Can the Samsung YP-P2 hold its own against the market-dominating iPods?
(Credit: Corinne Schulze / CNET)
The Samsung YP-P2 has landed, and we have the photos to prove it. With its 3-inch touch screen, and a 480x272 video resolution capable of DVD-quality and 30 frames per second, the Samsung YP-P2 is a tough contender for the holiday's Flash-based PVP battle royale. Obviously, the P2 is aimed at the iPod Touch audience, but with recent video-worthy releases from SanDisk, Creative, and Microsoft--it's still anybody's game.
We'll have a full review done next week. Until then, you can ogle our Samsung YP-P2 photo gallery. The Samsung YP-P2 is available for $199 (4GB) and $249 ($8GB).
The Zune is probably not an iPod-killer. The question is, will the Samsung YP-P2 be a Zune-killer?
(Credit: Samsung)After having a day to reflect on Microsoft's latest Zune offering, I began to think that perhaps the iPod vs. Zune battle is a little too obvious. Whether the iPod's position at the top of the MP3 player food chain is deserved or not, history has shown us that it will likely stay there. The real question is, "As the holidays approach, which MP3 player will come in second place?"
When it comes to interface and killer features, the challenger that Microsoft should really keep an eye on is the yet-to-be-released Samsung YP-P2 I reported on back in August. Although Samsung hasn't released pricing information yet, things could really heat up if the YP-P2 can get close to the $149 and $199 price points of the iPod Nano and Flash-based Zunes. Not only does the YP-P2 offer a 3-inch touch screen and built in Bluetooth, but it also has the advantage of not being Microsoft. Honestly, after Apple's successful "I'm a Mac" smear campaign, it's tough to convince people that Microsoft makes cool gear (unless you've got Halo 3 as bait).
We've been able to dig up two videos on YouTube that demonstrate the interface for both the Zune and Samsung YP-P2. ... Read more
The Samsung YP-P2 is a touch-screen video player that gets friendly with your cell phone over Bluetooth.
(Credit: Samsung)Samsung has just announced the release of their two most eagerly-awaited MP3 players of 2008, the YP-T10 and the YP-P2. While leaked photos of both players have been circulating this past week, few details have been announced until now. Both players are due out in September (no pricing details yet), and with the deafening buzz surrounding a possible new iPod announcement, the preemptive timing of these feature-packed players couldn't be better.
YP-P2
The Samsung YP-P2 is really the star of the show and looks like a well-executed answer to the shrieking demands for a phone-less iPhone. The 3-inch touch screen responds to gestures such as finger swipes and supports wide-screen 480x272 video resolution at a DVD-quality 30 frames per second using WMV9 or MPEG4 video formats. The P2 will be available in black, burgundy, and white, with either 4GB or 8GB capacities, and will support MP3, WMA, and subscription music playback. Unfortunately, it does not include a Flash memory expansion card slot. Samsung also throws in an FM tuner/recorder, a clock, a surprisingly usable text reader (see video), a voice recorder, and an image viewer. Battery life is expected to last a whopping 35 hours for music playback and 5 hours for video.
The crowning feature for both players, however, is Samsung's unprecedented Bluetooth 2.0 integration.
Bluetooth phone coupling
Both the YP-P2 and the Nano-esque YP-T10 share the ability to stream music to multiple receivers simultaneously over a wireless stereo Bluetooth 2.0 connection. While that feature alone puts these players ahead of the pack, Samsung takes the Bluetooth integration one step further by allowing users to couple the devices with most Bluetooth 2.0-enabled mobile phones. In this scenario, incoming phone calls will prompt an alert on the screen of the P2 or T10, pausing your music and offering the option of taking the call. When you accept the incoming call through the player, you can then hear the caller through your earbuds and also speak to the caller using the player's built-in microphone. A stereo Bluetooth headset can also be worked into the equation for both listening to music and taking calls wirelessly.
This integration opens up a lot of convenient possibilities for people juggling both their mobile phone and their MP3 player while exercising or driving. It remains to be seen whether call quality and reliability of the Bluetooth connection holds up, but with Samsung holding a solid share of the mobile phone market, our expectations are pretty high.
YP-T10
The Samsung YP-T10 lets users personalize their menu interface with Flash animation skins.
(Credit: Samsung)Samsung's evolution of the highly rated YP-T9 looks to be a very fun Nano-like player that hopefully carries on the T9's reputation for excellent sound quality. The player will only be available with a 4GB capacity (again, no expansion port) in either black, white, or purple. The 2-inch QVGA screen supports 320x240 WMV9 or MPEG4 video playback and impressively includes most of the features found on the P2: FM radio/recorder; image viewer; voice recorder; clock; text reader; and support for MP3, WMA, and subscription music playback. Unlike the P2, the T10 uses an illuminated direction pad controller instead of touch-screen interface. To its credit, however, the T10's menu interface can be radically customized using downloadable Flash animation skins. Battery life for both the T10 is rated at 30 hours for music playback and 4 hours for video.
The video below walks through the touch-screen graphic user interface for the Samsung P2. Note the ability to use swiping gestures to skip between videos and movies, as well as the multiple eye-candy music visualizers. This really looks like one of the first post-iPhone MP3 players to step up to the challenge of creating a smart and richly designed, touch-screen user interface.
(Credit:
Crave UK)
While Samsung hasn't been overly vocal about its next line of digital audio players, we didn't consider ourselves unrealistic in expecting a superb follow-up to the excellent YP-T9 MP3 player, which scored a smokin' 8.3 in our exhaustive tests.
Our daydreaming apparently was not in vain. The South Korean-based company has pelvic-thrusted the YP-P2 into existence, with a lovely touchscreen, video playback and Bluetooth.
What's particularly surprising about this model is its maximum capacity--8GB. This is interesting because Samsung hasn't followed in the footsteps of Creative's capacity-increased Zen V Plus, which was the first flash music player to break the 8GB barrier. Creative's new model's capacious innards now stand at just over half the size of the smallest hard-drive-based video iPod. Samsung following suit would have been good news for people who like the space of iPods but the speed and performance of flash memory.
Still, we had our hands on a YP-P2 last week and loved the super-crisp 16:9-format screen, easy menus, support for high-quality Windows Media videos and its alleged 35-hour battery life.
The P2 comes in black, white and red, and will be on sale in September. Pricing information has not yet been released but we'll pass it on as soon as we have it. We'll also have a full review for you very, very soon.
(Source: Crave UK)
(Credit:
Samsung)
Like the Samsung YP-K5 music player but not the built-in speaker? Then the YP-K3 is for you.
This MP3 player is a slimmed down version of the YP-K5. The YP-K3 is significantly thinner (0.27 inches, to be exact) and has no external speaker, but other than that, it's just like the YP-K5. You get blue-backlit, touch-sensitive controls; a fun, animated interface; a rated 20-hour battery life; and plenty of features, including a built-in FM tuner, a JPEG photo viewer, and support for subscription music services, such as Rhapsody. No doubt this player will also offer stellar sound quality, just like it's sibling.
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