The Korean company's slide and tilt mp3 player with built-in speaker

May 17, 2007 09:10 GMT  ·  By

The market of portable digital audio players is one of the most competitive ones in the consumer electronics' field, quite a large number of companies fighting for that second place (the first being held firmly by the iPod).

Samsung is one of the most important such companies, and on the 1st of September 2006, they've launched what they wanted to be a groundbreaking device, something the world had never seen before. Whether the YP-K5 model (because that's what we're talking about here) really managed to achieve this goal is a whole different matter, and you'll be able to judge for yourselves from the following review if Samsung's sleek, black player with a built-in speaker and a touch-panel for a control system deserves the title of "iPod challenger" or not.

Chapter 1 - The Basics

By Alexandru Vochin

Overall design features

One of the most important selling points of the Samsung YP-K5 is its design. The device looks classy, exclusive, a music player for those hip and trendy users who like to show-off their toys wherever and whenever they can. It's something you don't see every day, a niche device that will either capture the user's attention at first sight or not at all.

When switched off, the Samsung YP-K5 looks just like a big, black monolith. Compared to other portable players, this model is rather "fat", but, unlike other portable players, it inspires safety and sturdiness. However, it's got a very good reason for its bulkier size, since half of the YP-K5 is actually a sliding and tilting built-in speaker that pops out from right under the player and allows users to enjoy their music out loud, without having to wear those pesky and sometimes uncomfortable headphones.

The stereo speaker, which is actually YP-K5's trademark, sports a special sliding mechanism that resembles the one used in some Samsung cell phones. This mechanism allows the speaker to slide smoothly and then tilt upwards, and one of the greatest things about it is that it's pretty solid, despite looking rather frail at the first sight.

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Another very interesting feature of the Samsung YP-K5 is the display and the touch-sensitive control system. Thus, both these elements are placed on the front side, under a translucent, yet very resistant plastic material. The overall effect is quite interesting, as the vivid colors of the OLED display are very well enhanced by the overall dark look of the YP-K5. Moreover, the entire display and control area is surrounded by a small metal margin, or "lip", which prevents the device from being scratched, a very important feature, considering the fact that the YP-K5 is meant to be attractive at all times.

It's quite clear that the YP-K5 has been created for a special brand of people that want their devices to be as good looking as they are technologically advanced. Thus, all the materials used for Samsung's player are of great quality, the finishing touches too, while the colors have been very well chosen. After all, what better match is there for the device's overwhelming black color than the speaker's chrome finishing?

However, the player does have some problems even in the design department. One of the most annoying is the fact that the glossy surface of the touch-sensitive area gets filled with fingerprints in no time, and stays so until the user decides to wipe it clean, which is never an easy operation. Moreover, the touch sensitive controls, despite having an undisputedly high cool factor, might not prove to be as popular as predicted, since there are quite a lot of people who generally expect to receive some sort of sensitive feedback from their devices.

Another problem is that related to the sliding mechanism. Although very interesting, it lacks one major feature: a locking button. Thus, if the user presses a little harder on the cross-section of the Samsung YP-K5, the speaker tends to quickly pop out, even when not required to.

Control buttons and slot placement

The Samsung YP-K5 has relatively few control buttons. The power switch is placed on the top side, and users must hold it to the right for a few seconds in order to activate the player or switch it off. All the other controls are touch-sensitive and are placed on the lower side of the device, under the display itself.

The control system is as easy and simple as it gets. Thus, the control system is based on 4 arrow-buttons used for navigating the menu or skipping tracks, fast-forwarding etc., which are placed around the central "OK" button. There is also a "Menu" button in the bottom right side, as well as two "Back" buttons placed on the right and left side of the "Up" arrow. The reason for the extra "Back" button is that whenever the user decides to listen to music on the speaker, the whole display and control system changes orientation from "portrait" to "landscape".

The bottom side of the Samsung YP-K5 houses the only two connectors we'll find on this device, namely the headphones jack and the connector for the proprietary USB cable. It's still not quite clear why Samsung has decided to go for a proprietary connector and gave up on mini-USB, but they're not the only ones that did so (iRiver and Apple also use proprietary connectors). As you might expect, said cable is used both for transferring music and other types of content to the device, as well as charge it (we'll discuss the charging times and battery life a bit later in this review).

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Earbuds

The first thing that comes to mind when taking a first glance at the pair of earbuds delivered with the YP-K5 is that they look like some sort of alien artifacts. They're meant to fit within the user's ear canal, and thus provide an increased level of outside sound isolation and much better bass.

Nevertheless, they're not exactly a fantastic choice. It takes a while to get used to them, and the nasty sensation of having a foreign object stuck down the ear canal never really goes away. And it's quite probable that most people will simply give up on them altogether and either use the speaker, or get a normal pair of earbuds.

Chapter 2 - The Techical Stuff

By Ionut Ciocarlie

Specifications and Tests

Due to the fact that we've received the 2GB version of Samsung's player we will be referring specifically to this one and not to the 4GB unit. A quick tour of Samsung's website will reveal that besides the obvious space difference, the two K5 versions look and perform exactly the same starting with the audio output and ending with battery life.

According to the manufacturer's website, the specifications of the YP-K5 are the following:

Internal Memory: 2GB (flash based, only about 1.8GBs are available to the user)

Playing Time: Up to 30 hours using the headphones; 6 hours using the speakers (volume at 75%, screen off)

Interface: USB 1.1/2.0

Package: Player, USB cable, headsets with bass-boost in-ear system, Software CD

Dimensions: 3.86"(W) x 1.87"(H) x .71"(D)

Package dimensions: 15.75"(W) x 12.99"(H) x 9.06"(D)

Testing method

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Due to the fact that RMAA 6.0.2 refused to work properly with our testing subsystem (X-Fi Fatal1ty card, A8N SLI Mobo, FX-53 CPU, 7800GTX video card) we had to revert to subjective listening tests. As always, subjective listening is based on the audiophile's opinion and, because of that, the results can vary.

For comparison purposes, I chose about 80 tracks from various artists (and with various musical styles varying from jungle and rock to ambient and classical themes) and I listened to them in different test setups (equalizer settings, original headphones, reference headphones) in order to perceive the differences in the quality of sound. In order to establish a reference point, I used only mp3 tunes encoded at 192Kbits/s (44.1Khz, 16 bit, Joint Stereo) with the latest version of the known Lame encoder.

The reference headphones I used were a pair of Sennheisers, namely the HD205. Although this particular type of headphones does not offer a perfectly neutral frequency response, the fact that they use a circumaural design coupled with an excellent ambient noise isolation produces some very good results. Moreover, these headsets use a typical 32Ohm impedance and a very high SPL. As a result, you can pair it even with sound sources weaker than 25mW/channel and they will still remain pretty loud.

Music:

Brian Adams - Best Of (a good mix of rock with percussive drums and lots of acoustic guitars)

Roxette - Best Of (about the same as the above description, but with more vocals)

Kitaro - Best (ambiental tunes with various computer and synthesizer-generated sounds)

Nightwish - Once (great Gothic-rock tunes, a nice blend between guitar solos and drums)

Bjork - Vespertine (it's Bjork home-made music, therefore it needs no explanations)

Vangelis - Voices (ambiental sounds that give a perfect acoustic sensation of an ever-growing world, very relaxing even at high levels of playback, impressive choir voices)

Dune & The London Session Orchestra - Forever & Ever (Tina Laceball performs superbly combining the vocals with an even more impressive orchestra; most tunes are classical re-makes of older Abba, Queen and Depeche Mode tunes)

David Chesky - The Raven (SACD Source, Rebecca Pidgeon - great vocals coupled with a well balanced dynamic range; very deep lows and great mids especially in the 500Hz-2KHz range)

Junkie XL/Lunatic Calm - The Castbreeder (- Prodigy fake album - jungle, rock and rave mixed and blended in a 100% adrenaline rush)

All these tunes were listened on 4 separate sources using the same pair of Sennheisers. Besides the YP-K5 we also used a desktop X-Fi in headphone mode (audio creation mode, bit-matched playback, eq:off), and Ipod Nano (2nd generation, 2GB) and a Samsung YP-T9 (4GB version, includes Bluetooth transceiver)

Results

I have to say that when I first loaded the YP-K5 with the selected songs I didn't think it would sound that good. Now don't get me wrong, it's far from being perfect, especially since the mids and highs are not as clear as the lows. On the good side, the K5 produces no distortions even at 85%-90% of the total power it still sounds perfectly clear.

You can hear all the guitars in the background of a tune such as "Run to You" (B. Addams) and you can also feel the long bass provided by the orchestra in Rebecca Pridgeon's "Spanish Harlem". At full blast the instruments have a tendency of mixing into one another but that's only an effect of the distortion which becomes audible when you use the YP-K5 at full volume. And the Equalizer will only make matters worse; so my advice is to use the K5 without any EQ or 3D surround settings.

Vangelis and Kitaro didn't impress me much since, due to K5's natural tendency of eliminating some of the highs, the sound lacked the brightness you can usually hear on professional sources. The high-pitch instruments were almost absent and when I was finally able to hear something, it sounded compressed and distorted. Overall, the experiment wasn't a total loss, but if you plan to listen to classical tunes on your K5 you have to get a pair of headphones that will amplify the highs more than other frequency bands. And the neutral HD205 was definitely not fitted for that.

Moving along, I tried some tunes from Nightwish and their latest album and combined some of their tunes with two songs from "The Castbreeder". The result was good, if not great as the player managed to reproduce a natural sound with no distortions. Lows and mids were great while at the same time I felt the need for more highs (nonetheless, they were there).

Overall, the K5 is an A- device in terms of quality. Sound is above average in terms of quality, lows are very strong and the overall volume can make your ears bleed if you listen to it at full blast for more than 1 hour. I would have liked more highs but the sound stage was pretty well balanced. Overall this is a must-have if you listen to rock/house/techno tunes a lot. As for classical music lovers, I guess the K5 ain't that great since it lacks some high-band clarity.

Day to day use and other features

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I can't say much about the photo viewer, since the OLED screen is not that great at viewing this type of content. It will do the job, but you won't be pleased with it. On the other hand, the alarm clock is a good feature to have, especially since the onboard speakers are loud enough not to be missed.

The headset that came with the player, on the other hand, is not that good. And I'm not talking about the weird-shaped extensions of these headsets (which - by the way - I personally hate, because they are pretty uncomfortable to wear) but about their quality. The headsets don't deliver proper lows (or highs) and because of that, I'd recommend you to buy a proper set of in-ear ones. Shure and Sennheiser have some great deals so it would come in handy if you checked them out.

The touch-sensitive navi keys are a great feature since, once you get used to them, you won't feel the need for an Ipod-like Click-wheel. You can easily navigate through the menus and scrolling down an entire list of songs won't take more than a minute or so.

The speaker set is probably the strongest point of this device. Once you slide the mp3 player, the display rotates 90 degrees clockwise (and so do the navi keys) and the external speaker system will be activated. The volume is great for such a tiny set of drives and there's even a slight touch of lows (although the case vibrates a lot because of that). Unfortunately, if you use the radio you will have to leave the headset plugged in as it works as an FM antenna.

The radio works especially well as in most cases it delivers a quality comparable to that of the mp3 player. The tuner is pretty sensitive, but you will need a strong signal in order to obtain stereo tuning. The interface is simple (yet intuitive). However, it completely lacks RDS and Auto Frequency Hopping and in some cases, that can be a drawback.

The software provided by Samsung was a bit of a disappointment making me realize how great the iTunes is. Synchronization is difficult and the software is full of bugs producing random errors from time to time. And to make matters worse, Samsung's YP-K5 is not recognized as a mass storage device but as an MTP device. You can directly add/remove songs from the player but you won't be able to copy unsupported files. And that's not good since even the quirky Ipod can do that.

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On the other hand, you can synchronize the K5 using Windows Media Player. And it will work great as long as you have enough time. Speaking of which, the YP-K5 is a little slow when it comes to copying files. I never saw it climbing over the 7MB/s mark, which makes it a lot slower than the Ipod Nano or the Iriver U10 series.

The Bottom Line

Overall, I'd say that Samsung's YP-K5 is an excellent mp3 player surpassing the Ipod Nano in terms of quality and power. While it's a lot more expensive, it provides an amazing experience and once you get past the bulkiness you will probably fall in love with it.

On the other hand, at roughly the same price, you can buy an Ipod Video. This one is a lot less responsive, but comes with 30GB of storage space, a colder (but comparable) sound and full video support. It won't have the touch-sensitive keys but it will offer a better set of features and a comparable battery.

Chapter 3 - What Does She Say?

By Roxana Deduleasa

Some women feel enormous pleasure when driving a Ferrari; others, after eating a bar of black chocolate. I prefer buying myself the latest gadget and "playing" with it. Nowadays, since diamonds are no longer a girl's best friend, a black sexy curvaceous device seems to be the perfect substitute.

As a woman, I want all my high tech toys to be like my "little black dress": reliable, classy and most of all, with a distinct personality, just like I am. I tested the Samsunglicious YP K5 mp3 player for a couple of days and I have to admit it was love at first sight the moment I laid my eyes on it.

In fact, the sleek player features such a classy design I can even imagine Audrey Hepburn herself wearing it in "Breakfast at Tiffany's". I can hide the player even in a small cocktail purse, but I'd rather carry it somewhere it can be seen.

Although the attractive toy measures only 3.85 x 1.87 x 0.74mm, Samsung was able to pack tons of irresistible features into one remarkable device. Far from being just a high tech fashion statement, it is the best gift for a sophisticated woman.

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The OLED touch screen display is la "pi?ce de r?sistance", as it's covered in blue Swarovski gems-like 128 x 160 pixels. With a single touch, you can browse the intuitive menu. The Flash storage device supports MP3 and WMA file formats. "Size doesn't matter" at all, when we talk about this fellow, you can choose the 2GB version or the 4GB one, based on how much music you have.

The sound made me feel like my own living room was the most exclusive club. The 3D hi-fi sound seems to be specially created to drive women crazy. I have never felt Bono so close to all my senses?so real!

The K5 dazzled me when it automatically switched the interface from vertical to horizontal view. You know what I am talking about if you've watched the latest Pussycat Dolls video. This Samsung MP3 player drives the women's senses like an SUV on an open road. You can place the player near you, and it will enhance a romantic mood while you enjoy a picnic meal with your mate.

Moreover, I could enjoy my memories slideshow as I listen to my favorite music. It can store up to 25.000 JPEG photos, so I can carry 25.000 precious moments with me everywhere. With a single recharge of the LI-Poly batteries, the music session can last up to 30 hours with earphones and up to 6 hours with the speakers. But why use them at all, when I can finally share my favorite soundtracks with everybody.

A timer function enables you to take the glamorous toy with you to bed. Anyway, if you ever get bored of mp3 music, you can switch the player on the radio and listen to the morning news while you're having cup of coffee.

The built-in alarm system automatically switches on and the included snooze option guarantees you a couple of extra minutes of beauty sleep. I can browse my entire music library by connecting it to my PC and quickly download music files via USB 2.0.

The Samsung's Digital Natural Sound engine technology is responsible for great volume, no sound distortion at all and more accurate quality sound even with two small speakers. In addition to this, I can customize the sound with one of the 5 equalizer modes, to suit my music taste. The music acoustic sounds as good as if I were listening the song to my home stereo.

Ladies, the $400 price is not something to sweat about and after all, I am quite sure a lot of gentlemen are going to buy one of these as a gift ?

Photo: Tudor Raiciu for Softpedia.com

Photo Gallery (3 Images)

The Samsung YP-K5
The Samsung YP-K5 next to the Samsung YP-T9The Samsung YP-K5 next to the Samsung YP-T9
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