Customer Reviews

Samsung YP-T7Z 1 GB Digital Audio Player

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

[[ Pro ]]
WINDOWS COMPATIBLE: If you are using Windows XP, you can plug the player in using the USB cable and instantly begin to drag and drop the files. There's no need to install anything.

HOW IT LOOKS: As other reviewers have mentioned, the YP-T7Z is tiny and light. The display screen is about 1/2 the size of the player, and the player itself is about the size of a large eraser, in other words, it's adorable.

SPACE: 1 GB, it can double as a flash drive. This is excellent if you want to transfer movie files from 1 computer to another. Currently I have 226 songs saved, with 70MB to spare.

FUNCTIONS: Impressive. This player is packed to the brim with functions. There's FM radio, voice recording, playlist creation, text viewer, and image viewer. The player also doubles as a calendar/clock--just like today's cellphones. Under "setting >> display >> languages," you can select to view the player in a range of languages, including chinese (S and T), French, German...even Hungarian. This is a really cool function if you want to show the player to your grandmother, who can only read Chinese.

For a college student like me, the "voice recording" function is particularly useful (when I'm not listening to music or the radio). In my experiments, I was able to pick up perfect voice recordings from 1 end of the house to the other. The voice quality was also pure--no static/weird sounds.

FM radio is excellent. When I set the frequency to "high," it picked up many stations around my city that I didn't even know existed. It has 20 presets, which is more than enough for most people, I imagine.

SOUND: Awesome sound quality, especially if you have a good headphone.

NAVIGATION: Very very easy.

TRANSFER: On USB 2.0, the songs transfer almost instantly. So fast. On a slower USB (like the one on my laptop), a full album takes about 2 minutes.

EARBUDS: The earbuds are ligh gray (setting them apart from the white iPods) and are fairly comfortable after putting on the black sleeve/thingy.

BELT STRAP/NECK STRAP: the belt strap is clear plastic, and goes on securely over pants. The neck strap is pretty ugly though (it's a wire wrapped in a clear plastic).

[[ CON ]]

BATTERY LIFE: 10 hours (or so they claim). It feels more like 8 hours to me, but don't quote me on that. I'm having to charge the batter every 2-3 days which is a minor inconvenience. It takes me about 3 hours to fully recharge the battery, which is also a minor annoyance.

PRICE: This player is a bit pricey for a 1G device, so shop around the internet for the best price.

[[ SUMMARY ]]

I love my little Samsung. It's ingeniously constructed, pretty, and powerful. I would recommend the YP-T7Z to anyone who's looking for an alternative to the ubiquitous iPod.

[[ EDIT as of Dec. 24, 2005 ]]
I've had this player for close to year now, and it's working fine. The earphones broke, so I got a new pair. Now I realize that you can get even better sound quality out of the player if you have a good pair of earphones. Once, when I accidently dropped it, the screen froze. I resolved this problem by pressing the "reset" problem. I recently took the player to China, and found that I had no trouble charging it using the Chinese electrical voltage.

I was 100% satisfied with this player -- the features are awesome. After 2 months, however, the unit started to freeze immediately after starting up. I tried everything - letting the battery drain, resetting the unit 20+ times, etc, and it constantly froze up when I started it up. All my computers said "USB Device not recognized" when I plugged it into them. Nothing played, and the clock on it stated the current time it started up, and it froze there. I was ready to go to Samsung for an RMA...

...when my wife did something I didn't think of doing. She reset the unit, so, it was powered down. She then plugged it it into her laptop without turning it on at all, and wala! She could see ALL the MP3s on the unit! After she erased all of the MP3s from it, she put back on one, and boom! the thing powers up and works beautifully!

Puzzled, I was to the point where I assumed that one (or more) of the MP3s that were copied to the unit were causing the freezeup. We went through all the MP3s, and got rid of ALL the MP3s with bitrates that weren't 128kbps, 160kbps, or 192kbps (I read somewhere that this player didnt do anything over 192kbps, not sure if thats true). We loaded the unit back up after ensuring they were all one of the 3 "standard" bitrates, and it works beautifully!

I seriously hope this information may help others of you who have this same problem. I have a feeling its just one of your MP3s thats corrupted / or an incorrect bitrate that this player might not support.

If it weren't for this odd issue it would have definitely got 5 stars from me!!!!

I purchased this player a little over a week ago. Here are my observations and thoughts so far:

1) Size: The size of this thing is amazing, so tiny. You can't even tell if it is in your pocket.

2) FM: I have used this several times in the gym, they have the mini transmitters so you can watch and listen to the TV. It works great and helps pass the time.

3) FM Record: Works great, haven't used it since when I was first playing around, but the record quality is good.

4) Line Record: Works pretty much like the FM Record, sounds great, works like a charm.

5) Color Display: HUGE plus. It looks cool, the menus take a bit to learn, but after about 20 minutes of messing around it becomes 2nd nature. I haven't used it for picts yet, but given the small size, it will probably be more of a "wallet" shot kinda things, (picts of the family etc).

6) MP3: plays most file formats I can think of...the burn software inclued works well.

7) Sound: Using the earphones provided, the sound is very good. I have yet to hook it up to the stereo, but given the sound quality so far I am sure it is excellent. The EQ features all work great, lots of stuff to mess around with.

8) Battery: I have had my player for a week, so far I have not even seen a decrease in the power bar. My use so far includes:
- 3 trips to the gym (45 min each time)
- 2 flight SEA-LAX (about 1.5 hours use each way)
- office and home use about 4 hours
- Loaded about 500mb from the USB
- Recorded 2 songs via Line record
- Recorded 1 song on FM

9) Battery part II: I was concerned about the built-in battery and almost purchased another unit with a AA due to that fact. However, given my experiance so far, the battery life has been excellent. I also did some homework on the Samsung website. You can order a replacement battery for about 50 bucks. If you are in any way mechanically inclided I am sure that it is not complicated to replace it. If the battery craps out in the near future I will probably go that route. But given the way technology goes, by that time I may want a new player. :)

I have no regrets in purchasing the player. The one thing I wish they had included would have been an integrated USB port (ala Shuffle). While it would have doubled the size, it still would have been nice. I did have a chance to look at the shuffle and it doesn't compare. Just that one feature.

Enjoy!

I picked up a refurb for $83 on eBay. Great little player. One really nice feature is you can fast forward and rewind mp3's, which is great if you're listening to an audiobook in that format. MP3 and FM radio sounds really nice through a pair of computer speakers. I imagine it would sound even better through a full size stereo. You get exceptional quality sound through a pair of high quality headphones. The earbuds included are ok but they're not form fitting, so they fall out real easy. I listened through a pair of BOSE with noise cancellation and it was amazing, the difference in the quality compared to my Trisonic dollar store clip ons. It's also a portable drive and a voice recorder. You could really go stealth with the voice recorder, being it's so small. You can even look at pics on it. I highly recommend. Samsung has really stepped up the quality of their electronics over the past couple years and I have not had a problem yet with this unit.

I purchased this item from Amazon 1 month ago. Based on the reviews I chose this player over iPod because of the voice recording capabilities and built in radio.
Pros:
Sound, and I mean sound is excellent. I am still amazed after 1 month with the quality of sound and with the options to customize it. I like the Wow and customizable equalizer. I am also very happy with the battery life. I have been using it about 2 hours a day listening to music and went 2 weeks on one charge. I prefer internal battery over AAA, and there is an option to buy new battery after couple of years if this wears out. Charging is very fast on the included charger. Voice recording is very nice and since it records in MP3 I can record many hours of lectures. The radio is also a plus if you get tired of music and want to listen to news etc. It works very nicely. The setup is almost non-existent. If you have Windows XP, just plug it in out of the box, no software needed. Windows recognizes it as a flash drive and you are ready to drag-drop folders with your music into the player. The transfer rate is so fast that I don't think the Samsung 1GB vs iPod nano 2GB makes much difference since it takes few seconds to replace music you want on it (no sweat). It plays both, WMA and MP3 as well as other formats which I don't use.

Cons:
The ear buds are not very good and I purchased new Sony MDR-E828LP Fontopia Earbuds with it right away. As mentioned by others, the neck strap holder in the player moves a little and some people may think it's annoying. I find it non-obtrusive, since if you have it in you pocket it doesn't move and if you jog, you have head phones and you don't hear it. Don't buy it for viewing text or pictures because the player is a size of a matchbox and screen on it is small. I never use these features.

Why I purchased this player over iPod? Loaded with features (voice recording, FM). Plays many music formats. Feels more sturdy then iPod nano, which gets scratched and screen breaks a lot. iPod nano is very thin, and I was afraid it will break in my pocket if I accidentally sit down on it (Heard it happen to other people). Price is cheaper and I can use it as a flash drive with any music software or music formats (plays for sure logo).

Highly recommend for those who don't need to have all their music collection with them on the player at all times.

I just bought this little guy and I love it!

APPEARANCE:
The silver metal casing is great, durable, definitely better than plastic. The color screen is a huge plus, not necessary, but it definitely makes the overall appearance much more appealing. Displays 65K colors and is 1-1/4in in size. Buttons located on side of player are easy to use. One very minor drawback I feel is the small retractable clasp on top of the player for which a neckstrap can be attached. When no strap is attached, the clasp retracts, rattles around and is very annoying.

MENU/FOLDERS:
Very easy to view and understand. Folders consist of Now Playing, Navigation, FM Radio, Playlist, Image Viewer, Text Viewer, Settings, Exit.

NAVIGATION:
Though the navigation takes a little while to get accustom to, just spend a few minutes playing around and you'll figure it out. The only minor drawback is the navigation toggle. It feels a little loose as other reviewers have mentioned, and it tends to misguide you sometimes. An example might be I want to increase the volume, though when I push the toggle up it sometimes might accept the right or left toggle action, thus changing the music track. Again, you just need to play with it a little to get the movement down. If you have large thumbs....good luck!

BATTERY:
Lithium based; Charge time roughly 2 hrs; Playtime is around
8-10 hours.

OTHER COOL FEATURES:
Equalizer with SRS and WOW capabilities; voice recorder-great sound quality; FM radio with preset options; Picture viewer-view jpeg images; Text viewer-read .txt files, Doubles as a Flash storage device; Screensaver-displays time and date; Etc.

DOWNLOADING & USB CAPABILITIES:
Too cool! This player is designed to work flawlessly with newer versions of Microsoft Windows Media Player. Simply click and drag your music files from your desktop to the player via the USB 2.0 adaptor and you're done...no software needed! Though the Samsung YP-T7Z does come with software to adjust images, create music folders and playlists, if you have WMP you're all set. You can also connect the YP-T7Z to a CD player and it will record your CD music files into MP3 format.

Hope this was helpful!

I got this player for Christmas from my other half, I was told that I was going to get an Ipod but everyone in town was sold out. After listening to my favorite music on this unit and listening on a friends ipod nano, the nano is like breaking out the old cassette tapes. Great features, battery life, FM radio, pictures(that takes up music space, but i still have about 100MB free) The ear buds are pretty good, bit I am thinking of getting a better set. I plugged in a friends B&O headphones into it and the sound quality really shows. stay away from fruit go with samsung!!!!!!!!!!

This wonderful tiny unit has it all! I myself am not an ipod fan. Yes, they do contain more memory but lack in other areas. I needed a high quality voice recorder with decent sized memory capacity and this baby fits the bill with extras to boot. A screen to view text or pictures, FM radio with great reception, time,voice recording and a host of other features which you may need in the future, if not right away. Rechargeable inbuilt battery that can run for 9 hours. Sure beats having to constantly replace those draining AAA batteries. Its size is fantastic? Discreet - unlike the somewhat larger ipods, which the same cannot be said about. You can clip this on your trouser loop and no one will be the wiser, and no chance of losing the unit either.
I love it and cannot find a fault at this stage. This lovely audio player is all I will need for some time. I don't know why some US sellers are unhappy about the US price tag. In Australia the item costs twice as much and I still wouldn't trade it for anything else.

I really like the fully customizable equalizer to get the sound just the way I want it. I also like that you simply drag files from your WindowsXP computer to the MP3 player. No extra software needed to move music files to the player.

The battery life is only OK at max 10 hours and it takes several hours to recharge, which seems a bit odd. The little stick is a bit more loose than it should be -- sometimes you will move it up and it will think you moved it to the right, et cetera.

Still, the sound is so great, these are really minor quibbles.

Pros:
It is the one of the first players that is Certified for
MS Windows Media 10.0 play for sure, which mean it will
play all existing audio format, mp4, ogg, secure wma, asf,etc.

This is my first FLASH mp3 player. Yes it looks expensive.
but the quality is amazing, I am picky to the sound quality.
The SRS and WOW, and equalizer feature is awesome.
the charger is 120V and 240V also, good for shaver plug in all
3+ star hotels over the world. It also can slowly be charged
from any usb 2.0 port too. This unit is very small and looks sharp.
The supplied headphone is superior in quality,
not those cheap one that you need a replacement.
The screen is vivid, and it can play picture and text files too.
( I can download some notes and minutes to read )
It also have a voice recording mp3 recording, and FM stereo recording that is so nice.
Language support is wide and all songs id tag can be displayed in its own language.
The belt-clip is perfect for guys that used to wear beeper,
the necklace is preferred by the ladies.
It is a flash player so you can jump up and down without
worrying the harddrive crash like in those big harddrive based ipods.
The ipod shuffle do not even have a display, does not fit me.
The menu control is very innovative, one small menu button,
and I can browse through the menu and change setting quick
after reading the small booklet provided.
It will last for 16+ hours per charge.
I called this my silver match-box player. ( a bit more than 2")
Oh, the metal shell is made with magnesium alloy, not some plastic casing.

Cons : Be patient on the initial battery charge, it does take
me 1.5 hour. And make sure to unlock the HOLD button. A bit
expensive, but what the heck, it is a gadget, and you need to
get one that really make the ipod shuffle inferior.