Groove on the move | Part 3

Philips GoGear Aria 4 GB

The smaller brother to the Opus, the Aria is compact. It’s built well and except for the rather garish looking chrome centre button the player looks nice. Piano-finished black is a failsafe option though we’re getting tired of seeing this combination on HDTVs, DVD players, speakers and so on. Its screen is small and too devoid of contrast and colour to be any good at movies. Moreover a single SMV video format is supported that few will want to use.

The music performance was strictly mediocre, as expected – in fact its bass sounded woolly and unfocussed lacking bottom-end grunt that makes certain segments of some tracks memorable. The mid-range is recessed and vocals seem somehow suppressed – not as loud as the other sonic components – this makes any sort of vocal-based music like Blues, Jazz and Pop an incomplete experience. The guitar echoes – as if it were being strummed in an empty room with poor acoustics. There is a clipping that occurs in the 3.6 – 4 KHz range of the sonic spectrum that coincides with higher piano notes – although not very noticeable – once you realise the clipping, it’s a killjoy to the rest of the music that you are hearing.

The highs are lacking in finer detail but for the most there is no issue with tonal accuracy or sibilance. At Rs. 4,999 the Aria doesn’t inflame my senses enough for me to recommend it at even half the price – if you’re looking for a budget PMP, you can do much better for a lot less.

Also Read Groove on the move | Apacer AU824, iPod Classic 120 GB, iPod Nano

Groove on the move | Cowon D2+, Cowon iAudio 7, Cowon S9, iPod Touch 32 GB

Pros:

Built well

Really compact

Cons:

Tiny screen, with poor colours

Basic features

Poor music quality

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Philips GoGear Opus 8 GB

The Opus consists of a brushed metal rear and glossy black front. The sides have a silver trim and this adds some much need contrast to all that black, all in all an attractive looking player. The controls look clunky and the buttons are a little hard to press but other than that they’re well laid out and for the most work decently. The screen is not very bright and the contrast ratio is horrible, for lack of a better word. When using the arrow keys between menus or tracks there is a slight lag between a button press and the desired action – a bit annoying. A useful little bookmark feature does the job of the point A to B repeat within a soundtrack.