Customer Reviews

Samsung YH-920 Super Thin MP3/WMA Player (FM Tuner, Voice/Line-in Recording

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

So, reading over the other reviews, I noticed a bunch of people had incorrect bad comments about this mp3 player. So, let me clear them up.

1. You must sign up for napster in order to use it.

No, you can use the napster software without being a member. The only thing is that every time you start napster, it asks you to join, but you just say no, and then you can use the software. And it is very simple to use and to transfer. I have a membership with another download site, and it is very easy to transfer those files into napster, and then transfer them onto the player.

2. It doesn't plug directly into the computer.

Mine does. It has a spot on the bottom where you can plug the USB wire right into the player, so you don't need the docking station. But I personally have never even had to do that. The docking station is one of the reasons why I chose this over the Ipod Mini (and also becasue it has 15 gigs more for the same price). The docking station is awesome. I always leave it connected to an outlet and the computer, and then any time I need to transfer or charge it, I just stick it on the dock, and it's automatically connected and charging.

3. As for the sound, to me, it sounds exactly like a cd player. Maybe if you want better than cd quality, it's not great, but it's definately as good as cds.

4. Also, as far as transferring music, I have only had a problem with a few songs, and I do believe that was a problem with napster, not the player. Napster didn't recognize the songs, so they didn't transfer to the player. But also, sometimes when they would show up as having 0 time in Napster, it would show up again on the player when I transferred it. But again, I have 460 songs on the player, and this happened with maybe ten songs. So, not really a big thing. 99% of the songs transfer great. And with napster, ripping from cds is really easy as well.

5. As far as organizing the music, the only thing I don't like is that you cannot alter the music straight on the player. In order to edit the song data, or delete a song, you have to change it on Napster, delete it from the player, and re-transfer it. But this only takes a few econds, so it's not that big of a deal.

6. One other thing, is that I have heard that their is no way of saving your place on an Audible. I have two books on their now, but I haven't started reading them. I do think this will be annoying, especially since one book is 14 hours, in two parts which are 7 hours each. I will update after I use them, and let you know how it goes.

Overall, I think that this player is awesome, especially for the price. I got it at Best Buy on sale, for $199. Although now Best Buy is selling the exact same player for $279, and calling it the yh-920gs. I can't figure out what the gs is, or what the difference is. Even samsung.com came up with no search results for yh-920gs.

I highly recommend this player for the price.

after extensive research, i've found this player to be the best all around. first, the unit has a nice lil bundle package: comes with a remote, dock, carrying case.... pretty nice. as for the price, you can save yourself a LOT of money by picking this one up over the ipod. this unit is also pretty simple and modest in style, doesn't boast for too much attention, but is still stylish nonetheless. it's pretty easy to figure out, and the menu's are very simple and straight forward.
altho this is slightly thicker than the ipod, it weighs less and offers a longer battery life. (!!!)
the user manual is WORTHLESS. it's just an advertisement to CONFUSE users into thinking they only can play napster purchased songs. THIS IS NOT TRUE. i was mislead at first too, but then i realized you can import existing mp3s into either the napster library or the windows media player 9.0. like most hd mp3 players, you can't drag and drop. you need to import it then transfer to your music player. i think my only complaint is the sound. it's not bad, but i'm just very picky about this. i've listened to a great number of mp3 players, and i think the BEST in sound would have to be the CREATIVE ZEN TOUCH or nomads. after all, creative does specialize in sound cards!!! also, the creative zen touch boasts a 24 hr battery life!! if only it wasn't so BULKY. anyways, the samsung player is probably the best all-around mp3 player. if you long to be different, and don't want to jump on the ipod band wagon, this is the mp3 player for you. plus, you won't have to shell out all the extra bucks for the dock and carrying case... the remote is VERY convenient!!! (there's no lcd screen, which isn't an issue for me, but if it is for you, wait for sony to fix their "digital music player" to play mp3 format and you'll have an mp3 player w/lcd remote) as for other details, i think they were pretty much covered by the first review written by mark.

I have been using the YH-920 for a few weeks now. It has generally lived up to its billing as an mp3 player that has more features than an ipod at less cost. There are a few caveats that could be easily corrected through firmware, IF Samsung is serious about supporting this player, but I have seen no evidence that they really care to.

First, the look and feel of the player speaks of quality design and components. It is about the size of an ipod, has a large blue-lit screen and a well designed menu system that is easy to navigate. The sound quality is very good. It is clear that the Samsung engineers did a good job.

The few issues that I have come with the software and firmware. As a previous poster noted, if you enter an album directory, the songs are listed in alphabetical, not track order. However, I have noticed that if you first enter the artist directory, then the album directory, the tracks are listed properly. This should be remedied in firmware.

There is also an annoying pause between tracks. This only become noticable if you are listening to an album such as Pink Floyd's The Wall, where the tracks are all interconnected. Just expect a slight pause between tracks. This could clearly be remedied in firmware.

The main problem is with the documentation, which is essentially a Napster advertisement. I took previous posters advice and never used Napster. Windows media player dos the job just fine. Synching is pretty effortless. By the way, you CAN drag and drop songs. Just make sure that you drag and drop them to the "MUSIC" directory. The player is also easily used as a portable hardrive that is recognized by Windows without any drivers at all. However, I found that you need the Samsung drivers in order for WMP to sync properly.

Still, this is a really good value. For about $100 dollars less than a comparable ipod, you get a built in FM radio, a charger/dock, and a quality carrying case.

This could be a great player if Samsung would properly market and support it.

Samsung apparently listened to everyone who said the iPod was missing recording capabilities and FM Radio. They therefore came up with a device fairly similar in look and feel to the iPod and added those features as well as including some of the items people craved (recharging cradle, carrying case, and remote). At a cheaper price than the iPod it is very competitive.

It lacks, however, in the interface. More precisely, when choosing a band or genre it is not possible to choose the entire band or genre. The device requires that you choose an album. Of course you could make a playlist along these lines but why should you have to when the metadata is already there? Additionally, the randomization does not store a list of the played songs. What this means is that the same song can play twice in a row or within a very short period of time. Nor is it possible to go back to a song you just heard if you wish to immediately hear it again.

This is not to say its a difficult interface to use. I would offer it is actually easier to use than the iPod. With simple up, down, left, right arrows one does not have to continually move one's thumb to get to the desired item.

Other complaints include a short battery life, an LCD that is not always easy to read, an inability to scroll to the right on a song's name (in case it is really long), a lack of date and time, and the ability to only play up to 160 kKhz MP3 or WMA files (wav, flac, ogg, aac, and MP3 of greater quality are not playable on the device without first converting).

The device gives all of the basic features one might desire but nothing more. Samsung did tap into a market hungry for features and gadgets and made a device easy for them to use but failed to address some of the desires of people wanting to truly play their music in a modern fashion that essentially ignores albums.

The reason for the 4 stars is in the title. This is a first rate little device which does what it is supposed to do, does it easily and does it well. I guess I should start out by telling you that I purchased the Samsung as a replacement for a stolen ipod. The ipod is a first rate unit but I found quickly after buying it that you are limited in terms of buying music for the ipod and once you buy it it CANNOT be played on anything other than an ipod. I decided that I would cut bait quickly even though I was going to lose some music and move to a more standard player/format.

I had quite an mp3 collection on my pc which I was able to move easily onto the Samsung using the Napster software. It would have been nice to have had its own software but using Napster is easy and I like having the ability to purchase music this way, guess I was used to this format from having used iTunes previously.

The playback on this machine is very adequate and the addition of the built-in FM tuner is extremely handy and a nice benefit over the ipod. The design of the unit itself is ok, not the slick look of the ipod but it has more benefits in terms of service, standardized music files and the nice FM radio built in.

Between the additional benefits and the lower price (than ipod) the Samsung YH-920 has a lot going for it. Definitely a unit that should be considered when you're looking for a personal music player. Oh, and one more thing, the unit I picked HAD to be Audible Books compatible which is why I went with the ipod the first time. The Samsung is also Audible compatible and setting it up with Audible Books was a snap! While I'm still thinking of last minute things, I should also mention that when I setup the Napster software I found that they have more music selection than Apple's iTunes store and more of the type of music that I wanted. This was a big and delicious surprise for me!

The Samsung YH-920 was priced much lower than the Apple iPod. At $150 from ebay, it was not only less expensive than the iPod, but had more features, such as an FM Tuner. It plays both MP3 and WMA files.

I found the installation and use of the software fast and easy. I have a PC with Windows XP and everything worked very well. The only thing I don't like the Napster connection. Music can be purchased for far less at other web sites. Once the introduction 7 day Napster account is over, I'm going to cancel it. You'll still need the software to disconnect the unit from your PC, so don't uninstall it.

The 20GB capacity is great. I've had the unit only a few days and have loaded 506 tracks already, both from burned CD's and downloaded music. The unit operation is easy and the LCD screen is bright and has easy to follow directions. The Samsung.com site has a great online Flash Manual to guide you through operation.

I use Windows Media Player 10 and the loading of songs from PC to the YH-920 player is easy and fast. The User Manual recommends version 9 or above, but I believe version 10 is much better. If you can upgrade from an older version, it's best to do so before buying this unit.

I hope everyone who buys this device enjoys it as much as I have. Enjoy!

I took someones advice and just loaded the drivers and used media player 10, and it worked flawlessly. I have loaded the drivers on two computers and everything went smooth and clean. I think the sound is great when using radio shacks small headphones, and the earbuds are also very good, but I don't like earbuds personaly. I bought the player on sale after considering a ipod. This player is at least equal to the pod which I believe is 50% hype. Buy it and load the drivers only. When you insert the cd the driver option is easy to use.

I've been waiting for nearly a year for a player with YH-920's complement of features. It's Audible compatible and so holds many of the Audible books I'm listening to. It records through a microphone and a line-in and I plan to use this for recording lectures, speeches and meetings. And of course, there are all those music formats to be neatly organized in its library and the sound of music is very good with its decent set of ear-buds. Also its USB2 transfers are pretty quick.
However, I'm hoping the next Firmware release can fix some small quirks and one really big one. First, you have to make Audible connect to the YH-920 and that's something that should happen automatically. Second, the device doesn't seem to recognize its been safely disconnected through Napster but still gives a warning about unsafe disconnects from the USB after pulling it out of its docking cradle.
Finally, and I can't believe I'm the only reviewer with this problem, why can't I play an album in the track order of the original album? You navigate the library to an album and it starts playing the tracks in alphabetical order by their title. I called customer service about this and their solution was for me to edit the embedded track info and change track title to start with the track number. Yes, for each and every one of my tracks. I think new firmware can fix this problem but I would recommend perspective buyers to wait.

i got my 1st hard drive mp3 player 2 days ago (samsung 920). all my friends own an IPOD and i was not too impressed with the size and price of an IPOD specially when there are other players of the same size with better features and almost half the price. i did not want to contribute to the rising apple stocks thanx to IPOD that got apple out of a financial crisis. so i did research and decided to buy the SAMSUNG YH-920. this player really ROCKS. 1st of all this player comes with all the accessories that you have to buy seperately if you buy an IPOD (remote, case, FM tuner etc). 2nd this player comes with all the bells and whistles like FM radio, and the one i like the most is recording from FM radio. i can store data files, record my classes and still have room left for more (huge 20 gig HD space) i have always trusted SAMSUNG products and have owned several SAMSUNG cellphones. the size of this MP3 player is exactly the same as an IPOD and actually it is a little lighter than IPOD. it comes with a cradle and USB 2.0 and remains pretty organized on my desk. the reason i gave it a 4 star rating is because it come with a 2 month membership for NAPSTER which is almost a ripoff, they tell you that you can download all the music you want during the free trial but when you install napster, you actually have to pay 0.99c for a song (10.00 $ a month just to get access to all the music? i dont think so !!) the samsung 920 took me less than 10 minits to hook up and my windows media player 10 which is what i use to manage the playlists picked it up in seconds. i converted my music in variable WMA format (approx 3MB per song) very happy with the sound quality,the headsets and original leather case. highly reccomend this product to anyone considering to buy an IPOD.

This device is awesome. It feels solid, the interface is relatively easy to use (although not as easy as browsing a hard-drive, as you are forced to Genre categories, etc). The design of the hardware is also cool. I use this for recording meetings and discussions, and it works great. One click to start a voice recording. Oh man do i want to keep this mp3 player!

But, i will be returning it. Why?

Napster is required to really make it useful.

Yes, you can use Media Player 9 to transfer songs (but not delete). You can use Media Player 10 to transfer tracks and delete tracks. But you can't organize the songs, and you cant create the playlists for the 920 and upload them. This is a problem because after retagging and renaming files and uploading multiple times, i still cannot get it to put the 34 chapters of an audio book in the right order. [if anyone else can, please post a review with details]

You can manually create playlists with the player itself, but it's a pain. Plus, only the first 10 or so characters of the title/track are shown, and so you have to rename everything before uploading so you can determine what order they're supposed to be in. And this nearly defeats the purpose of having the forced sort by artist/title/genre.
(It is important to note that these are audio book tracks ripped from a cd, not purchased through Audible, which has it's own software, that is _required_ to load their books onto the player)

I am not 100% sure of what you can do with the Napster software. It supposedly can create playlists (which would fix their stupid track order problem). Why don't I know?
Becase NO menu item or functionality will work in this software unless your "logged in" to napster! I refuse to sign up for napster (and be forced to use a credit card for a "trial" subscription, and try and get it cancelled after my "free month"). That is a little too beyond my privacy requirements.

On a side note, if you are buying this, make sure you have, or buy, another set of headphones. The ones that come with this have no low range, and the cord is barely long enough to reach from my ears to the device clipped to my belt and i can't turn my head.
And another side note, this does not have a standard USB connection so you have to use the provided charger/usb connector. (This would be annoying, but since you have to use all the proprietary software anyway, you're probably going to be doing the transferring from the same computer.)

Oh so close, yet oh so useless.