Customer Reviews

Samsung P2 8 GB Touchscreen Bluetooth Portable Media Player (Black)

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Aesthetically, this is a really nice product from Samsung. The player is quite sleek, with nice rounded edges, a decent weight, and sharp piano black gloss finish. The sound quality is superb. I didn't get the same battery life the manufacturer did (they rate 30 hours, I probably average 20), but I would bet that's because I use the touchscreen interface more than their battery testers did.

As for the touchscreen, I have to admit it's pretty nice. I prefer tactile use, so I'm more of a fan of buttons than touchscreens, but Samsung has done a nice job executing this one. There are a couple of odd quirks to the touchscreen. For example, when you "swipe" the touchscreen to advance you have to swipe from right to left, which seems counterintuitive since you are advancing the progress bar from left to right. Obviously, the same is true of swiping to back up, where you swipe from left to right, even though you're going back on the progress bar.

Also, in the default menu setting, you make circular gestures on the touchscreen to advance through the menu. Neat? yes. Functional? not really. The biggest problem I had with this is that my thumb kept obscuring the icons as they moved into view. Ultimately, I found this too annoying and I disabled it in favor of a regular grid menu. Not as cool to show your friends, but much more functional.

The audio player functions are top notch. As a caveat to this, I will say that I could not get this to sync with Winamp 5.5. My Winamp crashed every time I loaded it when the P2 was plugged in. Instead, I did my syncing through Windows Media Player, and it worked fine. It synced playlists perfectly, and did a great job recognizing albums when I copied them directly like a mass storage device. The on-board player functions include a customizable EQ with quite a few presets and a clarity adjuster. There are preset visualizations including a couple of light shows (that do not track the music), album art, track info, and a spectrum analyzer.

The video player is pretty good, but I don't really like watching video on such a small screen anyway. I'm not a big fan of the fact that you have to convert through Samsung's software to get it to run, but I guess that's the case with most MP3/video players. The widescreen playback is properly formated. FM reception is satisfactory. Not sure how the eReader works since I don't have any ebooks for it, but you can see test screens of it.

This is, overall, a good MP3 player, even if it is a bit pricey. It is only $50 cheaper than the iTouch, but it also brings in an FM radio tuner and bluetooth support for up to two bluetooth devices--including a pass-thru for your cellphone to a set of bluetooth stereo headphones like the non-US release Samsung T9. Bluetooth is a great feature if you've got bluetooth headsets, speakers, or car radio. So you're getting more features than the iTouch offers. A major downside for me is the fact that it is primarily touchscreen-only (there are hard buttons on the side: on the left a lock button and a play/pause/power button; on the right, two volume buttons). Since I tend to like to keep my mp3 in my pocket, I prefer to have tactile skip buttons as well.

Samsung has made some great strides with their feature packed MP3 players. And while this one was almost perfect for me, it fell short of the mark only in the somewhat high price tag and the lack of hard skip buttons. I give them kudos, however, for having hard play/pause/power and volume buttons (FYI, play/pause and volume can also be controlled via the touchscreen).

I wanted a video player that was easy to use with UnBox and other video sites other than iTunes (I have owned a 3G 40G and own a 4G 30G video and 3G Nano 4GB). Here are my initial thoughts:
Fast charging via USB
Easy to use Samsung proprietary software for music, video and RSS feeds
Nice User Interface with Touch Screen, bright colors
File transfer from UnBox a breeze, recognized immediately, very fast file transfer vs. IPOD
Easy interface to add, update and load RSS feeds
Drag and drop computer files for music and video
Syncing is much easier than an IPOD, does not sync all of your files to obtain new files to load
Updated firmware was fast and easy (Bluetooth upgrade)
Great sound quality and form factor
Cost per MB more affordable than an IPOD
Love it so far after 1.5 hours of use; will update once I have it for a week or two.
WORTH considering, like the fact that it does not require quirky Windows Media Player
Purchased for $200, which was a bargain vs. the 4G IPOD Nano
Considered the Creative Vision and Archos; Archos was more than I needed as I just wanted to plug and play and take this on a plane. :)

Update 1/20/2007: The Unbox and Vongo video downloads work great. Vongo at $9.95 per month gives a variety of videos to download (14 day trial). Vongo does load any video that you choose from your subscription (total rental fee per month) vs. Unbox which only lets you download purchases --- no rentals for portable video devices.

I also purchased the JabraBT620s Bluetooth headset and it paired immediately. Wireless music and video. However, the P2 does not support bluetooth with FM radio. Price for the Jabra is around $38-40 from an Amazon seller, 1/2 the price vs. other websites. When on Bluetooth, you can not change the equalizer settings.

Wish this were 16GB which would hold enough music and video; Samsung is coming out with 16GB model. However, this is not a deal breaker. Just means that you have to take videos off and swap them, and that would be the case with Vongo as you can download new videos all of the time.

When I take a plane trip this coming week, I will come back and update my review. Will be using Bose Quiet Comfort 1 with this player.

Just wanted to post that if you are in the market for a portable player, you should not pass this one up. I have the 4 GB version, and I rate the sound quality 10 out of 10 with some KOSS headphones mp3 encoded at 256. The screen is bright and clear, and while the volume has to go almost to peak to push one set of my headphones it is crystal clear when I get there, and every step before it! I am impressed by the sound quality, and highly recommend it.

i really wanted to give this product five stars but it has some real bluetooth limitations. i purchased this product primarily so i could be unwired in the gym. i also purchased this product because of its high quality sound ratings. it turns out in the bluetooth mode all the sound features are turned off and the equalizer and sound enhancement does not function. Also the FM radio does not work over Bluetooth, so if you want any sound enhancement or if you want to listen to the radio you still have to have those wired earphones/headphones around. i am using this unit with a Sony DRBT21G/B headset and all the remote control features work quite nicely. Sound is good but not as good as it could be if the equalizer was available. Bluetooth range is very good with line of sight operation out to the spec 10 meters with no problem. Except for these limitations the unit is a beautiful design and even with big fingers the touch display works well (although a bit slow on the equalizer screen when you do have wired headphones plugged in). The display is clear and bright and the menus are easy to navigate. A little nit is you have to carry another cable around as Samsung did not use a standard USB plug on the unit (probably because it is too thin). Also would have been nice to have include a mico SD slot so you could add memory.

I anticipated this device arrival for a long time, and now that I have it I am somewhat disappointed.

This review covers 16gb version, and latest European firmware (5.08).

Pros:
- Hard volume and Hold buttons. Invaluable to me at the gym.
- Bluetooth headphone connection. This was the main reason I got the player - as headphone cords always get caught in things. Bluetooth also works fairly well without audio dropouts, though I have not been able to initiate file transfers using my laptop's Broadcom Bluetooth stack (works ok with Toshiba's). If you have Broadcom BT, beware.
- Subway maps (note - I have European firmware, this feature may not be available in US devices). Definitely a helpful feature as it has maps covering all major cities (i.e. London, NY, Chicago)
- Solid sound and video quality (but neither really wow'ed me).
- Handy and intuitive touch interface, though the touch controls are not always precise.
- Great form factor.
- Excellent Radio reception with RDS (I believe RDS is not available in US firmware, but I am not sure - it is definitely there in EU firmware).
- 9-band Graphic Equalizer

Major Cons:
- No gap-less playback. Any serious MP3 player should have this as a feature, considering how easy it is to implement.
- No mp3 file info (bitrate at least???).
- Very limited accessories. I am not obsessed over this - but a decent selection of sports armbands, docking cradles, etc would be nice (oh and the wi-fi cradle that was mentioned all over the net - like on YouTube - is a fake).
- A non-standard USB port on the device. Yet another redundant cable that I need to ensure I don't loose. Ridiculous and inexcusable. Thankfully it has a standard headphone jack (unlike my Sony Walkman cellphone). And yes - I may sync up using Bluetooth instead of USB - but it is VERY slow - only useful for a few tracks. Transmitting a few albums can take a very long time.
- No DSNe enhancements over Bluetooth. I am still holding out hope that this will be remedied, but I somehow doubt it. This makes two big selling points of the device (BT and DSNe) somewhat muted.
- The Emodio software for data sync is a badly programmed joke (though I suppose it being a 'beta' is an excuse). But - at least the player is recognized by Vista just fine so I don't have to use it (except you have to at times - like uploading themes).
- Radio does not work when using BT headphones. I understand the reasons for it, but do not completely accept them. Can't I just plug in regular headphones to act as antenna, while using BT to listen to the radio?

Minor cons:
- Use of bad english grammar (just check out emodio website). This isn't an issue with a tiny company, but for a huge company like Samsung - a worldwide player - it is inexcusable - especially for a top price charged for this device.
- No bookmarking for MP3's - so listening to mp3-based audiobooks is total pain. Bookmarking is however available for videos and text.
- Video conversion is not very good (just try to dump one of TiVo To Go files to your player - good luck). Thankfully this isn't why I bought it. It can be done by the way though you will have to look for alternative software.
- Theme and skins support is very rudimentary and not impressive at all (whole 3 fonts available for selection and no size options, for example).
- Wasted 'Home' screen - it does not have any details on what's playing, BT or battery status. Considering amount of empty space there, this is inexcusable. Only a basic clock is available.
- Support for only wav and mp3 audio formats (no Flac for example).
- No song ranking or tracking how often a song is played which would be quiet useful if I want to hear least played or most often played, etc.
- Five playlists are available for assignment on the fly but there is no way to create more while the player is detached from the PC.
- No support for m3u playlist files.

Useless Features:
- Cellphone bluetooth sync. Well - to me at least. Since I use the device primarily over BT, this function is unnecessary. I suppose for wired headphone users this will be handy.
- Text reader. It seems Samsung put more thought into text reader than they did into MP3 support. This obviously cannot be used for any prolonged reading - maybe for a rare occasion its ok. It definitely works though.
- Cosmos interface. What is the use of showing the menu few buttons at a time - it sure is cool when you just unpack the player - but this gets old very very fast.

So bottom line is that this is an OK player, but it is not a serious contender - with only a few basic features for its primary use (listening to music), and seems like the 'sleek' factor and bluetooth is really the main selling point. It is to me of course - getting rid of the wires at the gym is great - but if you like plenty of control and tweaking, this device may not be for you as it is fairly simplistic.

This is one of the best media players I have had the pleasure of using. The screen is sharp and can be adjusted for indoor or outdoor lighting, the touchscreen is very intuitive and the thing is rigid - Anyone who's owned the old bar-style Nokias knows how rough those things are, and I've been though 3 of them. This player comes out of mosh pits smelling like roses.

The whole thing screams open - open bluetooth stack (with the firmware update), drag-n-drop music loading and the Samsung Media Studio that comes with it, while I'm not really fond of, has one of the simplest CD rippers ever. They even give you the choice of leaving that sound level guard for your hearing off, for those of us who remember personal responsibility (and live next to amps).

I was a bit skeptical of the whole DNSe thing they keep touting at first, but I cranked all the settings to max and everything sounds deeper and wider. The equalizer only has 10 levels for each bar, but fiddle with it for a few minutes and you get used to it. It's still a damn sight better than any other media player, but I'd expect nothing less from Samsung.

The touch screen is VERY sensitive. turn it face out if you're not doing anything particularly violent, because in my experience it will brush against my leg and I'll hear songs skipping around and stopping and the volume wavering. Also, Hell will freeze over the day I understand the point of music visualizations, as there are 3 visuals, and album art display, and tag viewer to choose from while listening.

One last thing: it doesn't play .avi videos. That's what I usually encode in, and the Samsung Media Studio crashes whenever anything divx encoded is re-encoded to mpg. So, no watching shows whilst on lunch at work, oh well. Why there's a radio I'll never know, but being able to record what you hear on said radio is tres-cool. I'll never have to sing akwardly to get one of my friends to help identify a song again.

It does what I want' has a no-nonsense approach to getting music on and off the thing, and looks minimal-chic doing it.

I give it a 9/10. I just wish it would let me assign names to call numbers , since I oft link it to my phone on walks and the like.

A beautiful shiny gadget - how could I resist... It's actually more functional than I expected.

Bluetooth pairing with both Sony DR-BT50 and Lubix headphones was a breeze. This tech is obviously maturing to the point of usability.

It's probably a good idea to switch to the Matrix user interface, though; the sleek 3D menu turns out to be annoying with longer use.

Ogg Vorbis support has been steadily improving with firmware releases. I'm very pleased with Samsung's approach of refining a good product into a great one through upgrades.

For Linux users, you will want to change mode to UMS - at this point it's the best player I've seen with its Ogg Vorbis support and good quality audio.

What I'd like to see: keep up the good work on firmwares, and please don't remove the switchability between MTP and UMS just because you can. Both have their strengths.

I don't pretend to be an expert on portable DAPs. This is only my second one (up from a Palm Zire 72 with PocketTunes).

Screen is sharp and bright. Audio quality with the included earbuds is right on par with my Logitech X-530 surround speakers (even with 128kbps MP3s). The 7-band EQ really makes a difference when properly tuned (use a preset from WinAmp or Windows Media Player as a guide). The interface is smooth and responsive, and it works great as a bluetooth headset with my phone (Motorola V195). Can even use it with a bluetooth enabled PC and Skype. Red vs Blue videos look good too.

Words of advise: Windows Media Player is a better option for syncing music, and drag WMVs directly to the device using Windows Explorer (works better). Install the included application anyways for datacasts. Get the firmware update ASAP (samsung.com).

I have had this MP3 player for about a month now and I can honestly say it is the best MP3 player I have owned. In the past, I have owned several MP3 players including various IPOD's and a Gigabeat. This device, so far, has lived up to the marketing. The music sounds great, the blueooth connection for headphones works great, and the resolution of the screen is fantastic. I use RealPlayer to transfer music and have had no problems. ALL my music is transferable unlike the IPOD. The battery life is exceptional; I have gone days without recharging while using almost every day.
There are only two issues that I have with the device and they are minor. First, it takes a while to get used to the touch screen. At times it can be sensitive and if you have large fingers, you might find it difficult to navigate through some of the screens. Once you get used to the sensitivitiy though, you will have no problems. Since it is a touch screen, I find myself cleaning the panel more frequently due to finger smudges. That is the only other issue I really have.
Overall, I am extremely happy and think this is a better device than any current IPOD. I doesn't have a chance against the IPOD due the heavy marketing and history the IPOD has, but if you want an alternative, there is no better choice.

Bottom line, I just love this player. Glad I got the 8GB version.

I love the swipe advance, the increment is selectable, and it is a player which has gotten fast forward right for people who listen to audio books or long radio recordings. A++ And the audio screen display is changeable and very nice.

I can read my books on it as it accepts .txt files. Font size is scalable, the screen aspect is rotatable, so you can set it up as you like it.

I can use the Samsung software to upload videos, which are converted to .svi files. Takes a bit of time to convert .avi files to .svi, but by no means unreasonable, considering what is being done. I like the fact that it compresses a 700MB movie to 300MB, so even though the movie looks clear and sharp, it takes less Flash space, so this is a realy good thing to convert to .SVI

The other cool thing is it does not FORCE you to use the Samsung media manager. you can still just send your music to the player via windows explorer if you want. You can use it like a huge flash drive.

Audio is just great, pictures look great.

Haven't used bluetooth much, but other reviews cover that.

Updated the firmware recently, and they put some games onto the thing. It just keeps getting better.

Congratulations to Samsung on getting something just about perfect. I think I'll send them an email too.