Samsung has released a competitively priced dedicated MP3 player for the portable digital audio market, the small and light Mini YEPP YP-20S MP3 player. Unfortunately the company had to cut some corners to get there. With only 32M of built-in memory, music storage is seriously limited, and there's no way to add more memory later on. The sound quality's not the best, but this cheap and well-designed player still has a lot of appeal.
Pocket watch of the future
While most MP3 players look like high-tech transistor radios, the Samsung Mini YEPP YP-20S's design is more suggestive of a futuristic pocket watch. The circular, easy-to-read LCD on the face of the unit even shows the date and time when it's not playing music, a very handy feature that we'd like to see on more players. Shaped like an egg and measuring 4.3 by 6.9 by 2.3 centimetres, the Mini YEPP fits very comfortably in the palm of your hand. The unit is so small and light (32 grams without the AAA battery) that it slips almost unnoticed into your pocket and comes with a metal chain and an alligator clip for keeping it secure. The layout of the unit's four buttons makes it easy to control, though we wish it didn't take two button presses to change the volume.
Unfortunately, the Mini YEPP didn't deliver the sound quality to match its innovative design. Listening to the Gipsy Kings with the included headphones, the guitar riffs seemed to be muted, as if higher frequencies were clipped. Using a different pair of headphones, experimenting with the pre-set equaliser settings, or switching to other styles of music did little to improve the sound quality.
Inexspensive but non-expandable
Samsung reaches the AU$299 price point by including only 32M of flash memory. That's not enough to store a full album of CD-quality MP3s, and the player doesn't support the WMA (Windows Media Audio) file format, which lets you cram extra music onto a player without sacrificing too much audio quality. We could forgive both flaws if you could just plug in an extra memory card, but as it is, there's no way to expand the Mini YEPP's capacity. You're stuck at 32M forever.
The unit connects to your PC or Mac via the USB port and doesn't impose any copyright restrictions on which MP3 files you can use (unlike other tiny players that we've tested from big-name consumer electronics manufacturers such as Panasonic). The customised RealJukebox audio manager software used for transferring files and ripping CDs to the Mini YEPP offers some nice extras. For instance, if you have a CD-R/RW drive, the software allows you to burn CDs based on your music play lists.
If you're looking for a small, inexpensive MP3 player, the Mini YEPP is worth considering, especially if you aren't too picky about sound quality. But we can't confidently recommend any player limited to 32M of memory. Instead, take a look at MPZOO DAP MP3, which is a similar size but offers expandability at a better price.
Samsung Mini YEPP YP-20S
Company: Samsung
Price: AU$299
Distributor: Smasung Australia
Phone: (02) 9763 9700
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