Review by PCMAG.COM for Samsung YP-S5

The PCMag.com holding 6,600,000 unique users/month gave a very positive review result for YP-S5.

by Tim Gideon

When the YP-K5 was released by Samsung in 2006, its unique built-in, slide-out speaker design was a real head turner. And though the device was bulky, it had strong battery life and even a pair of decent earbuds. The update, the new flash memory–based YP-S5 (commonly known as the S5), keeps its predecessor's innovative design but loses some of its bulk. Available in 2GB ($130 list) and 4GB ($180) capacities, the S5 features the familiar Samsung graphics, a top-notch interface, and the snazzy feather-touch buttons found in all of the company's players. The pull-out speaker is a fun option for the beach or a hotel room, and you get nice Bluetooth 2.0 features here, too. The player's robust EQ options—particularly when paired with an upgraded pair of earphones—make your music shine.

The sleek S5 comes in black or white and appears to have no buttons on its front face when its 3.8-by-1.8-by-0.6-inch (HWD) frame is powered down. In fact, the only physical attributes are a 1.8-inch, 176-by-220-pixel screen, a power/hold switch, a headphone jack, and a proprietary connection (which connects to USB via provided cable for PC syncing). Turning on the 3-ounce player reveals a four-button array of controls, with an Enter button in the center, along with Back and Menu keys. The underlit controls switch orientation depending on what the device is doing at the time. The slide-out speaker offers stereo output through a good-looking circular design imprinted on its metallic surface. I found the included earbuds better than average, but as always, I advise upgrading if you want to maximize the audio quality from your player.

Navigating the menu system is intuitive and enjoyable. Samsung players have developed a reputation over the years for superb graphics and intelligent interface organization. The only annoyance that folks are likely to encounter with navigation is the sensitivity of the touch controls: It's easy to misfire, and the buttons often fail to respond to a first tap.

File support, however, is not a strong suit. For audio, you can load MP3, WMA, and unprotected AAC files. Video is limited to SVI—Samsung's proprietary codec (you'll need to convert files with included software), and photos are JPEG only. No one wants to do homework to load video and photo files onto a player, so it's beyond me why manufacturers don't make devices with better compatibility.

The menu is broken down by Music, Videos, Pictures, FM Radio, Datacasts, Prime Pack, File Browser, Bluetooth, and Settings. The former three selections are organized in the typical Samsung way, allowing you to search music by artist, album title, and various other factors, while video and photos are organized by filename or folder. Photos can take a while to load and don't look particularly good on the player's small screen. The same can be said of videos. I've seen poorer displays for viewing, but the S5's certainly isn't a joy to watch.

The FM radio is easy to use, with 30 programmable presets—and it offers FM recording. Datacasts houses podcasts and audiobooks, keeping them separate from your music. Prime Pack is a odd designation for a grab bag of extra features—like voice recording, which works simply and organizes your recorded files for you; a world clock; an alarm; and preloaded games. (I'm not so hot at the included baseball game—I've got no swing whatsoever, and I hit about seven batters with the ball when I pitched.) The File Browser is simply a grand list of everything on the player, organized by type.

Samsung has started to step up its Bluetooth 2.0 offerings, and it shows in the S5's list of wireless capabilities. You can pair a stereo headset or a mobile phone, and transfer files to and from the S5 to other Bluetooth devices. Pairing your phone means you can place and receive calls via the player's mic and a pair of earphones—without ever having to pick up your phone. When Samsung's P2 debuted this feature, pairing was a big deal, and we like seeing the company roll it out in less-expensive devices.

Like Sony with its Walkman line, Samsung outfits its players with high-quality EQ settings. I wholeheartedly urge you to bypass the Rock and other standard presets and play with the user EQ, where you can easily customize your own sound. When I checked out the audio through a pair of Ultimate Ears UE11 and fiddled with the EQ to my liking, the results were fantastic.

Powered by an internal rechargeable battery, the S5 has a claimed battery life of 24 hours for audio and 4 hours for video. Its results on our own battery rundown tests will be posted here shortly.
I like the S5—I really do. It just wouldn't be my first choice among Samsung's quality line of portable media players. The slide-out speaker looks cool but sounds, well, like a tiny speaker with little bass. To some, this won't matter, and the ability to break it out on a bike trip or at the swimming pool and have some background music, without toting around an extra speaker dock, is a huge plus. I tend to gravitate more toward models like the YP-T10, which has an almost identical user interface and feature set but is slimmer. One last bit of advice for Samsung: We want better video support! Compatibility with more files would make every player in the company's line far more valuable.

For more information, link to http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2314477,00.asp

Review summary of the Samsung YP-S5

The Infosynkworld.com reviewed Samsung YP-S5 as follows. S5 got a Good grade.

In a big way, the Samsung YP-S5 is the most competitive MP3 player from Samsung, even more than their flagship YP-P2. It doesn't fill a room with sound, no surprise there, but it does use the speaker intelligently to back up some of the other bonus features on the device. The alarm clock, for one thing, was versatile and loud, with battery life that makes it great for travel. And the Bluetooth phone functions were a clever surprise, especially when paired with the speaker for speakerphone capabilities. We still think Samsung needs to think twice about all those touch buttons, and some serious interface redesign is in order, both on the device side and the desktop software. But with its unique capabilities, the Samsung YP-S5 fills a wide niche. And did we mention the music sounds great? Release: April 2008. Price: $170.

Pros: Excellent sound quality and battery life. Surprisingly good alarm and speakerphone features.

Cons: Small speakers still sound small. Interface could use redesign, and maybe throw in some real buttons. Samsung Media Studio needs serious improvement

Design - Good

The Samsung YP-S5 is a unique design for MP3 players, though it won't be so new to diehard Samsung fans. With its slide-out stereo speakers, the YP-S5 updates the Samsung YP-K5 player we saw more than a year ago, though the changes aren't too significant. We like the look of the new player better. While the K5 was a glossy obelisk, the S5 uses a glossy front with a soft touch black exterior around the rest of the player. The device is a bit smaller than its predecessor, and has a gentle angle to it, making it more visually appealing.

Unfortunately, Samsung stuck with the no-button theme for which they seem to be fond, and we think its time for the fat lady to sing on this design concept. The touch buttons are less responsive than hard buttons, and lack the acceleration and subtlety of the iPod's scroll wheel. Also, the player seriously needs a volume rocker. Instead, the only button performed two tasks. It turned the player on and it activated "hold," which kept us from pressing the touch buttons accidentally, which always happened when we tossed the player into our pocket without engaging the hold switch. It's a bad sign when a player's only button keeps you from doing things.

Interface - Good

Samsung's interface is simple and pretty, but it could stand some improvement. First of all, browsing long lists of songs was strangely both jumpy and slow. The imterface jumps page to page, but doesn't accelerate quickly through letters. Second, the organization structure could use some rethinking. Samsung players mostly share the same interface, which keeps secondary functions like Bluetooth phone controls and the alarm clock features hidden under submenus. That makes sense on other models, perhaps, but we think the S5 might be more useful as a Bluetooth speakerphone and travel alarm clock than as a player, at least for some customers. These important features should be high-level menu options, while pictures and videos, which should be a secondary feature on this device, could be buried deeper.

Sound - Very good

Samsung players have always impressed us with their sound quality, and the YP-S5 is no different, at least through a good pair of headphones. The included earbuds aren't horrible, they certainly weren't as bad as the torture devices included with the YP-K5, but they aren't the buds we chose to do our close-listening audio tests, either. The device couldn't handle advanced formats, like Ogg or any lossless files, but it played the standard MP3, WMA mix just fine. In fact, MP3 files encoded at a respectable bitrate sounded very good on the S5.

With the speakers, the sound was clean, but not very powerful. We didn't get much distortion, if any, at higher levels, but we also didn't hear much bass, let alone feel a nice thump. Alarm clock sounds, shrill as they are, were even louder than music, but as a travel alarm clock, the Samsung YP-S5 made a nice fit. When it was time to fill the room with sound, however, we turned to other options.

Features - Very good

The Samsung YP-S5 includes more features than it needs, but has some innovative ideas packed in that work surprisingly well. The player can handle music, JPEG photos and MP4 videos, and videos looked fine on the small, low-res screen, but this is more of a novelty act than the S5's real purpose. The alarm clock was a good feature, and we liked being able to set up multiple alarms on the device. But we wish we could have chosen different songs for each alarm. Instead, you assign one song as the alarm track, and that's the only song that will play on time, besides the included alarm tones.

The Samsung YP-S5 also has some of the Bluetooth phone features we saw on the Samsung YP-P2. When paired with a Bluetooth phone, the YP-S5 will not only stop playback during a call, it will actually let you answer, using the built-in microphone and your normal headphones to take the call. Also, the phone packs a primitive dial pad so you can even dial a call from the YP-S5, which then acts as a handsfree device for your phone. When the speakers are open, you can use the S5 as a Bluetooth speakerphone, which is an especially neat trick, and it worked pretty well in our tests.

Transfer - Good

Samsung's transfer software has not improved since we last saw it. The interface is confusing, and not at all intuitive. Transfers are painfully slow, especially when you have to encode a video for the device. The Samsung Media Studio has a cheesy mood reading tool that supposedly analyzes your music for your mood, but more time and effort should have gone into making an intuitive, pleasant interface that was easy to manage for music transfers and playback instead of these gimmicks. Of course, you can simply use Windows Media Player instead, but if Samsung, or Microsoft for that matter, wants to compete with Apple's iPod / iTunes one-two punch, serious thought needs to go into the synchronization and sideloading half.

Accessories - Good

The Samsung YP-S5 comes with headphones that did not cause the same immediate pain and discomfort we felt with the YP-K5's strange buds, but they were still oddly shaped and slightly uncomfortable. We managed a few hours of use without soreness, but why not go for something smaller? Sound isolating buds are pretty much the way things are going, anyway, and would be an easy way to one-up Apple, who sell their in-ear buds at a premium.

Otherwise, we're continually frustrated by Samsung's avoidance of simple mini-USB plugs. Like we've seen on Samsung phones, the YP-S5 uses a very proprietary looking cable. If you forget it, you're out of luck, as it's also the way the player charges.

Battery - Excellent

To end on a high note, Samsung's player's have always impressed us in terms of their battery life. Like it's predecessor, the K5, the Samsung YP-S5 manages a full day of playback, more than 24 hours, in fact, in a single charge. We stopped testing after a day, but that's what Samsung promises anyway, so we were more than satisfied. With the speakers on full volume, which was an annoying test to sit through, we managed just shy of five hours, so we imagine Samsung's five hour estimate is for a more soothing volume.

Comparison

Compare the Samsung YP-S5 with similar products

Who is the Samsung YP-S5 for?
Globetrotters
Outdoor enthusiasts
Video lovers

Price and availability

The Samsung YP-S5 is available now for about $170 at various retailers.

For more information, please click here:

http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/portable-media/samsung-yp-s5/9268.html

ZDNet: Samsung YP-S5 review

ZDNet.com reviewed Samsung's YP-S5 as a very good product.
Here is the link for the info:
http://review.zdnet.com/mp3-players/samsung-s5-4gb-black/4505-6490_16-32749369.html

Samsung YP-S5 Multimedia Player Review

A well explained YP-S5 review posted on

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/4871-samsung-yp-s5-multimedia-player-review.html
If you are interested in the review, please check it out.
Here is the font part of the review:

Product Number: YP-S5JABPrice: Click Here To Compare Prices Warranty: 1 yearColors Available: BlackManufacturer's Product Page: YP-S5JAB MP3 players - MP3 players SAMSUNGWith technology changing in the blink of an eye on an almost daily basis, companies are forced to find innovative ways to stay at the forefront of consumers’ minds. Being that as it may, Samsung has always been ahead of the technology curve and is considered one of the primary innovators in the consumer electronics world. This Korea-based high tech juggernaut was founded over 70 years ago and currently employs over a quarter million people in its various factories and offices around the world. Their products touch on nearly every part of the electronics world and in this review we will be looking at one of their smaller yet by no means insignificant products: a multimedia player. Samsung has been producing MP3 players since their inception and this unit we will be testing today represents the next logical step in the evolution of the MP3 player into a fully-fledged multimedia player.Here at Hardware Canucks we show you the best (and sometimes worst) of what the computer component world has to offer but it sometimes feels good to take a short detour and show you what the rest of the high tech world is doing. So, when Samsung Canada approached us with an offer to review their new YP-S5 multimedia player, we gladly pulled our heads out of the pile of power supplies, graphics cards and whatnot to see what Samsung had to offer. With the advent of players like Microsoft’s Zune and Creative’s Zen players not to mention the ever-present Apple iPod, MP3 players are quickly evolving into a one-stop-shop for everything multimedia related. While the S5 is not targeting the same market as some of the larger-screened devices, it is still the kind of player which wants to offer something for everyone. It is able to play MPEG and WMV video formats and WMA, OGG, ASF music formats in addition to AAC files so all you iTunes lovers will have something to listen to. It also boasts Bluetooth connectivity to headphones or your cell phone (yes, we said cell phone but more about that later), the ability to view JPEG images and even has built in speakers. This all comes in a sleek package which is reminiscent of the award-winning Samsung YP-K3 and is available in only one capacity: 4GB. Unfortunately, the S5 is not expandable via SD cards so the consumer will have to make due with its somewhat limited storage size.The Samsung YP-S5 is quite widely available at Canadian retailers and etailers even though it was launched a few short months ago. Prices seem to range from $160 all the way up to around $200CAD which is quite a bit for this product if you are using it JUST as a music player. However, the S5 is capable of so much more than mere music playback so its asking price is somewhat less extreme when you consider the versatility it seems to offer. Is the Samsung YP-S5 a jack of all trade but master of none or is it the first and last word in portable multimedia players? Read on to find out…

Click here to continue:...http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/4871-samsung-yp-s5-multimedia-player-review.html

YP-S5 in Here's How Magazine

Samsung YP-S5 was covered at The Here’s how Magazine, Section: Personal Technology, issued in February, 2008.

You may refer to the site: http://hereshow.ca/latestissue.asp?navbar

Samsung YP-S5, MP3 Player Product Review

Reviewed by Sean - "http://goitworld.blogspot.com"

The history of portable MP3 players has already been 10 years since the world’s first portable MP3 player was introduced to the world. MP3 players have evolved a lot since then. Now, MP3 players are no longer a music player. Their features have changed intelligently and conveniently as new technologies are developed. We can’t even imagine how far they will evolve.

I am sure that YP-S5, Samsung’s new mp3 player, would be one of them. I would like to introduce a product review of the Samsung’s YP-S5 model. As I am a normal MP3 player user, I hope this product review is fair, not biased and helpful for you to understand features of the YP-S5 product.

Major changes for YP-S5 from previous MP3 players around the world are the state-of-the-art gift package, practical earphone, simple design, built-in slide-out speakers, Bluetooth support, video support, Datacast support, enhanced sound quality, and easy-to-use user interface and graphics.

State-of-the-art Gift Package
The gift package is made of transparent plastic। Just looking at the package, you can say that the product inside is valuable. Unlike other product packages that are made of cardboard are easy to be thrown away, the plastic carton box of YP-S5 would be one that will be put on a shelf with your accessories in it.

The package includes all the necessary components. Specially, the line-in audio cable enables us to listen to the external audio player through the built-in speakers of YP-S5. The installation CD includes Samsung’s Media Studio, a software application that manages various types of contents such as music, video, lyric, internet contents through DataCast feature in order to be used in YP-S5. The 24-pin USB cable is used both to transfer data between PC and YP-S5, and to charge the built-in battery of YP-S5. However, I am not sure whether a normal 24-pin battery charger used for cellular phones will also work to charge the YP-S5. The manual does not explain about this in detail.

Practical Earphones
Earphones of YP-S5 are designed to be fit in the human ears. I have had so many earphones as other people do. But none of the earphones has satisfied me yet because they do not fit in my ears at all and easily fall off. However, I was surprised that Samsung released an earphone with its products that fits in my ears perfectly. The earbuds looked different from others. It seems that a small protrusion of the earbud keeps the earbud stay firmly in human ears, and keep the sound quality.

The splitter between two earphone lines is also a useful component and prevents the lines from being entangled।

Simple Design and Slide-Out-Built-In Speakers
YP-S5 looks so simple। Other than the 24-pin port and earphone port, there is only one physical button used for power on/off and hold. All other buttons are hidden but operated only by touching the appropriate location on the touch pad below the LCD. The location of the touch buttons and the graphics on the LCD also changes accordingly when the built-in speaker slides out. The speaker unit slides out and in very smoothly. You would feel just like sliding a cell phone.

Although YP-S5 consists of a stereo speaker unit, the thickness of YP-S5 is only 9.6mm. If the speaker unit was not built-in, the thickness would have been only half of the actual size.

Considering the Power button, I wish the button was placed on the right side instead of being placed on the top side. Operating the Power button was not convenient.

Bluetooth Support

I recently bought a Bluetooth stereo headset to utilize the advantage of Bluetooth feature provided by YP-S5। Anyway, I needed a Bluetooth headset। AS instructed in the manual, it was easy to pair the Bluetooth headset with YP-S5। I could wirelessly listen to music and FM stereo radio through the Bluetooth stereo headset. But the video sound did not work wirelessly. I think that the CPU of YP-S5 does not have enough power to decode the video format and Bluetooth function at the same time. The Bluetooth feature is one of the convenient technologies for portable music players since it works wirelessly.

One thing I could not test was to pair YP-S5 with a Bluetooth mobile phone. My mobile phone supports Bluetooth but I could not pair it with YP-S5. I think I need to do more exercise on this, and find out what is wrong. BTW, my mobile phone was not listed on the Bluetooth compliant mobile phone list in the user’s guide.

Video Support
Samsung Media Studio automatically converts a video file to SVI format, the Samsung’s video file format for YP-S5 during download process। As the conversion takes time, you would need more patience if you want to download video files to the player in real time। In order to save time, I would strongly suggest you convert video files before you go to bed or when you have time. The Samsung Media Studio has a feature to do so and turns off PC after conversion. This helps me to watch Heroes, Smallville, and Prison Break series on YP-S5. The LCD is not big enough, but it is still OK to watch videos. I will let this off this time.

Datacast Support
I was not familiar with the term, Datacast. However, I found it a very useful feature. Using Samsung Media Studio, the Datacast feature allows you to automatically receive your interested and updated information from the web, Blog, news, and UCC sites without having you to visit the sites. I could enjoy reading the updated information through YP-S5 instead of reading newspapers in subways when I go to work or when I am not in front of PC.


Enhanced Sound Quality
DNSe is a 3D sound effect that Samsung developed for MP3 players. I could distinguish various sound effects provided by YP-S5 including DNSe. The provided earphones with 20mW and 16Ω also helped enjoying the sound quality.

Easy-to-Use User Interface and Graphics
There are only 7 touch buttons on the touch pad. The seven buttons were enough to browse and navigate all the functions easily. Base on the LCD layout whether displayed horizontally or vertically, the buttons layout on the touch pad also changes horizontally or vertically. Thus, I could recognize which button was the next, left, up, or down button. The button is lit for a while when I touched on the touch pad. This is a good feature. However, I found it needs to be improved. When the light of all the buttons is turned off from the touch pad, sometimes I had to miss-operate buttons since I could not see where the buttons are located.

In conclusion, since MP3 players evolve as new technologies are introduced and support not only playing MP3 music files, but also playing video files, viewing lyric for MP3 contents, viewing text files, playing games, reading Datacast contents (internet contents), communicating with Bluetooth mobile phone and headset (wireless), viewing pictures, listening to FM radio, voice recording, we should name such an MP3 player an omnipotent player in near future.

BTW, in overall, I was quite satisfied with Samsung’s YP-S5 product.
-Reviewed by Sean - http://goitworld.blogspot.com/