Samsung YP-Z5QS 2 GB

I bought this as a replacement for my IPod Mini which after a year kept locking up and the earphone contacts were bad I decided upon the 2GB version as I never filled my 4GB Ipod up anyhow. It cost me just £100 on Amazon which as you can see is already cheaper than its rivals. I chose the black version.

When I opened it the first thing I noticed was the size of the box, and the unit itself, which was tiny! It's not as thin as the Ipod ...
...It is also very light, yet feels solid as it is made partly of aluminum and not just plastic. It is also scratch resistant which is definetly true, as I've carried it in my bag amongst keys and theres not a mark on it.

I couldn't wait to get it up and running. There was no soaftware to install as I just plugged and played. I just opened the My Music folder and dragged and dropped the music into the players folder. I also learned how ... more

I bought this as a replacement for my IPod Mini which after a year kept locking up and the earphone contacts were bad I decided upon the 2GB version as I never filled my 4GB Ipod up anyhow. It cost me just £100 on Amazon which as you can see is already cheaper than its rivals. I chose the black version.

When I opened it the first thing I noticed was the size of the box, and the unit itself, which was tiny! It's not as thin as the Ipod Nano boasts but it is the same height and width. It is also very light, yet feels solid as it is made partly of aluminum and not just plastic. It is also scratch resistant which is definetly true, as I've carried it in my bag amongst keys and theres not a mark on it.

I couldn't wait to get it up and running. There was no soaftware to install as I just plugged and played. I just opened the My Music folder and dragged and dropped the music into the players folder. I also learned how to copy JPEGS to be shown as album art on the player. You just type the name of the album you want art for in google images, and save the thumb nail (the smallest size) as AlbumArt Small. You then drag it into the folder with the rest of the songs. It is easier to have a folder for each album.

Once I figued out that part, I read on the Internet in detail and realised there was a special software upgrade available which allows you to have louder fuller sound and on the go playlists. It was easy to install if you want it, all you do is drag the upgrade file into the 'data' section of the player, and remove the USB. It will then ask you to upgrade in which you press yes and it will perform a series of resets while it installs.

That aside, and on to using the player. It has easy to navigate menu's displayed in list form. It is like the Ipod as it was designed by the same person. All you do is press the touch sensitive up and down buttons lightly, and press harder the centre to select an option. To me, it was pretty self explanotary, and after selecting music and then the album name I was soon playing tunes. The sound was clear, and I thought the little picture of the albums looked cool on its large colour screen which is grainy but readable.

I played around with the device and realised you can store almost any picture in JPEG format you have on your PC and view them as a slideshow. By simply holding down the centre when selecting a picture, you can have a wallpaper in the background of your song list. Cool!

As for EQ settings: the 3D surround modes were dissapointing somewhat but if you are listening to cheap phones, the Jazz option provides more bass. Otherwise leave it to normal. It would have been alot better if it had a graphic EQ then you could adjust each tone individually, but hardly any MP3 players boast this feature.

The battery life: I hardly had a chance to charge it and it was still going strong days later, unlike my Ipod which started to run down after an hour. I don't think the battery life is quite 35 hrs but it's definately a selling point, as the players screen shuts off to conserve battery usage (which can be annoying if you want to read a song title, you have to press something on the player).

Some other things I found really good about this player were the seperate volume control which means you can't knock it accidentally, as well as the dedicated reset button so you don't have to remember a combo of buttons in the event of a lock up. I think it sounds better than the Ipod in my opinion, as it sounds less harsh on the ears at high volumes with the right earphones. It's a flash based player so is faster to load and no moving parts means it won't go as bad as my Ipod did (in theory). You can also play WMA files, Microsofts standard compressed file format, which creates smaller files so you can add more songs. I had lots of these that I couldn't convert to MP3 through copy protection so couldn't add to my Ipod. Now I can have them all! This 2GB model stores about 400 higher quality MP3's.

I definately recommend anyone wanting a higher than 1 GB MP3 player to get one if these quick! For the price you can't go wrong. And it looks so cool and sleek too! 

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