Philips GoGear SA6025 review

It seems that if an MP3 player wants to be taken seriously in 2007 it needs to be able to play videos, too.

We're yet to be convinced that this is an essential feature, mostly because these players' screens are too small for anything except short clips, but it's a fun extra that we welcome if it works well and doesn't add to the cost.

The SA6025 is a little bulky for a solid-state MP3 player, but it looks extremely smart. Its 2.2in 320x240 screen is larger and more detailed than our current Best Buy, Sandisk's Sansa e270. The player sits horizontally, so video is played in landscape mode.

The supplied Arcsoft MediaConverter software can convert a wide range of video formats to the player's native WMV format. The screen is bright and clear and photos looked excellent, but the video wasn't so good. File conversion uses a fixed compression ratio for video, which made smooth areas of colour such as skies look blocky. It's a shame that video quality settings can't be chosen.

Windows Media Player 11 handles music transfers in its usual friendly, efficient manner, but the 1.28MB/s transfer speed is disappointing. Using the player itself conjures up a similar experience: the menus are well laid out, closely resembling the iPod's friendly menu system, but the player takes around half a second to respond to each button push. It doesn't keep up with repeated clicks to jump through music library lists and there's no rotary dial for fast scrolling through lists. With the 36 albums we managed to fit on to the 2GB player we tested, we didn't find the sluggish menus too annoying, but it's likely to be more irritating on the highest-capacity 4GB player. We also found it strange that the display wasn't used to display album artwork, which feels like a missed opportunity to us.

The player's sound quality was up to scratch, with plenty of volume and well-defined high frequencies. Unfortunately, this exaggerated the headphones' slightly harsh tone, with too much treble and not enough bass. We managed to correct it using the Custom EQ function, but sound quality remained good rather than excellent with the supplied headphones and we'd recommend upgrading.

We would be reluctant to spend £78 on a 2GB MP3 player, but the 4GB version (called the SA6045) is better value at £96 including VAT from www.dixons.co.uk. However, for the same price, you can pick up an 8GB Sandisk e280, which includes higher-quality headphones and better, more responsive controls. Sadly, the GoGear SA6025's superior screen isn't enough to redress the balance.