I use Musicmatch 9.0 which, while not as intuitive as Sony's Easy Burner (I own a Sony minidisc player as well), is easy to use for transferring music files to/from my laptop to the Philips player. Bought this player in 2005 at Walmart Kunia for $200 which was one of the better players sold there at the time. I'm not disappointed with my purchase and although the hard drive is only 2GB, I was able to fit my favorite CD tracks on it with room to spare. A color screen would have been nice. This player is quirky only when trying to load music onto it, but playback operation is flawless. Looking to invest in one of Philips' newer players - I like their looks a little better than Apple's iPods (yes I own an iPod Nano as well).

It is unreliable. One day it would turn on and 80% of the time it doesn't turn on at all. It starts like this:-
a). First 20 days no issues.
b). One fine day the Philips HDD070 MP3 player freeze while playing a song and it wouldn't switch off. I found a way to hard reset it. This happens for few more days.
c). Then the screen starts to flicker and flicker, and one fine day it keeps flickering like a worn fluorescent lamp. I was told to upgrade the firmware, which I did, and it was no use, so I put it in my office in my junk box.
d). Two weeks later I decided to charge it, and to my delight it switched on.
e). Two days later the screen flickers again, even after I charged it. This keeps happening.

The volume is awful, and it doesn't give even half the output of that of iPod. I travel to the office by bus, and I can't hear the sound at all. You can hear only when no other sound disturbance is there.

I wouldn't recommend this product - Sandisk is very good if u consider IPOD to be costly.

Like so many other owners of this MP3 player. It would not turn on, and the screen would flash while charging, but it would not turn on. I sent it back to Philips within the warranty period, and they fixed it free of charge. Four months out of warranty the same thing happened to the Philips HDD070 MP3 player again. £96.00 to repair it. I don't think so! In the bin it goes! I can buy a better MP3 player with 4Gb for the repair cost.

The Philips HDD070 MP3 player is a fairly robust product, and it is good to the eye. Unfortunately, I didn't take out the extended warranty - a big mistake. (Shouldn't be needed with a quality product from a reputable manufacturer, but you live an learn).

The battery died just before the warranty ran out. This was "repaired", but it failed again 4 months later, BUT warranty repairs are only guaranteed for 3 months, so I was left high and dry by Philips.

I will never purchase another Philips product. Their customer service is worse than useless. Spend a bit more and get a real quality product.

When I bought my Philips HDD070 I had 3 priorities-
1.Sound quality
2. Memory
3.Ease of use
I got my Philips HDD070 for my birthday a year ago

Sound:
The sound quality is excellent with a bass boost that really makes a difference with a 5 set equalizer, the suppplied headphones weren't very good but a replaced them with my own.

Memory:
2GB is a little small for a hard disk player but you can still cram plenty of music on it.

Ease of use:
This is the area that lets down the player. Musicmatch jukebox is simply dire. It is locked to the player to prevent copyright.....
It takes about 20 minutes to rip a CD.
You cannot put music on your player back onto a different computer
It takes 20 minutes to get the music on the player


Overall the player itself is very good and sounds brilliant. IF you can come to terms with that dreadful software then you will have a long and prosperous relationship,.

I don't use the Music Match software at all on my Philips HDD070, I use Morpheus to search for the tunes I want to download. I then launch the DMM software and plug om the player via USB. The DMM searches for tunes on the pc and then transfers to the player, it's as simple as that. Labelling the DMM is easy, highlight the track and click the pen symbol.

The main problem with my Philips HDD070 MP3 player was that the software is not very good, but what you have to do is upgrade the MusicMatch software to at least version 9.0 (I think), which will allow you to put on songs you have downloaded from the internet.

When you get that out of the way and you have it up and running, it is a really class MP3 player.

I recommend Virgin digital as a place to download songs from!!!

Do not buy one of the Philips HDD070 MP3 players, useless things!!

I bought myself the Philips HDD070 MP3 player last Christmas as a treat to myself. The lady at the counter asked me if I wanted to take out cover on it and I declined, but she persisted and managed to persuade me to take out the three year cover at a further £30. Boy was I glad I had done that!! Within four weeks of having the player it suddenly started flashing and no text would come up on the screen. I tried to reset it like the manual states but didn't get too far with it.
I ended up taking it back and getting it replaced. Happy that I got a new one, I set about the dubious task of putting my favourite tunes on it, which just takes forever.
After about six months of having good quality music, my player suddenly started acting up again. I took it back to be told that I couldn't have a replacement because the manufacturers have stopped making them!! Apparently my Cover became void.
After feeling ever so miffed about this, I had to fork out a further £109 + cover for the latest player, Exactly the same player but black!!
I wouldn't recommend this player to anyone, it is too expensive for something that can break so easily. You don't even need to drop it!!
I will be making a huge complaint to the manufacturers and asking for them to refund the extra costs of replacing it.

The Philips HDD070 is a great MP3 player, with all the basics you need. The menu is user friendly, and well set out. All the songs are very easy to find. It also includes a built in radio if you want one.
I only had to send it back once, because it wouldn't turn on properly, but the support was excellent.
All on all a decent player.

Mine had software issues. Phillips kept sending me CD ROMS to help but none of them ever did. I eventually took it back to the shop. Luckilly, they gave me more money than I paid. ha ha

When I bought the Philips HDD070 I couldn't wait to get it home when I did I tried to install it and oh my god what a nightmare, it wouldn't install. Eventually after ringing up the helpline I did it, transferred the music which took about 80 minutes to do 50 songs, then out of the blue it said PROBLEM PLEASE CONNECT TO COMPUTER, I did this and it still said this same problem. Avoid at all costs spend a bit more money and get an iPod.

If you have had the lock up problem the Philips HDD070 has, there is a way to fix it. I went through THREE of these before I figured it out. To fix it simply use a very small phillips screwdriver and remove the chrome screw on the side cover above the volume buttons, then carefully remove the side cover. At the bottom of the player you will see where the battery plugs in, it's not much different than a cordless phone battery, simply unplug the battery for 5 seconds and reconnect it. Reinstall the sidecover and turn it back on and you're good to go. It says the battery is replaceable by the factory which I don't understand why because it is so easy. I had to remove the cover and do this battery trick maybe 8-13 times and eventually it quits locking up. I've had mine since December 2004 and it hasn't locked up since the 1st couple weeks I had to do this trick.
As far as taking 90mins to delete 24 tracks, I never had that problem but uploading to the player is slow.
Also I bought a 1/4 inch stereo cord that fits right into the headphone jack and I run that to a Y cord that is stereo RCA plugs that is connected to a line in on my car stereo and I listen to all my music in my car too, SKIP FREE!!! I also hook it up similarly to my shop stereo. It's the best Christmas gift I ever recieved.

I bought this player a month ago.

I wanted to cut down the price by excluding features I wouldn't use (like voice recorder, direct encoding, etc) and this turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. The only things it has are a radio, your music and data.

Lots of disc space, plus wma support; so that stretches the memory.

It looks nice and simple and is not too big.

I haven't fully tested its battery life but it serves my purpose, recharging every couple of days.

The sound quality is excellent. But theres no "line out" feature. Bass and equilizer effects make it sound a lot better.

The software stinks but you can get good, free 3rd party software called "sveta portable audio".

The pouch that came with it isn't very good since you have to keep taking the player out to press buttons (its a pouch, not a cover).

It acts as a removeable drive for the PC so you can easily store data on it.

Scrolling is easy. The player arranges songs alphabetically according to artist, title, album or genre. You can make playlists on it with a PC.

It has a hard disk drive and not a compact flash drive so it won't take too much shock although I haven't jolted it enough yet to know how much it can take.

Had the Philips HDD070 for 2 months and have had to replace it once (just locked up completely). Great size, build and sound quality BUT I will be taking it back and going for something else because of the unusable software. All tracks must be loaded or unloaded using Philips own "MusicMatch" software. 90 minutes to delete 24 tracks !!!!! Shame really as it is a good mp3 player but impossible to live with.