Samsung YEPP 32 MB

This opinion is about the now rather old Samsung Yepp E-32. As I write, I am using it right now!

I managed to get my hands on one just this morning after getting it off ebay for just over £50, which is less than half the price of the current retail version. Although it has been used, it is still in very good condition, except I'd much rather get myself a new set of headphones than use old ones. The headphones supplied match the style of the player, however, I have heard sound quality out of them aren't too great. The Sony headphones I'm using right now are providing tremendous sound quality!

(Why I am using this MP3 player when I can easily take the headphones out of the MP3 player on my left, and plug it into my speakers on the right which has a much larger collection of mp3s)Anyway....

What I got in the box was the Samsung Yepp E32 player, CD-ROM, manual, cable and batteries, headphones. The software supplied is outdated but I easily downloaded an updated version from their website www.samsungyepp.com.

The software installed easily, which is called the Yepp Explorer, looks similar but more compact version of Windows Explorer. You can drag and drop music from your hard drive onto the Yepp Explorer window which then copies the mp3 to the actual mp3 player.

It's build is quite sturdy as far as I can see. A sleek silver casing, which I'm guessing is made from plastic. One flaw in the design of this player however is where the battery cover is and how easily it slides off. If you are operating it in the left hand, the little finger seems to hang about over the battery cover and can quite easily make it slip off - cutting power. Apart from that, the buttons have been designed with ease of use, and very self explanatory.

The screen has 3 line display which scrolls nicely to fit long song titles. You do need to add ID3 tags for it though, otherwise it won't display the song properly.

One nice feature of this MP3 player is its ability to have expandable media, which allows for more mp3s to be stored. This comes in the form of a Smartmedia card, about the size of a £2 coin, but rectangular and about 1mm thick. As far as I know it can only read cards store upto 32MB max. I emailed Samsung Technical support and they said 32MB versions are the largest possible card that the E32/64 can read. I want to try a 64MB card to confirm this, however if anyone out there can help me and tell me whether it works or not with a 64MB card. One nice thing is that these cards are very cheap at dabs.com. Look for the dabs value range of Smartmedia cards and a 32MB is about £20 compared to Fuji's £80. 64MB is about £40, but I didn't buy that becuase I was unsure whether it would work or not. The cards themselves don't have to be made by Samsung Yepp, as all you do is format the cards with software supplied.

This interchangable media is quite good as you can store an infinite amount of songs, but this would mean having stacks of 32MB Smartmedia cards!!

The connection type here is parallel, slower than USB but it can tranfer a 4MB song from the computer to the player in about 15-20seconds, which is good enough. You can buy a USB adapter so connection is faster, but I have yet to find anywhere in the UK that sells this.

Some other features that might come in handy is
1) Phone book. You can configure and add about 250 phone numbers to the device. Haven't used it yet but can be very handy! Especially when I don't have a mobile phone (!! - no mobile phone??)
2)Voice recorder. The player can record upto 2 and a half hours of your voice. This could be used as a dictaphone. Very useful for college/interviews.

There is a belt clip...but I don't use that, so I'll just stick it in my pocket :)

Other nifty features are equalizer modes, which changes the sound effects. There are 7 of them; Normal, Jazz, Jazz-3D, Rock, Rock-3D, Classic, Classic-3D. All sound similar but there are subtle differences.

Another button allows you to have shuffle mode, or play all songs in order or just repeat.

My opinion of it so far, well worth my £50...but not £120 for a new one!
I'd only recommend you get this if it's a bargain. 32MB is not much, infact it's very little, storing 7 tracks only - although this is about half an hour of music.

Instruction manual: didn't really need it, but it's not the most detailed things.

All in all, a great player, good for those long car journeys methinks!