“At around $150, the YP-T5V is a very good value.”
- Very simple to use
- good clean sound
- good headphones
- Only supports a few audio formats
- no advanced features
- no Macintosh or iTunes support
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Summary
Samsung’s YP-T5V is an above-average digital audio player and it does not pretend to be a more advanced player than what it is. It does not support Macintosh or Linux operating systems, cannot read Ogg Vorbis audio formats and doesn’t offer an Apple iPod quality finish, but for what the YP-T5V is capable of doing, the player does it pretty well. The ear buds are high quality and the cable is long enough to use while working out, and because the YP-T5V is so tiny and includes an FM tuner, it is perfect for the gym.
The Samsung Yepp YP-T5 series of digital audio players is the type of product that may be geared towards someone who is not a hardcore techie. Its controls are simple to use, the instruction manual is easy to read you can get the player up and running in a short amount of time. Those looking for a more advanced player may want to consider offerings from the iRiver and Digitalway product lines. At around $150, the YP-T5V is a very good value.
Introduction
Samsung claims that their Yepp YP-T5 digital audio players are the smallest of their kind. After getting our hands on this miniscule player, there is little reason to argue otherwise. But do not let their small size fool you, for the YP-T5 series packs more features that many players of considerably larger size. The Samsung Yepp YP-T5V features 256MB of internal storage while the Yepp YP-T5H comes with 128MB. The only difference we can tell between the two models is the storage capacity and color.
As we see digital audio players shrink in size, there are only a few size-limiting factors, including the size of the battery and the internal flash memory. The 128MB YP-T5H has a street price of around $110 while the 256MB YP-T5V can be found at just under $150. Considering you are paying only $40 dollars more for an extra 128MB, the YP-T5V appears to be a solid value.
Set on its side, the YP-T5V looks like a mini clock radio
Design and Features
The purple plastic-encased YP-T5V features a shiny mirror finish front face with an LCD display nestled in the middle. The design of the YP-T5V makes the player look more like a toy rather than a piece of electronics – but not cheap. With digital audio players having become a commodity good, we should not expect every manufacturer to dump a lot of money into fancy alloys and backlights.
Samsung’s YP-T5V begs you to wear it as an everyday item without having to worry about scratching it. You wear the YP-T5V much like you do with other small digital audio players on the market; by the use of a necklace-like strap. The headphones that come with the YP-T5V feature a very long cable – long enough not to force you to wear it around your neck – and appear to be very high-quality. The ear-buds are a little on the large side, so if you have small ears, they may give you some fatigue.
The Samsung Yepp YP-T5V is almost half the size of the MPIO FY200
The controls on the YP-T5V are fairly straightforward in their locations. To the right of the LCD display, there is a joystick that controls the volume as well as the previous and next track selections. On the face above the LCD display are the record, A-B repeat, play/pause, hold, and microphone buttons. The button arrangement reminds us of a mini-clock radio, with the controls located just above the display. The YP-T5V supports seven different backlight options to choose from and the LCD display is fairly easy to read despite having a very small font.
Feature-wise, the YP-T5V has just about every option available with a few exceptions. There is a built-in FM tuner in which will allow you to record whatever you are listening to the internal flash memory. You can also decide to record external audio sources and save them into MP3 format using the audio-in and encoding capabilities. The YP-T5V supports the MP3, WMA and WAV audio formats but does not support formats such as Ogg Vorbis, or MP3 PRO. Power output is limited to 5mW/channel, allowing the YP-T5V can play up to 12 hours of music playback off a single AAA battery. And lastly, the YP-T5V can be used as a mass storage device so you can store both audio and data files onto the player. Samsung packages a USB cable with the YP-T5V so you can use this feature.
Setup and Use
Samsung includes a very detailed manual with the YP-T5V so setup is relatively easy and should be uneventful for even the most inexperienced users. We plugged the YP-T5V into our test machine and immediately noticed that Windows XP did not recognize the player as a mass storage device. You are forced to install the driver from the CD-ROM to get this function to work. The YP-T5V also does not support the Macintosh or Linux operating systems so non-Windows users will have to look elsewhere. Once the YP-T5V is connected to your PC, you can simply drag and drop files onto the player for use. When using the YP-T5V, the player will only read compatible music files, so if you have a non-supported audio format on the player; it will just be taking up useless space.
Samsung’s Yepp Studio software features a very clean and minimalist interface. Using the software you can convert CD audio over to MP3 or WMA formats, and then transfer the files over to the player. Yepp Studio even supports CDDB and ID3 tags, so you can look up the CD’s information on the Web, including artist, album and song and then convert that information over to an ID3 tag so you know details of song you are playing. The Yepp Studio software is not very advanced but it does support the capabilities of the player. If you are looking for a more advanced software program for ripping and converting audio formats, we would recommend, Free RIP, or LAME which can both be found on the Web for free.
We loaded our YP-T5V up with various music genres including techno (Sascha), heavy metal (Anthrax) and rap (JayZ) to test the player’s sound quality. There are nine different equalizer settings, so you should be able to find a setting to match the genre of music you are listening to. Three of the EQ settings are somewhat unique. The SRS setting emulates surround sound speakers while listening to the music, the TruBass setting increases the player’s bass output to add fullness, and the WOW feature allows you to use the SRS and TruBass settings at the same time.
Audio playback was relatively crisp and concise. Both the treble and bass were not over done, although there could be a bit more bass to make us satisfied. The sound quality is not as good as the more expensive Jens of Sweden MP300 we reviewed earlier in the year, but it also sounds much better than the less expensive MSI Megastick offerings. We feel that for the price you are paying for the YP-T5V, you are getting pretty good sound from it.
Testing Continued
Playlists are supported by the YP-T5V, but you have to create them using the Yepp Studio software which creates a proprietary file extension. There is no support for Winamp, Apple iTunes or other music programs which may create their own play lists. But the upside is that the YP-T5V can at least support play lists, even if that means using their own software.
We found the integrated FM tuner to work quite well also. The YP-T5V gives you the option to either automatically or manually search for a station frequency. Once the station is found, you have the option to save that station frequency into the player’s memory. If you decide you want to save what you are listening to, simply hold down the record button and it will encode the FM broadcast into an MP3 file for later use.
This ability to encode an audio source and convert it to MP3 is a feature we have seen on several digital audio players recently and it’s a trend we hope will continue. The YP-T5V offers this encoding feature and it works very well. Using a feature called AutoSync, you can set the YP-T5V to stop recording if there is a silence for more than two to five seconds depending on which one you have it set to. You also have the option to set the bit rate at which you encode the song to; however the bit rates are limited to 32kbps, 48kbps, 64kbps, 96kbps, and 128kbps, so those looking for a higher quality bit rate will be disappointed.
Conclusion
Samsung’s YP-T5V is an above-average digital audio player and it does not pretend to be a more advanced player than what it is. It does not support Macintosh or Linux operating systems, cannot read Ogg Vorbis audio formats and doesn’t offer an Apple iPod quality finish, but for what the YP-T5V is capable of doing, the player does it pretty well. The ear buds are high quality and the cable is long enough to use while working out, and because the YP-T5V is so tiny and includes an FM tuner, it is perfect for the gym.
The Samsung Yepp YP-T5 series of digital audio players is the type of product that may be geared towards someone who is not a hardcore techie. Its controls are simple to use, the instruction manual is easy to read you can get the player up and running in a short amount of time. Those looking for a more advanced player may want to consider offerings from the iRiver and Digitalway product lines. At around $150, the YP-T5V is a very good value.
