Packed with features, almost too many. Integrated speakers good (Samsung YP-S5JAB 4 GB)

Member Name: welshmikey

Product:	Samsung YP-S5JAB 4 GB
Date:	17/02/09 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Integrated speakers, decent headphones, loads of features

Disadvantages: Worried about durability of speakers, software though not needed is a bit pants

This is the latest mp3 player that I have purchased (got it today). Previous to this one I used one of my favorite mp3 players the Sony Walkman NWZ-S618. My reasons for buying it were that my sony mp3 player was stolen and this mp3 player has built in speakers which I thought would be useful to use for backing music when playing the piano.

In the Box:

You get the device, a nice looking set of headphones that are fairly decent (better than the ones I got with my Sony Walkman), A usb link up cable and some other cable to connect it to a headphone jack so you can use the device as a portable speaker for other media devices. Oh and a completely useless instruction manual and CD with a Samsung media player on it.

Downloading music:

Simple as drag and drop....if you use windows. Not so easy on linux and mac, it requires you downloading and installing updated firmware onto the device (use a windows computer to do this).

The music software:

Simply used for burning music either to CD or to the device (drag and dropping music files is easier). Pretty bog standard as far as I can tell and I shan't be using it.

Sound quality:

There are several features to play with here. Under sound quality there is street mode and clarity. Street mode seems to make it a little louder though I'm not sure if this is what its meant to do.
Under Dnse (when playing song click the menu button) there are several equalizer options; Normal, Rock, Vocal, Bass boost, Classical, Studio, concert hall and user defined. Out of these I find rock with street mode gives the best sounding sound and I would recommend rock mode over bass boost which seems to lose clarity.
Speakers themselves are decent, full volume is enough to get hard working people to ask you to turn it down but its not so loud you think "WOW".

Features:

Lots of them; from very simple Java games to video viewing, picture viewing, shuffling music, play lists, alarm clock, radio, blue tooth (for wireless headphones and data transfer, voice recorder, some sort of text viewer?, use the device as speakers for other mp3 players etc.

Durability:

Since I haven't had it long I cant really comment on this very well but the slide out speakers feel liek they could break away from the unit if you accidentally man handle it.

Overall verdict:

Integrated speakers are a nice feature, interface is fairly easy to use but not the easiest simply because there are so many features to navigate through. A good mp3 player but the Sony Walkman NWZ-S618 is a bit better sound wise and much neater and more stylish. In addition to this the Sony Walkman NWZ-S618 works very well with linux.

Summary: A good MP3 player but not the best.

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