You can also turn on Philips FullSound, a feature Philips promises will 'restore the sonic details that music compression loses', but which mainly seems to work like stereo widening features on many new MP3 players. Once in a track adjusting settings is straightforward, with options to amend the EQ at your fingertips. The menus are clear and easy to follow, but don't expect any fancy Cover Flow-style album selection. While it would be nice if the Aria could read AAC file too, MP3 might be all most people need. MP3 or WMA are two of the compression formats that let you enjoy a world of digital music on your GoGear player. The Aria is compatible with MP3 and WMA audio files, but not the high-quality FLAC files that the more expensive GoGear Opus can play. Video may not be its strong suit, but at its core the GoGear Aria is an MP3 player, and this it can definitely do. A screen of this size and resolution is fine for menu navigation, but that's all.

The low resolution display (176x220 pixels) is terrible for watching video, and its poor viewing angle makes handheld sessions difficult to sustain. The resulting video from our test looked and sounded dreadful, and the small screen is far from being suitable for this kind of use. This extensive re-encoding process would be worth it if the results were of a high quality, but they are not. We tested the software with a 4.5-minute MP4 file and the re-encoding process took almost twice as long. I have found it to be an excellent MP3 player, and it's lived up to the reputation I read about it It is quite easy to load music, videos, and pictures onto the player. After researching and reading reviews on several products, I finally settled on Philip's GoGear 8GB model. This means you likely have to re-encode all of your previously collected video materials using the re-encoding software bundled with the player. I was in the market for a new MP3 player/ipod 3 years ago. The Philips Aria sports a 2-inch display and is capable of playing SMV video files, and if you haven't heard of this extension before don't be alarmed, it is a very obscure video codec. Apple's push into video with its Nano range has forced other companies to follow suit.

Philips gogear mp3 player 8gb