Philips 8GB MP3 Player - Avoid! And be careful with Argos too...
Yesterday I got Minor a Philips 8GB MP3 player (his choice, not mine) to replace his very battered iRiver H10. The Philips looked nice (solid metal case, pretty menus, easy to navigate and use), and sounded nice - until you put a lot of tunes on it. Then it began to stutter badly when you tried to navigate around it. It sounded awful!.

So I took it back to Argos - and that's where the fun started. At one point they were telling me that they were going to send the player back to Philips and I'd have to wait for it to be returned. I told them that was completely unacceptable and in the end, once a responsible person turned up, they agreed on a refund. I bought a Creative Zen instead. It works flawlessly, and it's got a memory upgrade slot. Much better.

So - Philips's players look nice, but either the firmware's borked or the processor is seriously underpowered. And Argos, who used to be very very good about returns have, now that times are harder, turned awkward.

Any business can do well when times are good. It's when the heat's turned up that the smiling mask melts from the face of the bad ones.

We will remember!