Rating: Summary: Great Little Unit Review: After shopping around, trying to match storage capability with small size, I landed on the Yepp 700. So far it has been great. Sound is fantastic and with the 128mb expansion I am able to load hour and hours of high quality music. The software included is written by the folks at RioPortad frankly is lacking relative to MusicMatch, Real One or other jukebox programs. Kind of a pain to reload, sort and make playlists of music already on your PC. Definate opportunity. Regardless of the inconvenience, the size of the unit is great realitive to how much music you can load.
Rating: Summary: great MP3 player with a few minor design flaws Review: This is a great little MP3 player about the size of a tape. The screen on both the remote and the unit itself is very good and has an eye catching blue backlight. The RioPort software that comes with it for transfer is difficult to use, however the bundled Explorer like application makes up for the RioPort's shortcomings. The headphones that come with the player are relatively good if you like earbuds. The major issue with this player are that it uses a custom Ni-Mh rechargable battery. This is not an issue by itself as the player comes with an adapter to use a regular AAA battery, however this adapter is very poorly designed and is only held on to the player by an AC adapter like plug and is very easy to pull out unless you use the enclosed case. The case is very poorly designed as it forces you to use the remote which has a low profile plug on it, otherwise the cover on the case will not close properly as it has no holes in it for a proper headphone plug as well as making the whole player and AAA adapter too big. Other those two shortcomings this is a pretty good MP3 player for the money.
Rating: Summary: Great MP3 Player Review: This is a great MP3 player. It has great funtionability and an easy to read screen. It comes with 128mb on board, which is just huge and has the option to expand that memory with smartmedia. The compression option seems to work well and vastly improves the amount of music you can put on the player. I don't think the rechargeable battery quite reaches the advertised 20 hours of use and neither does a duracell ulta AAA reach the 12 hour mark. The voice recording function is neat, but I don't use it. I don't use the FM tuner much either. Download speeds are acceptable with USB 1.0 and beign compatible with USB 2.0 download speeds should be exceptional. All in all this is a great player and it is well worth it's price. I also have an MP3 player by DGN and I payed a little more for it. Right now, I don't know which one to keep.
Rating: Summary: Hard to use; inconvenient Review: I've had this MP3 player for several years now, and the only reason I bought it in the first place was that it took SmartMedia, just like my camera.
Bad thing #1: It is not a USB mass storage device. This means you *must* use their software to copy the files to it. It also means that it can't double as a Flash drive or as a SmartMedia reader.
Bad thing #2: The controls are awkward and badly designed. The interface is badly designed and hard to use. The actual knob is fiddly -- a single control can be pushed in to mean Ok or Enter, or moved up-down to pick a menu entry. If I use the tip of my thumb or index finger to move it up or down, then I can either push too softly and I can't move it because it slips, or I can push too hard and it registers as Enter. The resistance at pushing in is too feeble and that at moving sideways is too strong. In addition, when holding the player upright (which is the natural way to hold it in one hand), you need to move the knob up for "down" and down for "up". I still can't get used to that.
Bad thing #3: When the battery is almost dead, it stops playing, shuts itself down, *forgets what song it was playing*, turns itself on, resumes playing the first song you played in that session, shuts itself down after a second or two, turns itself back on, resumes playing the first song, and so on, until the battery is completely drained (a good half hour). This is very annoying if you're using it while driving and don't have time reach to it and turn it off (which is difficult, because it only takes the button if you press it at the right moment).
Miscelaneous other bad things:
If you take the SmartMedia out and use it for anything else, even if you put the files back on it as they were, it won't work. It only works if you copy stuff on the SmartMedia using the player itself.
The external battery holder is funny. It only attaches to the player through the power connector, which means it's free to swing around and get disconnected and fall off any time. Things get better if you put the player and the battery holder in the case, but it's hard to push the battery holder in (very tight fit), and extremely hard to get it out.
The FM radio is fair at best (noisy weak reception, slightly noisy even with strong signals).
The included earbuds are decent, but the player can't drive a full-sized pair of headphones without losing some sound quality (the low frequencies are especially affected).
You can hear a high-pitched sound caused by interference from the backlight driver whenever the backlight is on.
The battery charger is rather heavy for what it does. The player can't charge its battery from the USB port or from the external power adapter. You need to take the battery out to charge it. The external AAA battery holder allows you to continue to listen to music while the internal battery is in the charger, but that drains the battery, so it's not an economical solution. You can't use rechargeable AAA batteries in the extrenal holder.
If you put the player in the case, you *have* to use the FM radio or the inline remote, because the lid doesn't close if you just plug the headphones straight into the player. Also, the cord of the headphones is too short to allow you to clip both the player and the in-line remote on the belt.
The player is (or used to be) too expesive for all its shortcomings. There are much better alternatives now for a fraction of the original prices, both from Samsung and from the competition.
Good thing: The player looks good, and it's fairly small and lightweight. This doesn't even begin to compensate for all its disadvantages.
Rating: Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT Review: Pros: The music sounds great and the amount of storage is sizable enough that you don't need to update/change the tracks frequently. The metal casing is very stylish and the dual use as a audio recorder really helps (ie. college lectures) Cons: The software is difficult to use because it collects a "database" of music by scanning your hard drive. Music can't be uploaded until the mp3 is in the database. If you're like me and download new music all the time, it becomes a hassle to update the database. The leather carrying case isn't designed well for headphones. The auxillary battery hangs on the edge and is a bit awkward. OVERALL: It's a good mp3 player if you're not going to walk around with it. Definitely NOT designed for athletic activity. Mine broke after 7 months (as many people have cited similar complaints). Consider the new smaller Mp3 players if you're an active person, or just wait and hopefully Samsung will come out with an improved version
Rating: Summary: Beware Review: I was looking for a mid-range mp3 player; what I got was a piece of garbage. I've had it a year now and it already doesn't work. If I press the power button to turn it on, it just cycles through powering on and off. Eventually I have to pull the battery out to make it finally shut off for good. Its not like I've abused it either. I would use it may once or twice a week to and from work (maybe 40min a day); when not in use, it would sit in a drawer. The battery life is not that great either; 128mb is not enough; the accompanying software must have been written by amateurs (beware XP users). At one point the software said I needed to buy a license to use it further; this after crashing multiple times during uploading of songs. Why would I want to waste more money? If you want a good player, spend the money for an ipod...I hear they're great; as you can read, I would give the same review for this device.
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