Review: Samsung YP-Q1 MP3 Player

Portable Digital MP3 Player Product Review: Samsung YP-Q1

Samsung is releasing another stylish MP3 player, YP-Q1.
The user interface of Q1 is pretty much similar to YP-P2 but Q1 is much thinner and stylish. One of the most dominant features of YP-Q1 would be the diamond style touch buttons. Let me explain this in the later part. Another great feature is a new version of Samsung’s sound effect, DNSe 3.0.


The Package



The gift package is a well designed tiny box. It includes the YP-Q1 player, data cable, EP-380 earphones, ear cushions, Samsung Media Studio installation CD and a warrantee card.


Stylish & Thin Design



Q1 looks as simple as possible. The 2.4” TFT QVGA LCD on the front side is large enough to browse files, watch video clips, read e-books and operate the various features. The right side has only one toggle button for the power on/off and hold features. The bottom side has a 24-pin port for data transfer and charging, and the earphone port. The backlight touch button on the front is one of the wonderful features. The surface is glossy and looks valuable.


The Attractive Backlight and Intelligent Touch Button



There are five buttons. The OK button is located in the center and the other four buttons are on the four corners with blue backlights.

Once I touched one of the touch buttons located on the front panel with my single finger, the blue backlight became dimmer slowly. Watching the backlight, I was under an illusion that I pressed the actual button. The illusion was quite impressive. I think that Samsung did a good job on this and that MP3 player is getting intelligent. If you have any chance to see Q1, hope you get the same feeling by pressing buttons.


Easy-to-Use User Interface



Currently, the menu has two types: Matrix and My Skin. I prefer the Matrix type which is much easier to navigate. All the functions of Q1 can start from this main menu.


DNSe 3.0 Support



The previous MP3 players from Samsung provided the DNSe 2.0 sound effect. However, Q1 is the first MP3 player that adapted Samsung’s newly improved DNSe 3.0 sound effect. Samsung has mentioned that DNSe 3.0 tried to recover the original sound quality as much as possible. During an encoding process to make an MP3 file from an audio CD, the sound quality reduced in most case. In order to recover the lost sound quality to as much as the original sound quality, Samsung developed DNSe 3.0. The picture above is the sound effect menu to enjoy the DNSe 3.0 feature.



Music Menu



Q1 displays lyrics of music files. Using the EmoDio software, lyrics can be added to a music file. Then the edited lyrics are displayed while listening to the music.


Picture Menu



I took some pictures of my parrots and downloaded to Q1. Through the Picture menu, I could enjoy watching the images of my cute birds.


Video Support

Using the Samsung’s music management software called “EmoDio”, video files are automatically converted to SVI format, the Samsung’s video file format for Q1, to watch video from Q1.


Text and Datacast Support



Text and Datacast are very useful features. I downloaded some text files into the Q1’s text folder. Then, I could easily read the file everywhere. Even, I did not have to carry a heavy book to read. Using Samsung Media Studio, the Datacast feature automatically received my interested and updated news from the web, Blog, news, and UCC sites without having you to visit the sites. I could enjoy reading the updated information through Q1 instead of reading the actual newspapers. Both the Text and Datacast features are great for reading books and news. The text can be displayed vertically or horizontally. Also, you can set the “Music On” to listen to the music while reading the text.


Prime Pack



The Prime Pack consists of Voice Recording, Games and Subway.
Voice recordings and playing games are provided in this Prime Pack menu. The voice recording has become a default feature among MP3 players. We can record lectures at school and important messages in voice as well. Playing games is one of the useful features while I am taking a rest. Q1 provides worldwide subway maps. The picture above is a subway map of New York city. Sometimes, it is helpful when taking a subway.


FM Radio



I always listen to FM radio, the auto scanning and preset mode is convenient to get my favorite channel. I could also record a song while I was listening to an FM channel.


Specification
Audio Format: MPEG1/2/2.5 Layer 3 (9kbps~320kbps, 22KHz~48KHz)
FLAC
WMA (8kbps~320kbps, 8KHz~48KHz)
OGG (Q1~Q10)
Video Format: SVI (Video: MPEG4 Simple Profile,
Audio: MP3 (CBR 44.1KHz, 16bit Stereo, 128kbps)),
WMV9 (Video: WMV9 Simple Profile, Audio: WMA (Max 860kbps),
Resolution: 320x240, Frame Rate: 30fps)
Image Format: JPG (ISO/IEC 10918-1 / Annex F-Sequential DCT-Based mode of operation)
Number of Files: Folders: Max. 1,000
Files: Max 6,000 (including folders)
Color: Black/White/Silver
Memory: 4GB/8GB/16GB
LCD: 2.4” TFT LCD QVGA
Earphone: 20mW/Ch. (at 16 ohm)
Frequency Range: 40Hz~20KHz
Noise to Ratio: 90dB
Playback Time: Audio: 25Hrs (at 128kbps, volume at 15, LCD off, and normal sound effect)
Video: 4Hrs (brightness at 5, volume at 15, and normal sound effect)
Weight: 61gram
Dimension (WxDxH): 51mm x 98mm x 10.9mm
FM Frequency: 87.5~108.0MHz
Battery Type: 620mAh / DC 3.7V


Pros
Intelligent touch button with backlight: Make us feel as if I press the actual button.
Wonderful DNSe 3.0 sound quality
Advanced Multimedia Technology: Allow users to listen to music and FM radio, view the music lyric, pictures and text, play video files.
Wide color 2.4” TFT LCD screen: The wide screen displays as many as information colorfully.
Stylish & modern design: very thin and compact, vivid color & nice finish
Rounding design on the edge provides a convenient grip feeling
Long playback time
FM recording and Datacast features
Future firmware upgrades for improving functionality

Cons
No touch screen: But it is OK since the intelligent touch button is enough to browse the menu.


Conclusion
Although Q1 does not support DMB, Bluetooth, and touch pad screen, Q1 is another masterpiece that focused on the multimedia device functionality. The design is wonderful, the LED backlight for the touch buttons is attractive, and other features like video, games, FM radio recording, and text viewer are definitely necessary.