Customer Reviews

Samsung YP-K5JQB 2 GB Audio Player with Built-in Speakers (Black)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was excited when I saw the K5 (as it is called) in an ad so I looked around to see who had it in stock. Luckily Best Buy had it on sale so I went there and listened to it. Very, very impressive for small speakers.

Sure you can get more storage for about the same price as the K5 but the combination of features, especially the built-in speakers for the ability to share the music, makes it top notch.

By the way, the K5 replaced a Sandisk e250, which replaced a Nano. I am very happy with this thing. The software is also pretty awesome. Very easy to use; it organizes the music neatly. The earphones are large but comfortable and sound very good.

There are a few things I didn't like though: You can't charge it and listen to it at the same time. The screen is very susceptible to fingerprints and scratches.

First off, i kind of resisted the MP3 craze initially and up until now. I am an audio enthusiast who prefers 'real' sound through amplification and good components etc.

Well, i work out alot and basically got tired of running with CD players. I didn't want an ipod, they're ok but most of the features i would never use or wouldn't want to pay for. My choice came down to sound.

The earbuds that came with this were an absolute surprise to me, after 2 to three weeks, it sounded wonderful. However this leads to my reasoning for giving only 4 stars. After a month of listening one of the rubber casings around the earbud came off. They are not securely glued to stay on. So now they are pretty much useless, and what a great earbud. I do believe these are specifically designed optimally for this MP3 player and soundfields, 3d soundfield, live soundfield etc., that you can choose from. Case in point i bought Shure E2C earbuds..$102 and they really don't sound very good with this player. I have to play louder to get the same sound with the original earbuds, leading me to believe the originals have a higher sensitivity.

So my conclusion is, if your are looking for above average sound, quality sound i.e. great bass, low bass and clear sound(not to mention the extremely cool speaker which sounds great) this is a great buy. Please be sure to get some quality glue and glue the rubber casings for the earbuds.

I ordered this after shopping around for an MP3 player. I wanted to put all my fav. songs from all my CDs onto it so I only have to listen to the ones I like. At first, I was just going to get an Ipod Shuffle, but my son asked me why I would want to buy something that is overpriced and overhyped, when I could get a lot more for the money getting any other brand. He advised me to look for the drag and drop function making it easier to copy music to the MP3. I saw this MP3 and loved the fact that it had the pull out speaker to use either at the beach or pool without earphones. Sometimes when you are with other people, you don't want to be rude and just plug in headphones and tune them out. The headphones are great while exercising or riding a bike. I also didn't realize the radio reception only comes through with the headphones acting as an antennae. I also love that my playlist is now on my puter.

Now I'd like to start off by saying that I'm not a tech geek, so I'm coming from the point of view of a buyer is who looking for a product that is easy to set and use and has a decent amount of versatility.

This is the first MP3 player I've owned and I was anxious about dealing with formats, software, and whatever other problems seem to plague MP3 players based on reader reviews. I have a decent Dell home PC and I'm familiar with Windows Media Player, basic MP3 knowledge, iTunes and the MP4 format. I have a library of about 200 CDs that that I've ripped to my PC in MP3 format and I subscribe to a bunch of podcasts in via iTunes and my major concern was getting this media onto the player with the least amount of hassle.

Once I got the player out of the box it took about 20 minutes to get the included software installed and the player charging via the included USB cable. After another 10 minutes I had transferred enough audio files to the player to keep me busy at work for a week, so as far as the ease of use goes, this player is about a simple as you can get. The software is a little buggy. It wouldn't let me add or delete any files on the player unless Windows Media Player was shut down, which is sort of weird (it's not like I was trying to add a file that was in use or anything), and even though you can create folders to organize the audio files in the software, those folders aren't available in the actual player interface (it instead auto-organizes based solely on MP3 tags.)

As far as the interface on the player goes, as long as you have a decent working knowledge of MP3 tags you should be fine. The touch screen is pretty intuitive, though a bit too sensitive. I found myself selecting things I didn't mean to because my palm grazed the screen. There is a lock-screen function on the power button, but this too is a little awkward because if you slide it in the wrong direction you'll turn the player off. Once you get used to the screens it's really fast and easy to use, but expect to stumble a little at the start.

So far I've been getting about 9 hours of use off of one charge and without using the speaker. As far as transferring music to the player goes, it takes only seconds even for very large files, in fact it'll only take a few minutes to fill the almost 2GB capacity. The screen and casing are also very durable. I've dropped the player three times and it's yet to have any scratches or dings. It's pretty sturdy. The touch screen holds oils from your hand too well though and you'll find your self cleaning it daily.

As far as the other functions like the built in speaker, alarm clock, and AM/FM radio, I'd have to say that these all work about as well as you'd expect from a player this size, though they are very tertiary to the main function and I could easily do without them. I'll be honest, I don't come across many instances where I need to listen to the player without headphones, so the built in speaker just takes up room.

For sake of ease, this player works great out of the box, especially for a novice, but there are a bunch of useless functions and the touch screen is a bit too sensitive, not to mention that it retails for almost twice that of a Nano, so I couldn't give it more than 3 stars.

After perusing Amazon for MP3 players to buy, I decided on this refurbished 2-GB Samsung K5 for around $90. After ordering it, it arrived in about 3 days. I was so excited, that I began to charge it immediately. After disconnecting it from charging, I realized that to turn it back on, I had to hit the reset button on the back. Nowhere in the QuickStart Guide did it say you had to do that, so that's one thing you need to know about this player. We also had a very tough time trying to load the Samsung Media Player. They say that the player comes with an installation disk, but all I got was the User Manual.
We ended up sending the player back at our expense, and they sent me a new refurbished one. The same thing happened with it, too. My mom then called Dell to see if it was a problem with our computer. We spent over an hour with the Dell supervisor installing the Samsung Media Studio, installing firmware to my player, and installing a Windows Media Player upgrade. After that, I tried ripping CD's to the computer then synching the songs to the player. I found that the Samsung Media Studio was so hard to use. I went around in circles. I then called the Samsung Customer Care number. They said that using the Windows Media Player is a lot easier. I tried it and it worked beautifully. I ripped CD's to the computer, then easily synched them to my player. Now I have music on my Samsung K-5 after a lot of problems. I have to say that you might come across these same problems. If so, call your computer manufacturer and they could help you.
I also want to say that I love the player even though I had a rough start. The sound is great, even from the pull-out speakers, though the included earbuds kept falling out. I ended up buying a better pair. I really recommend this player, though the starting out process may be daunting. I haven't gotten the "up to 30 hours" of play time using the earphones, but maybe that was an exaggeration. I get about 2-3 hours for each battery segment without using the pull-out speakers; that uses a lot more battery juice. Using the great audio sound effects like bass boost or concert hall also uses more battery power. It doesn't say that in the manual, either. Using the player in "normal" operation is the best and most efficient.
The touch screen is cool, though it does hold your finger oil. I solved that by using a digital camera cleaning cloth which easily removes the fingerprints.
The FM radio is cool. I found that you can use the pull-out speakers with the radio, but you have to leave the earphones plugged in; they act as an atennae.
Over all, I say this player is a good buy even though the starting-out process may contain some problems. It has FM radio, picture uploading capability, screen savers, and more. Once you get everything worked out in the beginning, the player is a great campanion!

This is a nice little player with a lot of cool features but has a few flaws that if fixed would make this a nearly perfect player.
For only a 2GB capacity you can stuff hundreds of songs on this player (I use WMA at 192kbps) which makes for hours and hours of listening. And transferring music files to the player is fairly quick.
The FM radio feature is really nice too. Station presets let you zip through four favorites easily. The player also has a clock and alarm which allows you to program a favorite track to wake you up.
Battery life is far better than I expected. I can go two days sitting at work listening to my music and still have a bar left on the battery life indicator.
The user interface is intuitive - very easy to navigate through the menus.
Audio playback is of good quality when listening using a quality set of headphones or earbuds. The earbuds that come with the player are too heavy on the bass which makes the music muddy sounding.
The built-in speakers have a decent sound. They're probably as good as speakers you would find on a laptop PC although being set so close together there might just as well have been one.

What kept this player from being perfect? It's all in the details.
The OLED display lags behind the audio playback when viewing the bar graphics. And the alternative visualizations are not music reactive. They just march to the beat of their own drummer.
The external speakers could have been omitted or reduced to just one small speaker that would still have allowed for the alarm clock function. For the size of the unit I would have preferred more memory over the speakers.
While audio playback is of good quality this player exhibits a playback flaw that is just plain annoying. When listening to albums where the end of one track carries over to the begining of another there is a pause as the player reads the track end/start markers. A good example would be listening to Operation:Mindcrime from start to finish. What's worse is that once the next track starts the first half second of audio is cut out.
Charging the unit with the USB cable takes FOREVER and you can't use the player except for synchronizing! It would have been better if a wall adapter was included and charge times were faster.
I see no way to replace the battery pack (someone correct me if I'm wrong) which means that when the batteries start to lose their ability to keep a charge the unit itself becomes trash. That's just totally unacceptable.

I love this mp3 player. My sister has the 30g Ipod and she is thinking about getting this Samsung. The speakers are amazing. The earbuds that were included are also top of the line. I would recommend the mp3 player for someone looking for something better than the ipod.

I am a massage/physical therapist; I work with people in their homes.
I use music during the sessions and was tired of lugging around a boombox and cds.
I was looking to get an ipod and speaker dock/attachment but it turned out that to get the quality of sound I wanted, I would end up with a player that is the same size as a boombox.
While searching, I came across the K5 with built in speakers and decided to get it.
I am very pleased! Tiny & light, great sound, easy to use, good quality construction and the Samsung software is designed much better than itunes.
I got a fm trasmitter and use the K5 listen to books on my car stereo while driving. Again great sound and ease of use.

*2010 update -it just died. Player just stopped making external sound :(

I just received this MP3 player for Christmas and really like it. Being a little older, I am not engrossed with my music as when I was younger. I find myself not using the headphones that much. All of the functions work well and the preveous reviews cover these items very well. The headphones are the antenna for the FM radio so leaving these plugged in when listening to the speakers is not a big deal.

The sound with the headphones are great and the speakers are very acceptable knowing that they can not produce the sound (especially bass) of a boom box. I have used the speakers at work (on low), and at a party and working around the house. They work great for this and I enjoy them a lot. If you won't use the speakers, then there are other models with the same or more features for less money, but I really do like the speakers. My friends and co workers are impressed.

When I bought this item, I already owned an iPod Video 30 GB, and a Samsung mp3 player which was XM-Radio compatible and allowed me to play and save XM songs and programs to it. What I needed was an mp3 player that was compatible with Napster to Go, an online music service which allows you to record a large majority of the songs Napster offers to a compatible mp3 player for a low monthly price. After researching the reviews on Amazon.com of those models, I chose this one because it did not suffer from the numerous problems some of the other brands/models had (no ni-cad battery, poor battery life, poor user interface, poor design/breaks easily).

I bought a refurbished model, but you never would have known that it was used because there was not a scratch on it. I managed to drop it onto my floor within the first two minutes I had it, but it didn't cause any damage. The player is built solidly, and has no external moving parts other than the power/Hold switch. The screen of the player is smooth and colored black, kind of like those smooth black cooktops. The player functions are controlled through the touch screen, which is incredibly sensitive and reacts to the lightest touch. For this reason, it's good that there is a Hold/lock switch so that you can keep from inadvertently changing the settings while listening to the player. I would also recommend buying a plastic screen protector to keep it from getting scratched. The bonus part of it having the smooth touch screen is that there are no potentially breakable buttons, gaps to get gummed up, or switches to give out after any significant use.

There were no special frills, other than the external speaker, which works very well. It is loud enough for others in the room to hear it, and has good clarity. I have not heard a "tinny" sound that some other people have described. Although it isn't the same as listening to music through a nice speaker system, it will do adequately if you don't have that available to you. Also, you always have the option of using your headphones.

The interface on the player is easy to use, and you will quickly be able to locate all of your music on it by searching by artist, track name, album, or music genre. You can even develop your own playlists.

My player was easily compatible with Napster, and I didn't even bother installing the Samsung interface, because I didn't plan on using it. Songs were transferred to it through a simple drag and drop interface. The only issues I had involved Napster's software, but this was easily cleared with the help of customer support. The player has not had any problems.

The only negative is that there are not a lot of options available for you to choose the type of output sound you are looking for, like you would do to control your treble and bass with an equalizer. They have five options (Normal, Vocal, Bass Boost, 3D Sound, Concert Hall), and at least one of these will probably work out okay with the kind of music that you are playing. Also, if you choose an artist and are listening to their songs, and shut the player off, when turned back on it will revert to playing songs in alphabetical order by all artists on your player. It doesn't remember that you were listening to that artist.

Overall, this is a nice little player if you aren't paying a fortune for it. I think that there may be some better choices if you are looking to spend a significant amount of money. However, for me, I got the player and an extended warranty for a very low price, and the refurbished item works better than some brand new electronics items I have purchased. The player is compatible with several online music sources (Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music, Napster), and it consistently works without complaining. This is a good buy! I highly recommend it!