Philips Gogear Opus 8GB

The Gogear Opus promises 'superior sound quality', something that is partly demonstrated by our tests.

First, though, as is the case with most music players, we had to swap the supplied headphones for some better ones, and what was at first average sound quality improved a huge amount.

The player is a wide, lozenge-shaped device that has a screen on one side and a control pad on the other. It was easy to use with the clear menus showing up well on the bright screen. There is not much clutter, just options for playing music and video, listening to the radio and changing the settings.

If you browse the settings you will find the ‘Fullsound’ control, which boosts the bass and gives the music you are listening to more body. It worked well, although the player’s sound was good enough without it on and purists might prefer to disable it.

The screen was sharp and good for video playback. Music can be transferred using Windows Media Player (it also charges over the USB connection to the computer) but video needs to be converted using the supplied software.