Design - Good The Samsung YP-S5 is a unique design for MP3 players, though it won't be so new to diehard Samsung fans. With its slide-out stereo speakers, the YP-S5 updates the Samsung YP-K5 player we saw more than a year ago, though the changes aren't too significant. We like the look of the new player better. While the K5 was a glossy obelisk, the S5 uses a glossy front with a soft touch black exterior around the rest of the player. The device is a bit smaller than its predecessor, and has a gentle angle to it, making it more visually appealing.
Interface - Good Samsung's interface is simple and pretty, but it could stand some improvement. First of all, browsing long lists of songs was strangely both jumpy and slow. The imterface jumps page to page, but doesn't accelerate quickly through letters. Second, the organization structure could use some rethinking. Samsung players mostly share the same interface, which keeps secondary functions like Bluetooth phone controls and the alarm clock features hidden under submenus. That makes sense on other models, perhaps, but we think the S5 might be more useful as a Bluetooth speakerphone and travel alarm clock than as a player, at least for some customers. These important features should be high-level menu options, while pictures and videos, which should be a secondary feature on this device, could be buried deeper.
Features - Very good The Samsung YP-S5 includes more features than it needs, but has some innovative ideas packed in that work surprisingly well. The player can handle music, JPEG photos and MP4 videos, and videos looked fine on the small, low-res screen, but this is more of a novelty act than the S5's real purpose. The alarm clock was a good feature, and we liked being able to set up multiple alarms on the device. But we wish we could have chosen different songs for each alarm. Instead, you assign one song as the alarm track, and that's the only song that will play on time, besides the included alarm tones. The Samsung YP-S5 also has some of the Bluetooth phone features we saw on the Samsung YP-P2. When paired with a Bluetooth phone, the YP-S5 will not only stop playback during a call, it will actually let you answer, using the built-in microphone and your normal headphones to take the call. Also, the phone packs a primitive dial pad so you can even dial a call from the YP-S5, which then acts as a handsfree device for your phone. When the speakers are open, you can use the S5 as a Bluetooth speakerphone, which is an especially neat trick, and it worked pretty well in our tests.
Transfer - Good Samsung's transfer software has not improved since we last saw it. The interface is confusing, and not at all intuitive. Transfers are painfully slow, especially when you have to encode a video for the device. The Samsung Media Studio has a cheesy mood reading tool that supposedly analyzes your music for your mood, but more time and effort should have gone into making an intuitive, pleasant interface that was easy to manage for music transfers and playback instead of these gimmicks. Of course, you can simply use Windows Media Player instead, but if Samsung, or Microsoft for that matter, wants to compete with Apple's iPod / iTunes one-two punch, serious thought needs to go into the synchronization and sideloading half.
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