Samsung's YP-T10 has received a Silver award from Accelenation.com. Its article is described below.
Introduction
Samsung has long been a player in the MP3 market along with the likes of companies such as Creative. However, most of these companies have been relatively unsuccessful in breaking into the market the way that Apple has with the iPod. Now with iPods everywhere, Samsung is trying to attract part of this market with the YP-T10, a slim, video-enabled, digital audio player. How does it stack up?
Samsung has long been a player in the MP3 market along with the likes of companies such as Creative. However, most of these companies have been relatively unsuccessful in breaking into the market the way that Apple has with the iPod. Now with iPods everywhere, Samsung is trying to attract part of this market with the YP-T10, a slim, video-enabled, digital audio player. How does it stack up?
The Test
Let's go through a list of features offered by the YP-T10.
The Samsung YP-T10 comes in various storage capacities, including 2GB, 4GB and 8GB. The 8GB version was the one tested here. It also comes with a small QVGA screen (320 x 240) for the UI and for playing videos.Some "extra" features from the basic set include support for FM radio, voice recording as well as Bluetooth compatibility.
The rated battery life is 30 hours for audio and 4 hours for video, which is quite impressive for a digital media player. It also takes only 2.5 hours to charge up the battery. Play speed can be adjusted (i.e. increased by several factors) as well as EQ presets (and user adjustments) courtesy of DNSe.
The YP-10's front is finished with a glass plate to give it a sophisticated and clean look. Under the glass panel, you'll find the QVGA screen along with a light up control pad. The control pad dims off when there is no user feedback. The display does not span the whole front of the player and it is not a touch-screen UI, but nevertheless an interesting concept.
The power button is located on the right hand side of the player. You slide and hold that position to turn it on. Upon power up, you'll be greeted by a cartoon dog appropriately named "Sammy". Afterwards, the keypad lights up with the controls and once the music starts playing, the dog starts jumping around on screen.
As previously mentioned, if there is no user input, then both the keyboard light and the screen turn off to conserve the battery.
The UI on the YP-T10 provides the user with many options to adjust. The "Sound Effect" options allow the user to turn on "Street mode" and adjust "Clarity" for a better experience when out and about.
There also a range of DNSe EQ presets such as: Normal, Studio, Rock, Classical, Jazz, Ballad, Club, Rhythm & Blues, Dance, Concert Hall as well as a User mode. The User mode allows adjustments of EQ, bass as well as 3D.
Play speed can be adjusted anywhere from 0.7x to 1.3x although listening to an MP3 at 1.3x speed sounds like the Chipmunks singing.
In terms of audio quality, the default settings with the provided headphones seem to deliver a rich sound that is better in my opinion to the defaults of other audio players I have tested. The bass is acceptable and the 3D effect is fairly apparent.
The touch pad looks nice although sometimes the response lags a bit and because the keys are close together, people with larger fingers might find it hard to press the desired key.
When holding the player in the hand there is the possibility that one of the keys may be pressed accidentally. A useful feature would have been a keypad lock to reduce the likelihood of this happening.
Transferring files to the player is quite easy with the supplied USB 2.0 cable. You treat the player as a storage device in Windows and drag the files directly to it. The player supports MP3 and WMA.
In terms of video support, the formats are limited to mostly WMV (no DiVX). Even so, some WMV files I downloaded didn't seem to play.
Watching the pre-loaded trailers on the screen gave fluid playback, although watching a movie on a 2.5" screen takes some getting used to.
Conclusion
Although a nice concept, the touch pad still needs to be tweaked for better responsiveness. I'd prefer manual buttons versus these controls because on occasion I found it hard to press the right key. The screen is also quite small for watching video. This could be increased but I guess at the expense of battery life. Overall, the Samsung YP-T10 offers plenty of features, good storage capacity and a reasonable interface all in a small, stylish package. Support for Bluetooth, direct USB file transfer and audio EQ DNSe, give this player a leg up on the competition. The 4GB version of the YP-T10 is available for around $119 Canadian.
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