I got the
Samsung YP-U3 (paid $59.99) after using a
Creative Zen Stone Plus (paid $54.99). There are some definite improvements. The
Zen Stone Plus was pretty limited when it came to navigating your songs. E.g., you couldn't select one particular song to listen to - at most you could navigate to a specific folder.
I found that the
Samsung YP-U3 had a whole lot more features for just $5 more.
Looks & Features First of all, I love the way the
Samsung YP-U3 looks. While the
Zen Stone Plus was cute, the
Samsung YP-U3 just looks very cool. They do come in some cute colors though: neon green, pink, and blue, in addition to black and white.
The
Samsung YP-U3 comes with the standard set of headphones, with accents that match the player's color. It also comes with a cord-keeper, which I found surprisingly useful.
The
Samsung YP-U3 has a retractable USB charger at the end that you directly stick in your computer, so there are no cables to deal with. This is so neat. The drawback however is that you need a computer to charge it, and that may be inconvenient in some situations.
The
Samsung YP-U3 lets you navigate to a specific song, and also sorts the songs by Artist, Album, Genre, etc. from the ID3 v2 tag. The menu is very intuitive. I really didn't need a manual to figure anything out.
The only quibble I have about the display is that as a song is playing, the title and artist scrolls in one line, and it says:
"[Title]Sister Christian [Artist]Night Ranger"
I guess they needed to squish it into one line, because the unit is so slim? But does it need to say [Title] and [Artist] for every track? I thought this was kind of lame, and marred what was otherwise a very well designed and well laid-out interface. But it's a minor quibble.
The
Samsung YP-U3 has a couple of other "fun" features. One is that it's got a blue LED light at one end, which you can program to blink every time you push a button. The light also steadily glows when the unit is plugged into a computer. This is cute ... for about 2 minutes, so it's a good thing you can turn it off.
It's also got a little beep every time you push a button. I actually like the beep, but the problem with this is that if you put the player on "hold," every time you accidentally hit one of the touch controls, it still beeps. The player doesn't do anything because of the "hold" switch, but it still beeps. So to preserve my sanity, I had to turn this off, too.
There is also a voice recorder, and you can even configure what you want the bit rate of the voice recording to be. There is also an FM receiver.
Set-up was very easy, because I was able to plug-and-play without problems. I was able to immediately drag-and-drop MP3's right into the "Music" folder, and soon I was ready to go. In addition to drag-and-drop, I was also able to sync the player using Windows Media Player 11, and create playlists. And if I need to, I can use the
Samsung YP-U3 as a standard USB storage unit.
Touch Controls My biggest problem with the
Samsung YP-U3 is the touch pad key controls. There are some advantages to touch controls - pushing the button involves absolutely no effort, just slide your finger. And there are no mechanical parts to wear out. And it looks cool. This unit was obviously designed to look sleek, and the touch controls are a part of that.
Also the touch controls are responsive, and pretty accurate, so that wasn't the problem. Also, there is a "hold" button. But the way I listen to a small MP3 player like this is - I tuck it into my pocket, and then just reach in to forward a track every once in a while without looking at it. And this was something I couldn't do with a touch control pad.
Conclusion The
Samsung YP-U3 was an excellent MP3 player. I really wanted to keep it. But the touch controls just weren't ideal for the way I typically use MP3 players of this size, so I found it inconvenient. If this thing had buttons, it would be fantastic.
--
Check out my other MP3 Player Reviews:
MP3 Player Review #1: The Zen Stone Plus - A Very Cute MP3 PlayerMP3 Player Review #3: Sansa Clip - Not As Cute, Not as Cool, but AwesomeMP3 Player Review #4: Latte Communications M1 (2 GB)
Overstock.com
Overstock.com
