The NO-CRAP review on the Samsung YP-T5

Now that you're reading my review, you must have read quite a few others on this YP-T5, so I'll just cut the crap. I will not repeat all the specs like others, since if you've found this review, you can probably resite the specs by now. I just got the "H" version (128MB) yesterday from FutureShop. From this point on, I'll just call it T5 for simplicity.

Definitely very small! Both the T5 and Creative MuVu slim are very small. However, you may have your preferred shape. Personally I would prefer MuVu's thin credit-card look, it definitely looks more high-tech. The issue that comes with it though, is the battery. MuVu needs USB to charge, while T5 uses AAA battery. In other words, if you have a MuVu, and the battery runs out on you, it's out! With T5, you can just bring some extra rechargable batteries with you and you're always on. I really don't approve the idea of charging through USB cable. Since if you're gonna be at your computer often charging your MP3 player, you would not need an MP3 player, just listen to the music with your THX speakers.

(SKIP this paragraph if you don't need to know the line-in recording function)
Before I bought this, I was considering T5 and the i-River 7xx series, these are the two BIG brands, and pretty much the only big brands that offer line-in recording. Because I want to use the player to serve as a some-what acceptable recorder for my piano demos with line-in microphone (dynamic mic + mini-preamp at 128kbps). Any MP3 player can do voice recording, which may be useful, and maybe not. However, when you can record through a line-in source, then you're not confined by the fact that built-in microphones are usually not ideal for ANY recording more sophisticated than voice. If you do want to record through an external microphone (electric condenser or dynamic), you'll need to buy a couple of others things. Since the "ENC" (line-in) jack on T5 is the 2.5mm jack, you can't just plug the normal microphone in. You need a 3.5"female"-to-3.5"female" stereo coupler to connect to the other end of the included line-in cable (one end is 2.5mm, 3.5mm on the other end). Important, the ENC (line-in) will NOT accept MONO input, so everything along the line should be converted to stereo. Back to the connection, after the female-to-female coupler, obviously you'll have your microphone to plug in. However, your microphone is a MONO source, so you need another MONO-TO-STEREO converter. Then depends on your microphone (1/4" or 1/8" jack), as long as it's converted from MONO to STEREO, then it's done. The recording quality is quite impressive for a device this small. Minimal noise, which if you go through a noise filter once on your computer, the noise is pretty much gone. You may do so by any audio editing program such as Foundry Sound Forge. If you want to record a CD-like recording, get a very good microphone. The player-end is already quite impressive. You may need to amplify your dynamic microphone though, and make sure you have a volume limiter. Overdrive the jack by loud volume (voltage) is bad, and even if it's only slightly over, the recording would sound "POPPED". Other than using a microphone, obviously you can just connect the T5 to line-out of other devices like MD, CD players, and record. Again, the quality is very impressive, not much loss at all. When I said not much loss, I mean the output sounds pretty much the same as input. Careful though, recording uses quite a bit of battery power, if you do straight recording for a lont time, I'd say the battery shouldn't last more than 4 hours.

The reason why I chose T5 over iRiver 7xx is simple. iRiver actually needs drivers installed to see the contents of the player. Whereas T5 is plug-and-play; for NT-based Windows at least, such as XP. You plug it in, it appears as a removable drive in My Computer. Interesting thing though, in the directory window, it cannot display remaining space, only the space that you've used. Well, you can approximate how much space is left. You can fit about 120MB on it (the rest used by firmware). By the way, when you get this, go to www.samsungusa.com to download the 2.0 firmware (it comes with 1.2). The Samsung Canadian site, driver download doesn't work, so go to the USA site. Another important thing is, for iRiver, appearently you can't download music from the player to the computer because of copy-right stuff. Not confirmed because I haven't used it. But for T5, bi-directional, as simple as that. You just drag and drop and it's done. When you play on the player, you can choose the directory you wanna play the music from. So it doesn't matter where you put the music, whether it's under root or defined-by-you directories. If you read the review on YP-55, a slightly larger version (physically), it says you can't listen to the FM or ENC recordings right after recording them, no such problem with T5. You can browse through ANY directory on the player.

Connectivity: other brands tell you that USB 2.0 is faster, so don't get USB 1.1. Well, USB 2 IS faster. But for something that's 128MB, it's so small that it doesn't really matter. It feels like the difference between a 32x and 52x CD-writer. 52x IS faster, but with the lead-in/out time, they differ by like a coupler minutes or so. Well, to fill 128MB on USB 1.1 takes about 5 minutes. However, if you get a HD-based MP3 player, DO NOT get USB 1.1, when you want to upload >20GB of music on USB 1.1 will drive you crazy. But for size as small as 128/256MB, it's virtually indifferent.

FM radio: hmmmmmmmmm..... well....... not very impressive. I'm a classical musician kind of geek, so 94.1 CBC radio 2 is my favorites. This particular station is not very clear though. You can definitely hear the background noise. The earphone cable serves as the antenna. If you move much, the quality can change in an instant. If you want to record FM, make sure your earphone cord and the player are positioned well to minimize noise before you start recording. Other stations are quite good though. Because for most of the other stations, the volume is much louder (from the station), so even with the same signal-to-noise ratio, the noise is veeeeery small compared to the loud music. So everything other than CBC-Radio-2 *crying*, other stations are quite okay for FM reception. Auto-serarch-and-save-preset function is very good. Just press and hold the A-B key, it does everything for you. I always get confused though, everytime you go to the FM mode, remember to switch to the preset mode (by default you start with non-preset mode, which not very logical). In short, everytime you go to FM mode, press the play-pause button to switch to the preset mode. Lasly, even when I said the FM reception is not very impressive, remember, this applies to pretty much ALL MP3 players with built-in FM, because they all work the same way, using your earphone as antenna.

Sound quality: if you plug your own earphone to your computer, and listen to MP3s from your computer, it sounds the same as listening to the MP3s from the player. So excellent sound, no problems here. The earphone that comes with the player is quite good (for me at least). The con is that when I ride on the bike, and the wind blows, hmm... simply put, wind is definitely louder than the music. Other review say that there's not enough bass, it only applies for dudes who only listen to rap like crazy. Quite frankly, if you're one of them, you should really take care of your ears eh. You don't wanna go deaf anytime soon do you. On the player, there's this TruBass thing that is supposed to enhance the bass; it somewhat does. If you really have to say that the bass is not enough, I'd have to agree. The bass is definitely there, but it's just not enough for the rappers that's all. For the rest of you, the bass is pretty much the same as if you listen to the music from the computer. For your taste, you can get an alternative earphone, which would make a smmmmmmmall difference. The output in mW is less than the iRiver. Well, your battery can run longer for sure. Volume is excellent. If you turn it all the way up, it can hurt your ears. WOW and SRS give quite interesting surround-sound effects to the music, you may like them. The other EQs are I don't think you'll ever use them. By the way, when you want to change the sound setting, you need to go to the setting menu on the player.

Capacity: 128/236MB, fits 2 and 4 hours of 128kpbs 44kHz MP3s; may be doubled for WMA. I don't see the idea of having 20GB of music on the same player. Unless you use your HD-based MP3 player as a portable HD, the extra space is not very useful. Just imagine, if you keep listening to 20GB worth of music, well, let's just say, 1GB worth of music, it can definitely drive you crazy. And usually the motors consume battery very quickly. This is why iPod has very bad reviews on its battery life. You see, even if you have so much more space, with suppose the same amount of battery life about 12 hours, you can only listen to that much. By the way, listening to 12 hours of music a day??!! You must be crazy, FIND A JOB!! or go STUDY!! With that said, it IS excellent to have a portable HD with MP3 functionality though. One more thing, when you go on your morning jogging, any computer geek like myself would NOT recommend you shaking your HD like that. Too much for it to take. If you get a head-crash in the HD, your iPod, or iRiver 120, is, GONE.

LCD: the 7-color LCD is very cool. Some colors are ugly though such as red and green. Other colors are very cool. And the resolution is much better than I thought. If you do get one, when you perform operations such as deleting files, you'll see how small the text it can display. Other than that, the 3-line display is very logical, and very informative, and impressive. iRiver and maybe other players may have 4-line display, but after you're used to 3-line display, you'll think that the extra line is a waste of space, and false logic. T5 DOES display ID3 tags. The words scroll along the LCD, so you can read the full name of the ID3 (while playing) or the file-name (while browse through the directory). It DOES display CHINESE, Korean, Japanese, and other languages. I like the Chinese characters on the player, it's very impressive. (I'm from Taiwan) Other reviews on T5 suggest that the LCD screen cover is extremely fragile, it may be true, but I'm not gonna try scraching mine. It comes with a transparent thin tape on it; I don't know what it's called, but do not take it off, it protects your LCD screen. With that on, you can ignore the screen-being-fragile review. Plus, the carrying bag gives you extra protection to the screen and the player. It fits quite well actually, much better than the cell-phone cover I tried to find for my T610. Since the T5 is so light, with the carry bag on, even if you drop it from your neck to the solid floor, it would survive. It's just too small and too light. But don't take my words for it, don't drop it if you don't have to. Correction, T5 is VERY VERY SMALL, but it's NOT TOO SMALL such that it's hard to control and press buttons. It's SO SMALL and just the right size. Remember though, when you put it in the pocket with your keys, do so only with the carrying bag on it, just in case if it gets scraches.

Conclusion, I've gone on and on about this T5. To sum up, I'd give it 5/5. It has the sum of all features from all kinds of MP3 players. Exceptions only apply for: if you like the rapping bass, if you need more than 2 hours of music everytime you go out. If the above 2 conditions do not apply for you, this player is PERFECT.

Well, my name is Richard Yang, going to 4th year Electrical Engineering at the U of T. If you like my review or have other suggestions, please email me at dikai_yang@hotmail.com. Thank you for reading this long long long review. And sorry for the language eh, I think my grammar just got pretty bad at the end, too tired typing. Until next time.