Firstly the GoGear Vibe I'm reviewing is NOT the one already reviewed on this site, it is the newer version.

I bought the latest GoGear Vibe primarily for an admittedly silly reason - I really wanted smooth-scroll - which my previous GoGear Opus does not have. But I didn't wish to compromise on the space my version of the Opus had - 16Gb. With the new Vibe I didn't have to - the 16Gb is the highest capacity model Philips released in these versions. To look at, the new Vibe is unrecognisable from it's previous incarnation of the same name. Gone is the rather flimsy and poorly thought out control pad with the dop in the middle that serves no purpose (yet really looks like it should). Instead you're presented with a very pleasing, smooth, comfortable and practical control set - though I would not recommend this player to those with large fingers or severe joint problems.

First off the first thing you notice when navigating through the menus compared with previous GoGears (and I have 2 previous generations as a reference point) is that the response time is RAPID. This is very pleasing if like me all you want to do is get into bed and flick to your chosen bedtime story very quickly and then just get on with listening. Audio format support is exemplary : mp3, wav, wma, flac and ape. For such a small player (this unit is about half the size of the Opus) this is an impressive and very practical format support range.

Navigation is very straightforward - I can't imagine many who just pick up and have a play with the menus would even need to bother reading the instruction manual. Also pleasing was the discovery that this player successfully played several mp3 files which my GoGear Opus failed to cope with. This would suggest that Philips did not merely slap a new shell around the same technology, but have also genuinely improved the player on the inside.

The player itself seems to be VERY robust - it seems nigh-on impossible to make any ripples on the lcd screen - comforting to know if you're taking it out and about in your pocket - or like me are spectacularly unimpressed with Apple's policy of making weak screens purely in order to then make i-pod protectors to milk even more money from the Apple fanboys.

The Vibe does play video, although the screen being 1.5 inches diagonally this isn't something I would consider using the player for. It does however also handle jpeg and bmp files for picture viewing which might come in handy now and again just for photo portability.

The sound quality like most GoGears is very highly rated - many have casually mentioned the FullSound quality as being superior to that of ipods - but of course the fact that Philips trounces Apple on the very core selling point of you buying an mp3 player in the first place doesn't get a large amount of press - because Philips isn't marketing to fashion victims.

I will be sticking with this player but there are a couple of minor gripes. Firstly the power on/off/play/pause button on the Opus is intuitiveness itself - a circle right in the middle of the outer circle controls. Now the Vibe has the play/pause button in the middle of 4 outer control buttons - yet the on/off button is located underneath the player and flicking it to on will always get your finger in the way of the headphone jack which is right next to it. Also when the player is in sleep mode but you want to increase the volume, pressing the plus button brings it out of sleep but does not seem to increase the volume simultaneously - which it most definitely did on the Opus. This I would consider a step backwards.

But even those gripes are but minor. The Vibe is highly customisable in terms of looks and most importantly for me sleep modes - you really want to have it sleep as quickly as possible when you settle down to listen to preserve the lcd screen life and they now have the option to reduce the time it goes blank to 40 seconds. However if you're a bit of a masochist and want to see how fast you can wear the lcd down you can set everything to "Always on" if you wish.

Battery life for the player is again fine. I generally only have to charge this about once a week if that - and I'm listening for around an hour most nights before I go to sleep.

The earphones supplied are a matter of taste I suppose. They're not the fancy in-ear ones that you get with the Opus and the high-end models - but I don't use earphones anyway I used headphones - I'm reviewing an mp3 player, not what you use to listen to it with - so it's a moot point anyway.

Would strongly recommend this robust little player.