal to audio hounds with retro taste buds.
Dominated by an impressively large 160 x 128-pixel LCD, the elegant, minimalist unit features nothing extraneous: Four navigational buttons decorate the HDD100's fascia along with a single power switch. The side Menu button, located below the volume control, lends easy access to a variety of user and playback related settings, including backlight, track arrangement and equalizer tweaks.
Overall, the button layout is clean and uncluttered, and the compass-like arrangements means there's less danger of a thumb-lock when scrolling through menus. One-handed operation is also fairly simple. Despite its reverse colored background, the HDD100's clear backlit display is visibly coherent in both dim and direct sunlight, a welcome change for users accustomed to the myopia-inducing fonts of tiny flash players.
Features
The HDD100 comes with a charger, USB cable, software, pouch and an on-cord remote. For music transfers, the player uses Philips' proprietary Digital Media Manager software (you can drag-and-drop over non-audio files via Windows Explorer). While the eccentric program gets the job done and lets you edit ID3 tags, it doesn't feature any ripping mechanism for translating CD audio into MP3s and, rather unusually, doesn't let you arrange playlist tracks in the order you want. Checking music in and out of the Digital Rights Management software was also a forgettable and time-wasting chore.
The HDD100 also lacks the iPod's fancy touch-sensitive scroll wheel and cross-menu fluidity--the player's stuttering interface, albeit user-friendly and clear, appears sluggish by comparison. We also experienced random lockups that plagued the device every time we tried to switch songs between playlists. The freezing appears to be firmware-related, however, so a future software update should fix the problem. Apart from that, the embedded 1.8-inch 15GB hard disk performs normally and seldom skips.
On a positive note, PC users will appreciate the HDD100's audio versatility and wealth of track-editing options. The player reads both MP3s (up to 320kbps) and WMAs (up to 192kbps) and its pair of digital and analog recording inputs makes it dead easy to hijack tunes from your buddy's CD deck--the HDD100 records these sources directly into 192kbps MP3 files. Users can also deploy the MiniDisc-style editing features to delete/arrange tracks and create customized playlists while on the move. The in-built voice recorder is nothing special, but useful for quick interview sessions and taking down voice memos.
Performance
Sonically the HDD100 is good, but not great. Its sound is clean and clear, but does tend to get a little bit lean at times. This is easily remedied with Philips' Dynamic Bass Boost, which adds a bit more bite into the low-end. There are numerous other equalizer settings as well, but if you're not a big fan of sound tweaking, we suggest that you stick with the default settings instead.
Perhaps the biggest chink in the HDD100's performance is its weak volume output. The unit's 5mW headphone amplifier pumps out decent decibels on entry level phones but just doesn't have enough power for headsets with higher impedance, such as our reference BeyerDynamic DT 531. If your major consideration is sound quality, frankly there are other players in the market--like the Zen NX and iPod--that'll serve you better.
Unlike Creative's Zen NX, the HDD100's Lithium-ion battery pack is non-removable but this should prove a minor quibble for most; the unit's 10-hour lifespan easily outlasts both the iPod and Zen NX. Recharge time using the supplied AC adapter averaged slightly over 2 hours--unlike flash memory variants, the HDD100 does not allow for direct charging via USB. An impressive file transfer rate of 3.2MB per second (with USB 2.0) also means you can fill the entire 15GB jukebox in just over an hour.
http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/hardware/storage/0,39007104,39015983p,00.htm
CNET Review
By Farihan Bahrin
(29/9/2003)
Although there's healthy competition in the MP3 arena these days, there's still not a jukebox player within a hundred miles that can lay a finger on the iPod when it comes to stylish exuberance and sheer geek appeal. In terms of design, the current collective have tended to be aesthetically underwhelming. Enter the Philips HDD100: Half futuristic Star Wars design, half retro-industrial styling, this Darth Vader of MP3 players boasts enough features to send even the iPod to an early eBay grave--a 10-hour battery life, high-res display, WMA support and direct digital recording are just some of its impressive repertoire. Sadly, weak volume and a lockup-prone firmware just leave this S$749 (US$430) player shy of getting a formal recommendation.
Design
The designer gurus at Philips have probably been working overtime with this one. Measuring 106.4 x 64.4 x 19.9mm, and weighing a pocket-friendly 167g, the HDD100 is one of the slimmest and lightest hard drive players you'll find, and one of the best-looking, too. Compared with the iPod, the HDD100 is about half a cm longer and a quarter cm thicker. It lacks the iPod's feminine contours, but the sides are elegantly manicured with a striking silver finish to complement the glossy-black magnesium shell, a nice touch that should appeal to audio hounds with retro taste buds.
Dominated by an impressively large 160 x 128-pixel LCD, the elegant, minimalist unit features nothing extraneous: Four navigational buttons decorate the HDD100's fascia along with a single power switch. The side Menu button, located below the volume control, lends easy access to a variety of user and playback related settings, including backlight, track arrangement and equalizer tweaks.
Overall, the button layout is clean and uncluttered, and the compass-like arrangements means there's less danger of a thumb-lock when scrolling through menus. One-handed operation is also fairly simple. Despite its reverse colored background, the HDD100's clear backlit display is visibly coherent in both dim and direct sunlight, a welcome change for users accustomed to the myopia-inducing fonts of tiny flash players.
Features
The HDD100 comes with a charger, USB cable, software, pouch and an on-cord remote. For music transfers, the player uses Philips' proprietary Digital Media Manager software (you can drag-and-drop over non-audio files via Windows Explorer). While the eccentric program gets the job done and lets you edit ID3 tags, it doesn't feature any ripping mechanism for translating CD audio into MP3s and, rather unusually, doesn't let you arrange playlist tracks in the order you want. Checking music in and out of the Digital Rights Management software was also a forgettable and time-wasting chore.
The HDD100 also lacks the iPod's fancy touch-sensitive scroll wheel and cross-menu fluidity--the player's stuttering interface, albeit user-friendly and clear, appears sluggish by comparison. We also experienced random lockups that plagued the device every time we tried to switch songs between playlists. The freezing appears to be firmware-related, however, so a future software update should fix the problem. Apart from that, the embedded 1.8-inch 15GB hard disk performs normally and seldom skips.
On a positive note, PC users will appreciate the HDD100's audio versatility and wealth of track-editing options. The player reads both MP3s (up to 320kbps) and WMAs (up to 192kbps) and its pair of digital and analog recording inputs makes it dead easy to hijack tunes from your buddy's CD deck--the HDD100 records these sources directly into 192kbps MP3 files. Users can also deploy the MiniDisc-style editing features to delete/arrange tracks and create customized playlists while on the move. The in-built voice recorder is nothing special, but useful for quick interview sessions and taking down voice memos.
Performance
Sonically the HDD100 is good, but not great. Its sound is clean and clear, but does tend to get a little bit lean at times. This is easily remedied with Philips' Dynamic Bass Boost, which adds a bit more bite into the low-end. There are numerous other equalizer settings as well, but if you're not a big fan of sound tweaking, we suggest that you stick with the default settings instead.
Perhaps the biggest chink in the HDD100's performance is its weak volume output. The unit's 5mW headphone amplifier pumps out decent decibels on entry level phones but just doesn't have enough power for headsets with higher impedance, such as our reference BeyerDynamic DT 531. If your major consideration is sound quality, frankly there are other players in the market--like the Zen NX and iPod--that'll serve you better.
Unlike Creative's Zen NX, the HDD100's Lithium-ion battery pack is non-removable but this should prove a minor quibble for most; the unit's 10-hour lifespan easily outlasts both the iPod and Zen NX. Recharge time using the supplied AC adapter averaged slightly over 2 hours--unlike flash memory variants, the HDD100 does not allow for direct charging via USB. An impressive file transfer rate of 3.2MB per second (with USB 2.0) also means you can fill the entire 15GB jukebox in just over an hour.
Always tell the truth. Then you'll never have to remember what you said the last time.
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
