Samsung YP-K3JQB 2GB Ultra Slim MP3 Player
See it at Amazon.com for $63.99Average Customer Rating
(4.5 out of 5)
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(5 out of 5)The Ipod Killer (as long as you upgrade the firmware...)
You can stop looking because you have just found the best MP3 player on the market today. Yes, this is the fabled "ipod killer" that beats the ipod Nano in almost every conceivable category. It probably won't actually outsell the ipod, because lets face it: if features were what sold ipods, Apple would be out of business. But I digress.
Unlike other players on the market, the Samsung K3 focuses itself on being an audio player first, and ignores some of the more gimmicky features found on other players such as video support. Personally, I would rather drive nails into my eyes then watch a movie on a 1-inch screen, but maybe that's just me. The other notable feature missing on the K3 is album art support, although I have my fingers crossed that a future firmware upgrade will correct this. Samsung more than makes up for the missing features by offering what is (in my opinion) the best sounding player on the market. The sound quality and number of customizable sound options such EQ settings, 3D sound, bass boost, etc are outstanding, particularly in the latest firmware versions. Personally, I listen to my K3 in normal mode with high quality Sennheiser buds (CX300) and I have zero complaints about the sound quality. This is a music player, not a media player. Some other cool features of the K3 are a great sounding FM radio, photo viewing, and text / lyrics viewing.
The K3 also wins out in the looks department, being the slimmest, most stylish player you can buy. I have the red version of this player and I actually get complements on my MP3 player! Everyone who picks it up tells me how cool it looks. The K3 also has nice a solid feel to it in your hand - it just FEELS like a quality product. This is an important consideration, because some other players on the market, such as the creative Zen-V, feel like a children's toy that just fell out of a box of Frosted Flakes (seriously, go hold one!). But where the K3 really shines is in the looks department. No other player on the market comes close in terms of style. Not only is the player razor thin, but it has a nice clean design. The great menu designs and graphics on the player all combine to offer up a sense of style that is rarely found in electronics. And then there are the ultra-cool touch buttons. They take a little bit of getting used to, but once you have them down, you will never want to go back. The touch buttons are a great rival to the ipod click wheel.
So the player itself is great, but where most MP3 players fall short is in the software / media management side of things. A short explanation of the two main types of MP3 players is necessary here: MTP vs UMS. MTP stands for 'media transfer protocol' and refers to the scenario where software running on your computer manages the transfer of media to your portable device. This is the ipod / itunes model, where only itunes can get music onto your ipod. The alternative is UMS, which stands for 'universal mass storage' meaning that the portable device acts like a mini hard drive and can be connected to any computer. There are pros and cons to each method, with the primary advantage of the MTP model being ease of use and transparency, while the UMS devices offer simplicity and portability at the expense of placing the responsibility (and control) for managing the player onto the user.
What makes the Samsung K3 so great is that they cater to BOTH of these markets by making the K3 firmware upgradeable and offering both an MTP steam of firmware AND a UMS stream of firmware. This does not seem to be a well advertised fact, and I will warn you that it is not exactly easy to do the upgrade, but the point is that it CAN be done. Any experienced computer user should be able to manage it.
Myself, I cannot stand MTP devices or itunes-like software, which is what makes the K3 so attractive to me. Unfortunately, the K3 comes out of the box as an MTP device, meaning that you have to install the bundled Samsung software at least once to get things running. The Samsung software is about as good as any MTP software (i.e. complete crap), but it does what it is supposed to. The nasty little surprise that Samsung bundles with their software I could live without though. Samsung has silently bundled some DRM software / spyware called "Markany" with their program. After installing the software, you will notice two new programs that will run at all times in the background on your computer. One is the Samsung software, the other is the Markany program. Some people won't care about things like this, but it drives me completely bonkers!
The good news is that by upgrading the firmware to UMS, you can successfully ditch both the Samsung software and Markany, and enjoy all the great features of the K3, without having to bother with any software at all. Just plug in the player and copy your music over like it was a flash drive. Simple, easy, clean. Once this minor headache is over, you are left with one of the most powerful, best sounding, and definitely most stylin' music players you can buy.
(5 out of 5)Best player out there right now
Been looking around for a good mp3 player for about 6 months now, ever since I realized my iPod sucked (between the lack of real battery life and the complicated software intrface, I had had enough with Apple).
Believe me I looked into everything from Microsoft Zune to Creative Zen to the 30gb iPod, and a few lesser known players. THIS PRODUCT IS THE BEST ALL AROUND MEDIA PLAYER OUT THERE RIGHT NOW, and here's why:
1) Unprecedented battery life! It's been 4 days of on-and-off play for me since I first charged it out of the box, and I STILL HAVE 2 BARS LEFT.
2) Easy software interface: uploading songs and pics through the samsung program can get tedious if you want to make playlists, but other than that, I simply use the plug-n-play option (simply dragging media files into the removable disk folder).
3) Awesome sound quality! I was truly amazed with the cd-quality sound of the FM radio feature.
4) Plays WMA along with MP3: you will find that this NECESSARY feature is lacking in many of the other big wig players out there right now (ie Creative Zen)
5) Beautiful seamless controls (no "buttons")
6)YOU CANNOT BEAT THE PRICE!
(4 out of 5)A Great Player with a Few Quirks
This device has lots of good points and only a few bad points and bugs.
First, the good.
1. The sound quality is fantastic, much better than my first generation iPod. I am using my own headphones, the provided ones have not been opened.
2. Transfering files is fast and simple, no software is needed although a CD is provided.
3. The response is super fast. This is also bad, see below.
4. There have no glitches, no freeze-ups, no occational skipping. That last one is important as my old iPod got jittery all too often.
5. Although it is not the cheapest, it is substantially less that the iPod Nano.
6. The screen is bright, colorful, and clear, at least indoors.
7. The battery charges quickly and lasts forever.
8. I don't use pictures much on these tiny devices but the images I tested by loading them through the Samsung software were excellent, considering the tiny screen.
9. It looks nice!
Now, the bad.
1. The controls are so fast I still haven't figured out how to avoid holding them down too long. The screen sometimes goes wild jumping from menu-to-menu as I clumsily try to stop pressing buttons!
2. The provided software is mediocre at best and doesn't run very well under Vista. Everytime it starts up, it goes into convulsions before settling down. After that, is is fine. Works properly on my XP desktop.
3. I have yet to figure out how to get playlists over to the device. Every playlist, rather than being a reference, starts copying duplicates of the files already there. I don't have the space for that.
4. It is easily scratched even just sitting there. Get screen protectors for it before you even take it out of the box.
Finally, the ugly.
1. My 1 Gig iPod was never filled so I got the 2 Gig Samsung. Wow, it holds less that the smaller iPod. However, I think the sizes are larger which may be why the sound quality is so much better. Get the 4 Gig model.
2. The device is really geared for Europe. None of the free-for-30-days music stores with free downlaods are available to those of us in North America.
3. The on-line registration is crazed, I filled out the form at least 5 times and each time some silly tiny "mistake" was made. It didn't even like my address! I gave up.
Over all, this is a great compromise between the expensive iPods and the error-prone cheaper models of mp3 players.
(3 out of 5)Looks good but...
I bought this cute little player because it promised so much! Granted it sounded AWESOME, if you can get it to sync to Windows Media Player (which is one of the requirements for your player). I was unable to get it to sync. The first time I called customer service, I talked to a less than technical person who told me that the player was not compatable with WMP 11 and to roll back to WMP 10. Guess what! WMP 10 is NOT compatible with Windows XP. So obviously that did not work. I didnt stay on the phone to talk to that guy. The second time I called (yes, two customer service calls in less than 24 hours since I could not get my player to sync), I spoke with someone who actually had some training. He didnt understand why guy #1 told me to roll back to WMP 10 since the player should have worked with WMP 11. After talking with him for 45 min he had to transfer me to a secondary help section. Sorry, I am not going to sit on the phone for another 45 minutes listening to their awful wait music so someone else can tell me they dont understand why it is not syncing. I also tried to sync the player to another computer. Didnt work.
So I returned it and tried a different one. Nope. It didnt work either. When I took the second one back, the girl at the store said that Samsung had been having a lot of issues with their players not syncing. That is too bad. I am done with Samsung.
If it would have worked, it would have been exactly what i wanted.
(2 out of 5)I was thrilled at first
Loved it at first but the playlist function does not work. You are suppose to be able to create an album out of whatever songs you have in your library and when you transfer to the unit, it should show up in your Playlist (according to samsung support). This did not work despite several attempts. I was hoping the playlist function would solve the annoying issue with playing music on this unit. You have two choices when listening to songs on the unit, If you select "All Tracks" it puts every single song in alphebetical order!. Or you can listen to each Album and when the all the songs for the album are done the unit stops and you must select the next album. You cannot listen to all the albums in a row without telling it to play the next album.