“Samsung Electronic is unveiling new digital audio players, which the company claims are the smallest of their kind. The two models — the YEPP Digital Audio Player YP-T5H and the YP-T5V — are each about 2 inches by 1 inch by 1 inch, and weigh under an ounce without a battery. The devices are the “smallest with an LCD and tuner,” says Mark Farish, Samsung’s marketing manager. Of course, the way this industry works, we can expect that they won’t be the smallest for long,” Lincoln Spector reports for PC World.
Spector reports, “As the devices require only a single AAA battery, power won’t add much to their weight. Samsung estimates that one of these players can run on one battery for up to 15 hours. The 128MB YP-T5H will list for US$130; the 256MB YP-T5V, for US$180.”
“Both YEPPs can play .mp3, .wma, and .wav files. To keep the players up-to-date, they come with upgradable firmware that will allow Samsung to add support for new formats. The players support songs downloaded from MusicMatch and the new Napster, but not from ITunes,” Spector reports. “Why is Apple Computer left out? According to Farish, ‘We don’t want to support ITunes at this time.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: More like Apple doesn’t want Samsung’s (or anybody else’s, smartly) players to work with songs purchased from Apple’s market-dominating iTunes Music Store. Of course, songs purchased from iTunes Music Store (AAC with Fairplay DRM) can be burned to CD and reimported as MP3 or WAV to work in these YEPP players (or use a third-party software utility), but we’d rather have an Apple iPod mini with 4GB for $70 more than the YEPP’s paltry 256MB and get full iTunes Music Store compatibility in the process.
What a joke of a thing
First post!
YAPP yet another pathetic player
Who wants to pay $130 for a player that holds 15 songs ? I just don’t get it.
The Mini is $250 and holds a 1000 songs.
Samsung, good luck in the digital music world !
… Such a shame
What this does is it dilutes the crowded mp3 market: Sony, Rio, Dell, blah, blah, and now Samsung. There is not enough energy in the market to move one product over the other. They will be loss leaders for each manufacturer. Don’t forget the M$ version later this summer.
Apple has the buzz, the product, the music interface, and the lead. They have shaped the market, have establised the base, and basically given the others the standard to shoot for.
Chow
You are going to get parents that mean well and buy these for their kids. If the kids are smart they will return them to the store and take some of their allowance money and buy an iPod.
I bought a Yepp player for my wife when they first came out. I expanded the memory so that she could get enough songs on there to make it worthwhile. Then came the fun of using their piece of shit software to load the thing over standard USB. Yuck!!! It is on the shelf over here gathering dust. She used it about 6 times and got frustrated with it having the same songs on it all the time because it took so long and was so difficult to load. Now we both have iPods and they rock.
iPod mini for 70 bucks more why spend more. I can use this with Wal-Mart music store and go to walmart every two day’s and pick up another package or AAA batteries. So I’ll loose like 3.61 gb of music storage and the convenience of a lithium rechargeable battery big deal. With the YAPP I can shop at Wal-Mart more and help the development of 1984.
I love and own an iPod, but I would love to see more choice in the market. Competition drives development. Doesn’t it? Cmon Apple! ps.. I want a better screen on the next iPod.
yepp another iPod killer. Lost count of how many there are now. Makes me wonder why the iPod sells at all with all these killers out there in the wild.
Hey, sml, what would you want that “better screen” to provide on the next iPod? Smaller pixels so more info could fit on the screen at once? That’s about all I’d think a “better screen” could do for me. What else would I use the screen for? Watching videos or movies or looking at stored photos? At that size? Only if I could hook up my digital camera and download to it while out and about and just make sure they transferred okay or maybe delete an obvious poor shot …but my digital camera can already take more than 1000 good quality pictures before having to be dumped into iPhoto and it has a viewscreen for just that… so I don’t think it would be worth it ultimately. Not the best convergence of ideas … I’d rather my music play play music, and longer, than having lots of other bells and whistles.
Hmmm…. “YEPP” – sounds like what a distant cousin of mine up in the Northeast would say when posed with the question of whether he should get a new iPod mini instead of these new-fangled things from Samsung.
“Samsung Electronic is unveiling new digital audio players, which the company claims are the smallest of their kind.”
And the point is… what? The idea is not is not to build microscopic sized mp3 players.. The idea is to build players that are the right size for the electronic parts that are housed inside, how conveniently they can be stored and carried around, and the right size for the user interface to be manipulated by the user.
After it get’s to that ideal size, it’s not important that it be made smaller, in fact, it’s a bad idea. They will fall out of pockets, get lost, or end up in the washing machine, or eaten by the dog.
“Of course, the way this industry works, we can expect that they won’t be the smallest for long,” opines the writer of the piece.. who doesn’t get it either.
NONE of these idiots understands that it has to be the right size.. the right shape.. attractive, sturdy, and fulfill it’s primary function as a machine that delivers music to your ears.
So Samsung races to to make the smallest and who? Microsoft? is adding video, making it BIGGER and God knows what other hare-brained ideas we will see as one ‘iPod killer’ after another succumbs to crib death, as one after another manufacturer works around the clock to give the consumer a product that they have not asked for, and that wrecks the beauty and functionality of what the buying public has already demonstrated it wants.
Pathetic.
david vesey
A worthless piece of crap, yepp, that’s what it is.
They can bundle it with a $200 Walmart PC and sell bunches of them.
Good luck to them. LOL
What good is 15 hours of battery life and and hour of music? ooh, I can listen to that same CD over and over again on my next cross country flight! having to continuously reload these P.O.C. flash players with new music is worse than having my portable CD player and 12 CDS with me. The point of these devices is convenience, not annoyance.
I wonder who’ll be the first to bring out a solid-state player with high capacity.
I’d feel better taking that to the gym, hiking, or even tossing into the car than I would my iPod. Something like that would make a great companion to what I already have.
Why the do solid-state players always come with a small capacity? Why not let us slap in a 1 gig CF or SC card?
I wonder who’ll be the first to bring out a solid-state player with high capacity.
I’d feel better taking that to the gym, hiking, or even tossing into the car than I would my iPod. Something like that would make a great companion to what I already have.
Why the do solid-state players always come with a small capacity? Why not let us slap in a 1 gig CF or SC card?
It sounds like one of those parables about a wolf who convinced itself that the grapes were sour and it did’t want to eat them because he actually couldn’t reach and pick the grapes.
‘We don’t want to support ITunes at this time.’
Samsung stockholder should smack the decision makers if that is the true case. They don’t want to support the no. 1 music store? Riiight.
Good analogy, Nobody.
And they do have 1 gig capacity solid state players. but they cost as much if not more than the hard drive ones. that kind of media is too expensive.
I saw a guy who had a Rio jacked up to 1 Gig. It cost him quite a bit to do it but what he liked best about it was it was totally shock proof and pretty much water proof. I must admit that it was the only player that I have seen so far that was at all tempting out side of Apples; mainly because of the toughness factor. That said, I really like being able to take my entire music collection with me wherever I go. I still have not even made up my mind whether I will get a mini when they come available in Japan. They are way cool though.
I have some first hand experience with the toughness of an iPod – I accidentally submerged my first generation 5 GB iPod into lakewater, and thought I had destroyed it. I could totally see lots of water behind the screen – it was heartbreaking. Anyway, after letting it dry out for a few days, I connected it to my computer and it booted right up! It was fine. Still works (with a great battery life I might add). I have since purchased a 40 GB model, but have yet to try any “water tests” on it…
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[I]According to Farish, ‘We don’t want to support ITunes at this time.'”[/I]
I vaguely remember something my grandmother used to say about making a virtue out of a neccesity.
This is about as believable a statement as the biggest nerd in school saying that he doesn’t want to take the head cheerleader to the senior prom.
The 256MB model is $150 bucks. I’ll wait until next week when they’re being dumped for $60. Then I’ll buy one and rip the 256MB card out of it. Cheap pocket storage.
Anybody priced AAA batteries lately. If you are a regular consistent user, in around a year you are gonna be at the cost of an iPod mini just in battery price added. Had a digital camera with 4 AA’s…could never rely or predict just when it was gonna die and the titanium E’s were the only thing that lasted at the cost of my individual toes. Wait the six weeks and get a mini.
2 comments..
first.. i love how they call it THE NEW NAPSTER..
cuz.. of course,.. the napster brand is associated with file sharing..
OOPS..
2. disdain that which you cannot have.. law of power..