Poor manufacturing

While these are wonderful while they work - comfortable with decent audio quality, mine simply stopped working properly after two weeks. Sound became distorted and delivered through only one speaker, and then finally simply breaking off inside my iPod's headphone socket.

Maybe I just got unlucky, but I can't say that shoddy merchandise impresses me.

Pure tack

I wish I had read the reviews on amazon before wasting ~£30 on this. I have experienced the same issues as described by everyone else within one week of buying it. The technical problems aside, there is not one impressive feature about the box. Both build quality and interface is very poor. Perhaps the technical faults are due to reception rather than the box itself and would affect all brands? I dont know but if so, I would recommend doing more research into finding a better quality box with a better user friendly navigation. At this price there is no need to make watching tv a tacky experience.
Good for sources such as Amazon where consumers could do their research before buying.

Brilliant!

I researched various 'wake up' lights prior to purchasing this one, and finally decided to go with Philips on a recommendation of a friend. I'm not disappointed! I've always found it hard to get up in the morning, and I really don't know how I managed without this light. The only small criticism I have is that the digital display is quite bright, and I found this hindered me dropping off to sleep, so I keep the small adhesive cover on it all the time, as I don't need to see the time. I love this wake up light, and have recommended it to all my friends.

Great Player!

This is a fantastic player, and I agree with all the good reviews it's got here. Just a few v minor things I don't like:

- The DVD drawer is very thin, and feels a bit flimsy.
- It seems to create a lot of interference on Ch 58 (BBC1 for me!) when on. Fine in standby though.
- The player body is silver, not black, which I think would've looked more sleek.

Other than that, I love it - it's played rental DVDs flawlessly that my other players skip on. USB is brilliant, and it's played every file I've tried. I'm very pleased with it!

Great TV from a TV Hater!!!!

I reluctantly got a TV for my little girl as I had been without one for over a year!!! Got used to the peace and quiet which was lovely.... however eventually gave in to this model and I have absolutely no complaints. For the price this is an excellent deal. My cousin has a Sony, and in my opinion, this is almost as good for half the price. Go buy one! ;-)

Brilliant!

This is a superb bit of kit, easily modified to be region free (just input a certain series of numbers on the remote) and is just fantastic to take in the car (and our campervan)

We used it OK with my 80gb 5th Gen ipod and it displayed the videos on the big screen in great quality. BUT it won't play the videos from my son's 80gb 'classic' ipod. (not sure why)

I would still heartily recommend it, especially at this price!

Very good, but...

I've used these ear plugs for over 1 year. The great thing is really, that the ear hook's material is relatively comfortable, the fit is good and the sound quality is great. Nothing to complain in this price range.
I used them riding a bike to work and in the office - no serious running, gym and so on. However, I had to throw them in my rucksack or other pockets every day. So after about year the protective discs before the speakers came loose and made them unusable.
Summary: very great value for money, especially for casual use. If you intend to make"heavy use" of them, better spend 5 quit extra on a more enhanced model.

A handy player with plenty of facilities

I reckon that 1Gb is quite enough for my needs and so this one fits the bill. The sound quality I rate as Good with the supplied phones, but it becomes Very Good with a pair of more up market phones. Loading music files is very quick and easy to do using Windows Media Player 11, but I find the loading of pictures and video a bit more complicated although once in the machine they look OK on the small screen.
The FM radio allows for pre set stations. There is a built in mic to make recordings, but no direct recording of radio programmes.
There is an easily understood Quick Start Guide provided with a new player, and if you register it you have access to an online manual which is much more comprehensive. Battery charging, using USB lead from the PC, time is acceptable at about 5 hours for the first charge and I keep mine topped up with a half hour or so charge each morning.
Good value for money and serves my purposes very well.
The software was installed easily enough and checking with the website regularly will access free upgrades.

PHILIPS PET707/05

Good quality product.

Headrest mounts are non-obtrusive and the DVD player and bracket detach easily for safety when not in use.

almost perfect

just arrived today... the phone is well presented and easy to install even without reading the manual. features are brilliant and easy to manipulate.
the only downside is that no backlit.... BUT it doens't matter.... definitely, worth buying for......

Not quite right

I purchased these because of the the manufacturers statement"it works independently of your PC" This is not true and need the PC on all the time and the base station connected to it.

A great drive, with brilliant features

I bought this DVD Writer to replace my Toshiba RD-XS32 which, to be honest, was far too difficult to use.

I got the Philips from Tesco's for £89 and even though you can get the unit a lot cheaper now, even at that price I think it was still a bargain!

I wanted something that was just nice and easy to use so I could timer record and instant record 'stuff' off TV, this fitted the bill perfectly. The fact that you can record to DVD+R/DVD+RW/DVD-R/DVD-RW is brilliant as it dosn't matter what media you purchase.

The USB port on the front of the unit is a really good extra, especially as the kit has DivX support. This meant that I can download *legal* video from the Internet, put it onto a USB memory stick, put it into the machine and play it directly. This saves me such a long time as I used to convert the DivX AVI's into DVD movies which could take hours.

As well as the USB playing of AVI's you can also just stick them onto a CD/DVD, put it into the machine and play them without having to convert to DVD - such a time saver!

The only criticism I have is with the remote control. Some reviewers say that it is ugly but to be honest that dosn't bother me as I don't look at the remote for that long! No, the problems I have is that there is no 'MENU' button so it can be a bit hit-and-miss to get to a DVD's menu. Also, the range and angle of the remote seem to be very sensitive, ie, you have to point directly at the unit and not be very far away (<9 feet).

The quality and features along with the price of the drive far outweigh the small couple of problems. Definatly consider this drive.

Defective from the start...

The unit looks nice, good quality built, good specs.

Unfortunately the tape player was defective from the start, so I had to return it and accepted the refund (at the time they didn't have it in stock anymore).

I agree with the other reviewers, the small display is a bit dissapointing.

Great... unless you want to use headphones or fall asleep with the radio on

I was attracted to this radio because it looks very cool and retro and I didn't want something nasty looking in my bedroom.

The set up was intuitively easy and the sound quality was really excellent. If you want a nice DAB radio for the kitchen I would give it 5 stars. But the trouble is I have very specific requirements for a clock radio which the Philips radio didn't fulfil.

Firstly, I like to listen to the radio through my headphones when I wake up in the middle of the night to get me back to sleep. But the sleep function was ridiculously complicated to put on, especially in the dark. It took lots of noisy button pushing (the buttons are overly clicky) which isn't great when you are trying not to wake up your partner.

Secondly, the sound quality through the headphones was terrible. I don't know if I got a faulty one but there was a loud electrical buzz which drowned out the radio. Maybe it's because the headphone socket is right next to the power input?

Also, for my taste, the display is much too bright too and lit up the room. But that's a personal thing.

So, I've sent my Philips back and replaced it with the not very pretty Pure Siesta. It might be ugly but it ticks all my technical requirements (and its a little bit cheaper).

Making it multi-region- Works as well!!

Having had the DVD Player for about a month I decided I needed to make it multi-region, to play other region discs I own.

This is the procedure I carried out and made my player region free:

1. Power on DVD without a disc in the player.
2. Press SETUP on the remote.
3. Press 'Right arrow' on the remote 3 times.
4. Press 9, 6, 5 & 3 on the remote.
5. Press up/down to change region of player. Set to 0 (Zero) for region-free.
6. Press SETUP to exit.

Job's a good un!

Bad in weak reception areas

This product consistently couldnt get all the normal channels (eg channel 4) in my area. When I used an older Goodmans model it worked fine and received all channels straight away.

Looks gorgeous and performs reliably

Owning only a portable CD Player beforehand with inferior sound quality, I decided to upgrade and after thorough searching and comparisons of numerous systems this was the Hi-Fi System I chose as a long-term purchase as well as for short-term improved sound quality. The bottom line is that I'm very pleased with the unit, despite the odd criticism and I'd certainly recommend it to anyone considering of upgrading to this or a similar Philips model. The set-up is straightforward and it's generally a gorgeous looking piece of kit...not as large as the pictures suggest, but actually quite modest in size with a fully-functional and stylish remote control. Here's a quick run-through of the features that were important to me before I purchased and how I've found the various operations of the `Philips MCM398D/05 Micro Hi-Fi System'...

(1) A high quality of sound was very important to me and this system does not disappoint. Admittedly I have only a portable system to compare it with, but being able to feel the music through the floor even at a moderate volume setting gives me reason to believe it's excellent even when compared to other similarly priced hi-fi's on the market. Don't worry that it might be too intrusive either, it's quite unassuming yet rich even at low levels. (10/10)

(2) The USB connection was another important function for me. I dismissed many a good player of equal value and with equally impressive spec's that didn't include iPod compatibility. Although I'm between iPods at the moment and I haven't been able to test this function as yet, the system appears fully compatible with any iPod/mp3 device and includes a generously filled box containing no less than eight iPod adaptors and a very attractive black dock, which hooks up to the main system via a port just beneath the main dial. (9/10 for the aesthetic and the accessories, only minus one because I haven't had a chance to test it yet).

(3) Timer and Sleep functions were pretty vital to me too, preferring as I do to wake to music rather than to an alarm and sometimes go to sleep listening to a radio station or CD. The only problem I've had with these functions is that to set the on/off times for both the only access is via the remote control; it can't be set from the main unit. The main reason for a remote control in my view is to be able to access the hi-fi from two separate locations, and so quite naturally I keep my remote in another part of my room. Thus I find it slightly odd that it's not possible to set the sleep and wake-up times from the main unit, instead it's necessary to take the remote control all the way over to the main unit in order to be able to observe the LCD screen while setting the times. (7/10 for lacking corresponding buttons on the main unit, which would have aided easier timer setting. This could be seen as pure laziness on my part, so feel free to ignore this criticism if you're a highly energetic and motivated individual unlike msyelf!) *The same also applies to the repeat/programme functions, which I use less regularly- no corresponding buttons on the main unit, only accessible through remote control.

(4) My only major criticism of this unit relates to the radio, more accurately- the Ariel. It's a long thin wire coated in plastic as is quite common, but with a small square nodule at the end, which supposedly fits into a port at the rear of the main unit. The problem is that the port is round, so it's never a comfortable fit, which means that finding optimum reception can be very difficult to achieve, even when you experiment by moving the other end of the wire in numerous and often obvious locations in order to acquire the perfect signal. Cumbersome they may be, but I would easily have preferred a solid retractable Ariel, even if it did poke out of the top of the unit. (4/10 for an unnecessary and easily rectified problem).

In summary: looks gorgeous and performs reliably.