Philips PSS110 Review

Overall Rating

An MP3 player that can fill the room with sound
Comes with FM radio
And works as an external speakers for other gear

Does not work as advertised

Introduction of the Philips PSS110:
I picked this up at Asda as it was on offer of below £20. If it works as advertised, it is a good piece of gear in concept. However that is a big 'IF'. I had tried for a whole month on 3 different computers and it just could not work as promised.

Concept:
Build a MP3 player in a reasonable pair of speakers for use around the house, or bring it on the road and use it as a radio alarm clock in the hotel.

Contents:
The speakers
A quite useless CDROM with Musicmatch Jukebox (MJ)
USB cable
Line in cable
Charger
Carry case

Sound:
Like I said in the introduction, the speakers are only of reasonable quality. Do not expect to rock the room with them, but they do sound ok.

Use:
It is a multi feature speaker unit, with FM radio, MP3 player and external speakers for, say your laptop. On start up, you select the feature you want. Batteries are built in rechargeable. I had not really tested how long they will last as the unit couldn't play much except the demo tracks and the FM radio.

Problems:
The first problem with this unit is it is quite choosy about which computer it will run on. I meet ALL the requirements on 2 of my personal computers but MJ fails to recognise it, coming up with the dreaded 'Unknown USB device' warning instead. I managed to get it recognised on my office computer and you would think that I am up and running now correct?
NO! This brings me to the second problem, there is no way to transfer files to the unit except by MJ. You can drag and drop files onto it by Windows Explorer, BUT the unit will refuse to play it, or even list it. So MJ it is then?
Again NO! Even after using MJ to sync the music onto the player, the player STILL fails to recognise the songs. The files are showing on MJ as synced and uploaded, but after disconnection from the computer, it does not show up on the player list instead! I have 2 albums uploaded on the unit at the moment, but when I try to play them, they are not 'in' the unit. Further more, MJ will just re-upload whatever files I had just deleted from the unit (ie the demos).

Conclusion:
This is a good idea in concept but very very poorly carried out. Using MJ is a painful and complex process, and to find out that it does not work after hours of trying is a real pain in the bum. I had just placed this piece of rubbish into the bin.

Sound Quality
Good enough for casual music, with it size, you shouldn't expect to rock the house.
Features
There is a fair amount of features in a product of this size.
Value for Money
I wouldn't even pay £1 for something that could not work.
Overall rating
(-)10
Recommend to a friend?:
NO NO NO!!!

Members' Comments onalvinlwh's Review

• Slick Mick on 16th Feb 2008

  I have found that if you use a program called shoqbox buddy, find it at www.softplatz.com/Soft/Audio-Multimedia/Other/ShoqBox-Buddy.html I've tested this and it works, hope this helps.