Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung YP-30S 64 MB Digital Audio Player and Voice Recorder

I own the YP-30SH which has 128mb (the YP-30S has 64mb). It's a great player, although the software is clunky and confusing. You can download a simple Yepp Explorer program, and it's as easy as dragging and dropping the mp3's you want into the player.

If you plan on using while excercising at the gym or jogging/running, I highly recommend it. It sounds great, is ultra-lightweight, and simple to use. Samsung put a lot of thought into this product, which is evident just from the cool cylinder packaging. It comes with carrying cases for your belt, arm/wrist, and even neck.

No problems running the explorer software on windows 2000 and XP.

I've been looking for a music player that doesn't skip when I jog/run. I used the Sharp 301 MD player which is great for jogging, but when I run, it skips (forget CD - it's worse than MD).

So I went down to [a local retailer] to see what they had in the new solid state MP3 players, and I picked up the YP-30SH (128MB) version ... This is a great little product. About the size and shape of a cigarette lighter, it comes in a tubular package with a very nice arm band clip and other peripherals. It's really unbelievable how small this is. It's really tiny. If you have big fingers, you may find the buttons difficult to operate ([the store] has a 14-day return policy if you buy at the retail store).

When I get ready to run, I download songs from my PC (ripped with MusicMatch JukeBox) by dragging and dropping into the Yepp Explorer software and then transfer the songs. The Yepp goes into a clear holder (like for a beeper) which clips to the arm band, which I then slide up to past my bicep.

I like the display: track, time, etc. - nice readable LCD. It takes a AAA - I use the rechargeables, they last a few hours, so I do the recharge once a week with my Handspring Visor batteries.

The EQ settings are good too: the Rock setting gives a nice gentle bass and treble boost, but beware the Rock-DBB setting -- with a good headphone, the bass will be excessive! This will compensate for cheap-headphone bass.

I find I can easily get two albums worth of tracks on the 128MB player -- about 2 hours of playing time. I sample MP3s at 160 vs. the usual 128kbs for better sound (your mileage may vary)

Best of all: no skipping!

I'm giving this 5 stars despite two small caveats: (i) I don't like earbud-style headphones, which this ships with. I ordered the KOSS KTX-Pro ... -- truly a steal for a very good headphone. (specs: 15-25KHz, <0.2%THD, 103db/W). This combination is plenty loud enough, even for an old-school headbanger like me (Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Voivod, etc.). The volume goes to 30, and I have it at around 25-27 for running and 22-24 lifting weights. (ii) I didn't like the yepp Audio Manager so I downloaded yepp Explorer from samsung's website.

In short: if you want tunes while exercising, and want something small and light that will never skip, this is for you.

After looking at over 30 MP3 players (which included extensive research online and visits to several stores), I landed on the Yepp 30SH (128 Meg).

Before I bought the player I read the reviews here on Amazon.com, and there was a pretty clear concensus that the software that comes with the Yepp is awful, but I am computer savvy and I was confident that I could figure it out. Besides, it was a gift for my wife, who is an avid exerciser, and this player was the best that I saw for jogging and the gym (lightweight, armband, clip, and sporty good looks).

Big mistake.

I have a great computer that runs on XP, and the software loaded just fine. I didn't even have the driver problems that many of the XP users reported. But when it came time to load songs to the player, the software just didn't work properly. For instance, it would only allow me to add five songs to the player, even though I selected 10. So I tried to add the other songs one by one. No luck. Then things that worked properly before (like adding songs to the playlist) suddenly didn't work at all. Then I tried to uninstall and reinstall the software, but the unistall will not work (I can select the software from add/remove in XP, but the uninstall routine fails - I tried several times and even rebooted and tried again). So I went to the manual and the Samsung/Yepp website, and I found both of them to be worthless. Frustrating.

I know that if spend enough time I will figure all of this out and get things working properly, but that is time that I am not willing to spend. My wife and I both work, we have two kids, and spending hours upon hours trying to get songs on a MP3 player is simply not a good use of my time.

At the end of the day I really wanted this thing to work, but now it is back in its very-cool packaging awaiting a return to the store. What a disappointment.

this player is the best. it has the right size, the newer ones that are about the size of a quarter are too hard to operate, unless if you have baby fingers.
the uploading is fast(2 minutes for 22 songs). you can also created your own logo to show on the display screen. the headphones are terrible, one earbud has about a foot more of cord on it that the other, but they look cool.
the voice recording is easy and useful for someone who forgets where they park.
one good feature is that you can delete files that you don't like instantly on the player itself. the track recognition is great, it shows what you have on your computer. it also tells you how many mb you have left.
shuffle, repeat, etc. are all included.
all in all, this player is very practical and customizable

I bought this item used, and it didn't include the software... so the first thing I did was download the software free from the samsung website, which is way better than what comes in the box (my roommate has the same model). The headphones that came with it aren't good, but I have some cool back-band headphones from philips. A really cool thing is that this player can play variable bit rate MP3s, so I've got 28 full songs on my 64MB model, and it sounds the same as 96K mp3s. Battery life is good on alkalines, alright on the NiMHs that I use with my PDA. Oh yeah, it is very customizable, Samsung has a program you can download to make your own (even animated) logo to replace the YEPP logo that shows when you turn it on. Also it has a feature that is a necessity for me, Shuffle play, I can't stand hearing music in order, and it also can show the time remaining on songs, which is pretty cool. So the player is about as customizable (if not more so) than a full-size music player. Incredibly light (1-2 Oz.) and a little larger than a Zippo lighter. Which is pretty amazing!