Customer Reviews

Samsung YP-U2JZW 1 GB Direct Insert USB Digital Audio Player (White)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If you were thinking of buying a 512kb or 1gig flash player... maybe an iPod Shuffle... STOP and READ ON

I have been contemplating the purchase of a flash player for sometime but...

(1) I did not want to pay more than $100us
(2) I wanted a small unit like an iPod Shuffle
(3) But I wanted it to have a display
(4) Simple tactile controls for navigation
(5) Great Sound
(6) Good Battery Life
and since i'm dreaming...
(7) How about a built in Voice Recorder
and
(8) built in FM Radio

Well Beleive It or Not... the MP3 flash player Gods at Samsung have answered my prayers :)

The Samsung YP-U2J (YP-U2JZW) is all that in one nifty lil package.

With better than iPod Shuffle sound quality, I put this as my best buy so far... Bundle this lil guy with a set of top end Ear Buds or Head Phone and your all done.

It has tons of built in Sound Equalisation presets and a user adjustable parametric EQ also.

If that is all not enough... for a bit of attention grabbing Bling appeal, it also has funkly Blue Led lights that can be set to come on when a button is pressed, randomly or turned off if Bling is not your thing.

Trust me this is truly a True iPod Killer!!!

This is my very first review but i felt compelled to take a little time given how much i rely on these and love this little player.

After four years of serious mp3 player use, i've come to expect a large number of features I DONT compromise on when it comes to the perfect player:

- at least 15 hours battery life
- no proprietary cable, ideally ... no cable (ie USB plug at the end of the player)
- no proprietary software (HAS to be recognized as a flash drive, i want to drag and drop my files on any computer, period)
- quickly chargeable (couple hours max)
- radio with good reception
- dirt simple user interface
- simple, readable screen
- subscription music capable
- light weight
- good feel / buttons
- good sound (duh)

If you look carefully, that rules out zen, nano, sensa and pretty much any other player out there (except the zune ... JUST KIDDING). Given how my current player had gone through a couple near death experiences already, i was getting a little desperate. Until I stumbled upon this little guy. At a dirt cheap price, it packs it ALL, no more, no less. (Believe it or not, i DONT need to watch videos or pictures on my MUSIC player's 1 inch screen.)

A couple CONS (Nobody's perfect I guess)

- 1 GB is a little tight. Of course I just spotted a 2GB version just after buying this one (arrg), guess i'll just give this one up and buy that one instead. If they keep upgrading flash memory on this model, i'll just keep going with the upgrades.
- the drag and drop feature works but it wont necessarily recognize your folders. Instead it tries to sort by album, artist, music genre. If your mp3 wasn't created properly (with music database query to get the info) you might only find your music bundled up in a global folder.

But bottom line, you can't possibly go wrong here.

I was recently looking for something that would "do it all" but not cost an arm and a leg. This player is ideal. Samsung has done a nice job with this little guy. Let me go over all the things that I like:
1. The size is great. It's just slightly larger than a pack of gum, and usually I don't even realize it's in my pocket.
2. Believe it or not...the cap. It does light up blue which is pretty cool (and can be turned off if so desired, however, it will not just fall off. It fits very snugly and won't just fall off.
3. Its sound quality is awesome. it can totally rock your headphones without a problem. Speaking of headphones, the ones included are pretty good, as far as buds go.
4. It is backlit which is good. The screen goes almost totally black after a set time ( you can control this too) This saves batteries.
5. It charges through the USB port which means you won't have to keep buying/charging seperate batteies. And the longevity is pretty good too.
6. No extra cords, cables, etc. It's all there. Just plug it in and youre good to go.
7. It's flash memory so no moving parts which means jog proof, bike proff whatever the case may be, move around with this thing.
8. The controls are simple and clear. Anybody who has used a CD player (or even a walkman if you remember those) should be pretty good with this player.
9. you can put the buttons on hold which is nice for the activities where you will be moving.
10. how customizable the controls are. you can get pretty specific with what you want this thing to do.
11. It gets radio AND can record off of the radio, or can record voice memos etc, but i don't really use that function. And reception has been pretty good for me, so don't worry about that too much, but then again i do live in Philadelphia.
12.it CAN work as a flash drive ...now see below (read on if you need more detailed info that is not on the CD manual, otherwise just read the next review and know this thing rocks)....
I got this cause I wanted a flash drive AND an MP3 player, not one or the other. When I used it with my dell laptop, my computer knew it was there, but I could only transfer files by using WM (windows media 9.0 or 10). This sucked because once files were on the player, I could either upload more files, or delete it entirely from the players memeory. I could not transfer files back to my computer...so the flash drive aspect was blown. I then plugged this bad boy into my girlfriend's VERY similar dell laptop, and when I did, I could open it through My Computer, and see the device there and then right click to explore the memory. (This didn't happen with my computer) So I was like what the heck. Long story short, I talked to an IT super nerd who knew just what to do. Turns out, those nice little windows XP updates your computer downloads by itself, can affect the usb ports. If you have windows XP and your "My computer" doesn't see this device this is what I did and it fixed it. Go into my computer, and then click the the "add or remove programs icon" when that window opens there is a little check box towards the top you can use to check "include updates" this will now show all the updates as well as programs you can uninstall. Go towards the very bottom and look for a single update that ends in 400. if you see it there, that could be your problem. i uninstalled that bugger, and had total success afterwards. Now be warned, i use photoshop, and CAD programs, which could be affected by removing that single update, but mine weren't. (I used photoshop 7.0) So that fixed it for me, and now i can see the player under mycomputer and then i can explore it. I hope this review helps those of you frustrated that this won't work as a flash drive with your pc.

The YP-U2J will not be recognized by WMP 11, which is the latest edition of Media Player. The Instillation CD with the unit has the old WMP 10 to download in order for the unit to be recognized. If you have the new WMP 11, you have to "System Restore" to a time before you upgraded to WMP 11 then make sure you install the old WMP 10. WWW.Samsung.com has a download center for the unit software, but the new drivers for YP-U2J are not posted for downloading as of 2/27/07. These drivers are needed for WMP 11 no matter what size unit you get, .5, 1, or 2 Gig. So be Aware of this before purchasing one.

This MP3 player delivers!!

I wanted my MP3 player to digitally display the song title and artist.
I wanted excellent sound quality.
I wanted to have access to over 200 songs.

That is exactly what I received. I am very happy with this product. I bought my daughter (11 years old) one. I didn't have to spend an arm and a leg either. It is just perfect for me.

well.. this is my first review so I'll get to the point.

Pros:
*the 7 Band Graphic Equalizer rocks.
*Battery helds strongly more than 12 hours of music(much better than kip changing batteries)
*It recharges very fast... At work in about 1 hour was already recharged.
*Recorder for what I use fits perfectly.(Not the best choice for a home studio :))
*The fact you can play by artist, by album, by genre, favorites is excellent(its worth i take 10sec to fill in the tags on media player....)
*very very small. It fits side by side with another USB device just fine.
*FM looks great although I haven't used yet.
*Settings are everything you need. Nothing more, nothing less. You can set sleep time. background light and a bunch of other stuff.
*Sound quality much better than the Creative Muvo in my perspective(You may differ on that)
*Data Upload works really well.
*Won't take more than a week to get used to work the button from you pocket.
*Earplug has excellent Bass

Cons
*Although the earplug is excellent. It was so fragile that it broke within 2 weeks. But don't worry.. this things are cheap.
*It didn't came with a lanyard which is always a great thing to keep your player safe.
*in one month it only stopped once... was hanging on the load process. At the end I believe was a problem in one of my files. I just pulled everything out, formatted the player through windows and was ready to go.
*Only comes in one color. That sucks.. I had to get a white one. I'm much more of a black model person.
*Too much bass on the earplug for me. I'm using a AIWA one and is way better.
*Display is great but is very fragile. So take care of it.

Conclusion...
if you seek for a mp3 player in pen format and want some practical you got no choice but this one. Ipod Shuffle or Creative Muvo or Zen are not match for this one....

hope it helped folks.

Since lots of people have been kind enough to review my product, I figured I'd pitch in to the community and review something myself.

I think I have a slightly older model of this unit (YP-U2JZW), without the clock and the EQ presets. I've had it for about 4 months and am hooked on it.

It's about the size of a pack of gum. The sound is very good. The EQ feature is very useful for compensating for noisy environments. It can go loud; more than enough to still be heard if you're on a train or out in the street.

The battery life is amazing; by the time you get tired of all the songs you've got on it, it still has plenty of juice left. Then it recharges itself via USB while you load in a new set of tunes. I think maybe I've run the battery all the way down once, and that was by forgetting to turn it off.

The manual says that Windows Media Player is required for loading songs, which (on mine at least) is not true. If you know anything about Windows, you can just move any files you want onto it like any other drive. It plays wav, mp3, and wma files. I also use it to carry work files.

The FM receiver works well, as does the voice recorder.

The navigation is intuitive enough that you can perform basic tasks without actually looking at the thing: fast forward through songs or radio station presets, switch from the radio to your music collection, pause or restart a song, and of course adjust the volume.

There is a pretty good file directory system that allows you to browse and select the file you want to play by name or by what is in its ID tag (if your files have them), allowing you to view the songs by track name, artist, album, genre, etc., and listen to just to everything in one category. The display is small and monochrome, but readable.

I see that now they ship it with a lanyard (mine has a hole for it but didn't come with one).

There's not much I don't like about the Samsung player. A few small things.

You have to rely on an FM scan of all frequencies to create the station presets; you can't program your own preset list of stations. There may be a way to create a list like this on your PC and then transfer it, but I've never tried. Luckily all my favorite FM stations are at the bottom of the dial anyway.

Creating a playlist of favorite _files_ (as opposed to radio stations) is one of the features provided by its connection with Media Player, but I've never bothered with that.

Maybe they could add an AM radio so you can get your right-wing propaganda jollies.

Here's another thing: while navigation is quick, there's no way to speed up the info that is displayed while a song is playing. It scrolls back and forth rather slowly to show the file information. Though there are lots of settings you can change, I don't think it has this one.

It takes about 10 seconds to boot up when you turn it on. I've never owned another player, so I don't know if that's bad, good, or average.

There may be other players on the market that do the job for less, but I wouldn't know. This one is everything it claims to be. Just a few years ago this thing would have cost thousands, if the memory technology existed at all.

Enjoy your music, but watch where you're going. :)

This player is very simple and has a lot of great features. It probably deserves a 5 considering the price, but it's lacking in the recording area which is what I was most interested in.

What I like:
- Looks good
- Sounds good
- Very small and light
- Built in recorder
- Display
- Radio
- Easy to add songs
- Basic controls are easy to use; I can change songs or adjust the volume without taking it out of my pocket.
- Battery recharges when you plug it into your computer.

What I don't like:
- Recorder quality isn't great. I use it to record lectures and I can make out what the professor is saying, but not very well.
- Radio is good, but only if the signal is strong. Weaker stations are just static.
- Sometimes I have to turn the volume all the way up and it still isn't very loud.
- The fast forward/rewind doesn't go very fast. If I want to move to a certain part of a lecture I have to hold the button down for a very long time.
- For some reason whenever I pause it it turns off soon after. Maybe I can change this, I'm not sure.

What I'm indifferent about:
- The placement of the headphone jack. What's wrong with it being on the side?

This is my first MP3 player, although my daughter has the iPod shuffle, so I am familiar with that player.

Seeing how the new iPod shuffle, soon to be released, will run you the same as this player, the Samsung YP-U2JZW with 1 GB of memory is an excellent alternative!

The sound is excellent, and unlike the Shuffle, this player has a display with four lines of text! The screen is very easy to see, and the menus are very easy and intuitive to navagate.

Read over the manual for five minutes, and you'll discover some less obvious features. For example, one previous poster stated that you couldn't adjust the speed of the text as it scrolls back and forth, when info is too long to display in it's entirity on a single line. Not so... read the manual, and you'll find you can adjust it by choosing slow, normal or fast speed.

Display shows not only song title but album title, something that was missing in Sony's MP3 player which I also considered (The Sony MP3 would have cost approx. $50 more, and had only a one line display)

Easy to load your MP3's, comes with FM radio (an additional expense, if you want it with iPods), comes with voice recorder (doubt I'll really use it, but...), no cradle needed, simply plug in the built in USB connector to your computer to transfer files and/or charge...

Overall, a GREAT value, with excellent sound quality all in a small, lightweight package!

Device also seems resistant to scratchs and doesn't show up fingerprints!

Really pleased with this device.

When it works it is good. I have been using it for 2 weeks to listen to podcasts and music. The sound quality is good. I use it while running on the sidewalk (on a road with lot of traffic) and on airplanes. The volume level is high enough to hear in both of those environments. Things I did not like
(a) It does not work with WMP 11 after a couple of times (and the manual, the configuration checker on the CD and the Samsung website are all mum about this!). The PC and WMP did not recognize the product - and no reason was given. The manual is written for dummies but with out any content! Had to spend a lot of time to do research; figured out that I had to uninstall WMP 11 and go back to WMP 10. WMP11 to WMP10 on XP is not an easy task!
(b) The cap is easy to lose!