Philips GoGear Aria review
Nov 14, 2009 at 3:23 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 1

babya

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Philips GoGear AriaReview:
Phillips GoGear Aria is a 4GB MP3/video player with a impressive 2 screen in a appealing black color.

It's also known as SA1ARA04K (for the 4GB model).

Packaging and accessories:

GoGear Aria is presented in a neat carboard box, with the player in a plastic section, the accessories at the rear.

Philips has gone for a mini CD to hold the supplied software, plus has stopped supplying a USB cable.

The supplied in-ear headphones feature turbo bass air vents and a angled acoustics design.


Design:

The GoGear Aria has a hold switch on the bottom and volume controls at the top (similar to the SA6145).

The controls are completely different from previous models, with separate back and options buttons at the top next to the screen , with next/previous buttons around the right side.

A up/down navigator is in the center with a play pause button in the middle.

The screen is very beautiful-2.0" and is quite bright.

Interface
Philip's GoGear interface is quite nice-revamped for 2009 models , with graphics reminiscent of iPods (white on black background)-all features are displayed neatly.

Thankfully, Philips has done away with the he left and right button type navigation to move between menu screens-unconventional but quite easy to master.

One neat feature is SuperScroll-described by Philips as:
"Double action search keys allow easy speed control when scrolling through large libraries. You can choose to move through your playlist one song or video at a time or just press and hold down a little harder to SuperScroll swiftly to your desired file."

This makes scrolling through the song list very fast.


Music:

The GoGear Aria plays unprotected (non-DRM) MP3/WMA music files-2 popular file formats for digital music and also Audbile audiobooks.

Playback features are good-the basics of playing selecting songs is familar if you’ve used other players.

Information displayed is artist/album/song name and album art.

The song display looks a lot like the iPod's.

Photos/Videos:

Photos are displayed in a full screen view and are viewed in a landscape orientation,slideshow feature is basic but is effective in use.

When viewing photos you can use the up/down buttons to rotate the currently displayed image-a novel touch.

Video playback is good with smooth motion and frame rate at 30fps.

Movies can be transferred to the GoGear Aria-you need to convert to the SMV format with the supplied Media Converter for Philips software.

Transfer and charging:

A standard mini-USB cable is used (unlike with 2008 models which had one in the box, for 2009 models you need to supply your own this time around).

Windows is the only OS supported officially by Philips-so you can use Windows Media Player.

A setting in the settings menu (PC Connection Preference) has the option either MTP or MSC/UMS.

But, helpfully when the GoGear Aria is connected a message appears allowing you to choose from "connect & transfer" or "charge & play".

The former mounts the GoGear as a UMS device-which 2008 models, like the SA6145 only mounted as a MTP device.

This can be extremely hanmdy if you'd like to transfer songs to it on say a Mac for instance.

It'll charge on other OS but won't appear in the Finder on Macs for instance.

There’s also a program called “Philips device manager + Philips Media converter” which can be downloaded from support.philips.com or installed from the supplied CD.

New this year-a video downloading application that works with Philips GoGear Aria.

Philips device manager can be used to perform firmware updates or do a player recovery.

Sound Quality:

The Philips GoGear Aria's sound quality is excellent, with very nice sound reproduction across mids and highs there’s a good EQ selection-presets plus a customizable EQ.

The sound was amazing clear and all ranges and virtually distortion free.

A option for Philips FullSound is present-provides a CD quality like listening experience.

Other:

You can listen to radio with 20 presets and voice recording. Auto tuning in radio presets is very quick.

A text and voice recorder is included-the former new to the Philips GoGear range .



Overall:

It’s a beautiful MP3/video player-I was quite impressed at the Philips GoGear Aria, especially for its 2" screen and its included premium headphones

Photo:


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Packaging/headphones:
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