Customer Reviews

Samsung Mini Yepp 64 MB MP3 Player YP-20S

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Bottom line: Great product for the money and the workout person.

If you workout, like being outside, or anywhere that you would like to have your own personal music playing without looking like some kid from the 80's with a giant walkman strapped to themselves, then this is the product for you.
First off I want to be straight forward with the downsides to this product. The battery will not last long, unless you use Nihm batteries or if you do not run your Yepp at full volume. The programing that comes with the Yepp leaves some to be desired in music organization, but not much worse (or better) then say Windows media player or Real One. The last downfall is the limited controls.
After all those listed short commings of the Mini-Yepp why on earth would I give it 4 stars. Simple because I would give it 5 stars except for those three down falls each easily over come.
First of all think about what you are wanting to buy. This is not a multi-gig player for thosse long trips. This is a COMPACT SUPER LIGHT WEIGHT short term player. YOu can extend battery life by using Nihm batteries and not trying to blast the volume all the time.
The programing is simple but just takes time to set up play lists and search for files. The easiest way is to organize the files on your hard drive and add them via the program by searching your hard drive, rather than your data base (unless you have a very good preset up data base, like name, artist, and all that jazz).
The last problem being the limited controls only matters when you have time to play with them. For the most part this product is aimed at the on the go person who doesnt have time to program in different sound levels and playlists all the time.
The great things about this player is it's fast uploading, decent memory (64), size, adn weight. I personally use this for when ever I am working out, doing Kata (Karate dance), biking or hiking outdoors, and many more.
So if you want a great product to serve your 1hr to 2hr workout or what ever this is a great subtle MP3 player. I would suggest this product over most of the other small players, unless you are looking for the super hitech, long travel MP3 player.

Pros:
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* This player is extremely light. This makes it fantastic for exercising. This is by far its best feature.
* Fast USB connection.
* Good LCD for a player this small.
* Battery indicator is fairly accurate.
* Sounds great at 128, good at 96, terrible at 64 bit rate.
* Handles Variable Bit Rate (VBR) which will save you some space and still have superior sound.
* EQ fairly good.
* Battery connections seem to be no noncorrosive -- so far no sign of corrosion from sweat on battery connections.

Cons:
=====

* No holder to snap onto your belt or shorts. Easily solved -- the player is about the same size as a beeper so use a beeper holder.
* Even at max volume not loud enough.
* The headphone cord is somewhat long for jogging.
* The battery runs out quickly. About 45min for a normal. rechargable AAA, about 3Hrs 45min with a brand new Duracel. This is at full volume.
* No memory expansion possible.
* Software included is ok but not great.

Update on 1/25/02 -- Solution for battery!
==========================================

I have now been using this player for quite some time. I have dropped it twice on a concrete floor in the garage and it survived it without problems -- maybe got lucky but seems to hold up well.

Apple's iPod is definitely the coolest player out there but all that weight and size makes it no competition for this player in terms of serious exercising like running a marathon and at a 1/3 the cost. It is so light and easily concealed I am still impressed with it. With 64MB you can fit about 80min on it long enough for most runs.

The big issue if you have read most of he reviews is the drainage of batteries. It is true it does drain a regular alkaline AAA pretty quickly BUT this is easily solved.

For [a reasonable price] you can get 4 rechargeable AAA NiMH batteries. Good for a little less than 16 hours of music!

So one battery lasts almost 4 hours and they can be recharged between a 100 and 1000 times so I think it boils down to like 1 or 2 cents of battery cost per hour.

NiMH have no memory effect which is important -- note the NiMH is important (don't go with NiCad they don't last long and most have a memory effect).

I think these NIMH batteries are better than brand new alkalines....

Sounds technical but really easy solution.

This is the best mp3 player on the market now. It offers great portability, it is very easy and intuitive to use. The display is crisp and clear and easy to read. The shape of the player makes it comfortable and its weight - it is only 1 ounce! - makes it easy to attach to your belt which I think is one of its greatest advantages. The memory is twice that the previous model has and is enough for 1 hour and a half of music. I use this player instead of my heavy and bulky CD player while I jog in the GYM because it is skip proof and extremely light.

If you are looking for an MP3 player to use at the gym, this player is perfect. It's tiny, light, and the sound quality is excellent. But I do have a few complaints:

1. The unit can never be completely turned off. This is a pain if you don't plan to use it all the time. Also, the manual claims it will last 30 days in "clock mode" (off,) but mine only lasted for about 5 days.

2. The program the player comes with only allows you to rip 50 songs off of your CD collection before you have to PAY FOR AN ONLINE UPGRADE!!

3. As all earlier reviews have mentioned, the battery life is terrible. I would suggest buying some rechargeable batteries and a charger, or you'll end up spendind a lot on batteries.

This is my first MP3 player, and despite these drawbacks, I am very satisfied. It is great for the gym, because it's light, small and never skips.

A few facts you should be aware of before you even think of buying this product or any of it's various incarnations:
1.) YOU CANNOT TURN IT OFF. If you want to turn it off you have to take out the 1 AAA battery which you will be doing a lot anyways since the battery burns out after about 1.5 hours of play. (Including SONY, Duracell and Energizer's best batteries.)

2.) The software that is ships with only lets you rip (convert to MP3) a limited number of songs and THEN YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR AN "UPGRADE" to convert any more of your own CDs. But don't worry about that if you have a MAC because the Mac software doesn't let you convert any of your CDs at all.

3.) DID I MENTION HOW IT GOES THROUGH BATTERIES? This thing could have 6 GB of memory and it wouldn't matter because you are only going to get about 1.5 hours at a time (that's if you take the battery out when you are not using it)

...Not only was I told that this thing lasted for hours (note more than 1) but they neglected to mention the "upgrade" you needed to use their (unusable) software or the fact that you will burn out your batteries because YOU CAN"T TURN IT OFF.

I bought this expecting not a lot of memory but consistent performance and basic functionality. Instead I will end up spending more in batteries than I probably would have with a better player.

The best MP3 player i have ever seen. Sound is great at 128kb and it is considered one of the smallest MP3 player in the world!!! My friend bought Sony instead of Samsung and now he keeps saying that he should have bought Samsung because Sony MP3 player can only be downloaded with their own file format. that means whether you have MP3,WAV, or WMA, you have to encode into sony unique files and it takes really long time to do it. Every each file should be encoded into sony preferred file. Samsung's yepp software it's so easy as 1,2,3. You just have to click one button to transfer songs into portable samsung yepp player. I heard a lot from web site about this little samsung's yepp player that its sounds quality isn't good as they expected, but that's not true. Excellent sound quality at 128kb, good at 96kb, and bad at 56kb. It also has equalizer, repeat, forward and backward, time, date, etc. Fast downloading by USB connection. I love this. If five stars is the best rating, i would give 6 stars.....

I shopped around a lot before I bought an MP3 player or CD Player to exercise with. I wanted lightweight, skip resitant (I haven't found a CD player yet that can absorb the shock/bounces during running)and able to hold at least an hour's worth of music. This fulfills them all - at 1.5 ounces it's the lightest player on the market, MP3s don't skip and 64MB holds an hour at CD quality(128 kbps) songs.

The drawback is that it goes through batteries quickly - it uses one AAA battery. I use one per week(I work out every other day) - but, I can live with that - I don't have to worry about recharging, and that is a plus. Batteries are cheap.

Contrary to the person who says the unit doesn't turn off - it does, in fact, turn off. Pause the unit, after about one minute it turns itself off(it still displays an LCD clock, but the player is off).

This is a great unit!

If you want a small mp3 player that's easy to take on the go, get this one.

As always, there are some trade-offs in getting a player that's this small. The interface is not very easy to use - it's not very intuitive how to change the play settings and use the buttons to navigate through the menus. The equalizer is ok, but not that great. There are not a lot of extra features (e.g. progamming a playlist).

This does not bother me, as I use mine at the gym and during my commute, and am not interested in having a lot of features. What I want is something that is small, that is light, and that I don't notice. For that, this is a good product.

One other thing - the software you use to load the songs onto the player is atrocious. It gets the job done, of course, but you'll fine it's not easy to learn to use, and it's not too flexible.

This is a fine purchase if it's your first MP3 but I've only had it for a couple months and I'm dying to upgrade already. The bad things...the system is horrible with battery power. You might as well invest in a battery company for all the money you spend on them. Secondly, the volume isn't all that. When you have it turned up as high as it can go, it still leaves a little to be desired when you're trying to hear your music over the noise at the gym. Another point, the memory isn't upgradable and you can never truly turn off the unit.
A good thing is its small size which is great when you're working out. I would definately shop around more first than get this one.

I travel a great deal and was looking for a tiny MP3 to take on trips and workout with. I have the 64MB model and have roughly 2 albums worth of music on it. I'm new to MP3 technology and found the software very easy and intuitive. After roughly an hour I had started copying my CD's to MP3. It does come with an armband and pouch and the only downside is that this little sucker is a battery eater (to be expected because of the size) and the earphones fall out of my ears easily. I'll likely have to get a new set if I run or ski with it. Love the price. I'm very satisfied.