Customer Rating:  
Summary: dont even think about it!
Comment: This thing is terrible. Looks really good Ill give it that, But it has no display so you have no idea what track you're on, volume levels generally anything! The only way you can see this is by plugging in the remote (which is another issue ill get on to). I am forever consulting the manual to figure out what Im doing, which to be honest you really shouldnt have to do with a cd player. The strap/ case thing is a good idea, but a pain to get the thing in and out of it.
The remote is held onto clothing with magnets, which is a good idea and really works, this is about the only redeaming feature. The control uses a stick device, which is absolutly useless, no matter what your trying to do youll end up on pause permanently.
Fortunatly I got this cheap. Avoid it like the plague though.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Complicated, fiddly, battery-hungry, unreliable. Avoid!
Comment: Looks great in the specification, doesn't it? Don't be fooled. What aturkey. The magnets used to attach the remote to clothing are a cleveridea, but in practice they're fiddly to set up and will either go missingor be swallowed by someone or something small within days - parents andpet-owners beware. The remote itself has a stick jog control which is toosmall to be useful to anyone with normal-sized fingers - advance a trackor try to change the volume and it always thinks you asked it for "pause". There are too many features (resume? esp? eq?) and the manual doesn'tdescribe them at all well - when the player won't play a disc (see below)it will display "OOPS" on the remote, but try finding that section in themanual. And because it takes AAA batteries instead of AAs, its appetitefor the things is incredible. The battery compartment is inside theplayer under the disc too, so you have to open it up and take the disc outto change the batteries. Really practical.
My particular model has been incredibly unreliable: it's often been veryunwilling to play discs at all - it recognises there's a disc in it butoften it just whizzes and clatters and gets precisely nowhere when it'strying to read the track index. It tends to work only when the lens isperfectly, perfectly clean - anything less and it quits and gives up - nofun if this happens when you're just starting your morning run.
Philips generally overload their consumer electronics products with sexybut unnecessary features and this is no exception - they have tried to bejust a bit too clever with this player, and coupled with the appallingreliability of mine and its monstrous appetite for batteries, the ACT500is a real stinker and in my opinion, a dent to the generally good brandreputations of both Philips and Nike.
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