What happens when you combine a sports-themed MP3 CD player and a badly-out-of-shape Australian journalist? Read our review of the Philips Nike PSA [CD12 to find out.

When there's little truly new left to do in the MP3 world, you can always pull out the oldest marketing trick in the book - product endorsement. Philips has done just this with the Philips Nike PSA [CD12, an MP3 CD player with a similar sports styling to the PSA 128 MAX and just as many swoosh logos as you'd expect of a product with Nike in the title.

The unit that Philips sent to us was a preview model, so we didn't have the luxury of fancy packaging or even a product manual, but as with many CD players, one wasn't really necessary. Control is handled via on-face buttons or the cabled remote, and covers most basic CD functionality. We found ourselves using the face buttons more than the remote, which we found had spotty performance. Like the 128 MAX, the remote attaches via a pair of very strong magnets, which could potentially play havoc with other sports technology such as heart rate monitors. They do clip well, however, so if you're just out for a jog, you're unlikely to drop the remote.

The buttons on the face of the [CD12 are moulded into specific shapes, with the theory being that you'll remember the shapes and not need to look at the player while you're busy exerting yourself. That's certainly true of the volume buttons, which are solid little nodules on the top of the player, but less so for the other indented playback buttons.

The [CD12 comes with a solid rubber sleeve that fits over the entire CD body with an elastic fabric handgrip on the back. The idea here is that you slide your flat hand into the grip like a glove and jog - or whatever-along to the beat. It looks rather similar to the training pads that boxing partners use to test punch effectiveness, although we suspect that's a use that Philips wouldn't cover under warranty. It does make the [CD12 one of the most rigid and shock-protected players on the market.

The sleeve may work well as a travel accessory, but it does have two drawbacks. By totally covering the player with the sleeve, it means you've got to remove and replace the sleeve every time you want to change CD. As the sleeve is so tightly moulded, this is an overly fiddly process. The fabric sleeve may not fit some hands, and we also found that it collects sweat quite quickly.

Like the PSA 128 MAX, the [CD12 comes with a pair of difficult to wear headphones. They fit well enough, but the slightest head movement - like, for example, those that you might do when involved in sporting activities - sends them flying out of your ears. We quickly swapped out the supplied headphones for a decent pair of portable headphones.

From a playback standpoint, the [CD12 did everything we'd expect from a CD based MP3 player. Playback was acceptably loud, and the volume moves upwards in very small increments, so you're unlikely to blow out your hearing when you're busy blowing out a quad muscle.

Being a preproduction model, we weren't supplied with any software for the [CD12, but found it accepted any CD and MP3 audio we threw at it on a variety of CD-R and CD-RW media.

The Philips Nike PSA [CD12 is one of the more portable and rugged MP3 CD players we've seen, and as long as you can deal with the fiddly rubber sleeve, it's a decent buy.

Philips Nike PSA [CD12
Company: Philips
Price: AU$449.95
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 1300 363 391

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