Samsung S3 4 GB Slim Portable Media Player (Black)

Other products by Samsung

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 0.4 x 1.7 x 3.7 inches ; 8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001B4RH3C
• Item model number: YP-S3JAB
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,822 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 16, 2008

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description--Posted July 7, 2008

Rock out to your favorite tunes or watch crystal-clear videos wherever life takes you on a 1.8-inch LCD. Available in five cool colors, the Samsung S3 plays audio and video as well as displays still pictures and text. It also comes with 4 GB of memory and the DNSe sound engine for a superior surround sound experience. Packed with multimedia features you can enjoy no matter where you are, the Samsung S3 makes a perfect media partner.

The Samsung S3 is the perfect media partner. Click to enlarge.

Slim, sleek, and portable. Click to enlarge.

Touch-sensitive LED controls disappear when not in use.

4 GB Internal Flash Memory
Four gigabytes of internal flash memory provides enough storage space for approximately 50 hours of music (MP3 files a 128kbps).

Touch-Sensitive LED Controls
Navigate your files using the touch controls on the S3, which light up only when in use. After a certain period of idleness, the lights dim and the controls seemingly disappear. (Don't worry, they're still there.)

Multimedia Performer
The Samsung S3 supports MP3, WMA, and Ogg audio formats. Browse your music by Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, or Playlists. The S3 displays album art and artist info for the current track.

You also can enjoy up to four hours of video on a single charge, in MPEG4 or SVI format. Convert your favorite vids with Samsung Media Studio, and take them with you. The S3 also will display text files, along with your favorite JPEG photos, so you can take a few snapshots with you to show to friends.

DNSe sound engine
Samsung's "DNSe" is a revolutionary technology, providing rich, more realistic sound effects and a true-to-life surround sound experience. DNSe lets you dial in your ideal sonic experience with 10 preset EQ settings plus one custom 7-band EQ, along with 3D and Bass settings.

FM Tuner/Recorder with Presets
Enjoy quick access to the FM spectrum--the built-in FM tuner scans the entire FM range in less than 60 seconds and automatically places the available FM stations into presets. To eliminate stations with marginal reception, you can adjust the sensitivity to preset stations only with strong receptions. Want to save something for later? Use the FM Recorder and it's yours.

What's in the Box
Samsung S3 4 GB Slim Portable Media Player (Black), SMS installation CD, EP-380 earphones, USB cable.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Little MP3 Player with High Quality Sound, November 28, 2008

By	Cypherdude (Orange, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Samsung's YP-S3 player is a great little MP3 player with high quality sound. When you purchase any stereo player of any type, there are at least 2 attributes you are concerned with: S/N or signal to noise ratio and frequency response. Samsung's S3 excels in both areas.

Samsung's S3 has a PDF manual available for download on their site and also on the included 8cm mini-CD. The manual claims a S/N ratio of 90 dB and a freq. response of 40Hz-20KHz which are excellent. With S/N, the higher the better and 90 dB is very good. Most stereo equipment never exceed 92 dB. A full freq. response would be 20Hz-20KHz which is the full range of the human ear. While many CD, DVD, and digital players are capable of playing all the way down to 20Hz, almost no home speakers are capable of outputting such a low response.

After listening to the S3 for several days, I can say Samsung delivers on their high specs. There is absolutely no machine noise or humming during music quiet spots. Also, I can hear the full range of the music, excellent. I use the "DNSe" settings which are quite good. DNSe allows you to set 3D and extra Bass effects. There is also a range of equalizer settings you may use. I use the 9 band user equalizer which is great. The specs say 7 band but it's really 9 which is better.

While the S3 delivers excellent performance, I cannot say the same for the included software: their Samsung Media Studio (SMS). SMS offers the bare minimum in features. For some reason, every time I start my Windows XP Pro SP2, SMS puts its icon on my TaskBar. I am NOT going to use SMS every single day (or even every week) so why does it load an icon on my TaskBar?! There is no option in SMS to prevent it from doing this. I am going to have to edit the Registry to remove the SMS startup entry! Also, every time I start SMS, it always attempts to connect to the Internet and there is again no option to prevent this.

Before I purchased the S3, I carefully named each of my own MP3 files I wanted to load starting from "001 Artist - Title" and on. I then discovered SMS has NO column for sorting filenames. SMS was totally worthless for loading my MP3's! Because Windows Explorer doesn't work for creating numbered folders on the S3, that's the only thing I used SMS for. I used Explorer for the actual loading process.

BTW, I called Samsung tech support and they told me the S3 would not list MP3's by filename. This is incorrect. They also said the S3 would show MP3's with no ID3 information as "Unknown." This is also incorrect. Just use "File Browser" or "Music Browser."

Samsung claims 4GB's is "enough space for 50 hours of music using 128 KBit MP3's." No one uses 128 anymore. If you do with the S3, you're going to be unhappy because the quality will be poor. Amazon sells their MP3's at 256 (they should really go to 320). Companies should really stop using the 128 KBit spec. Regardless, 4 GB's is plenty of space for even 256 KBit MP3's. As an MP3 player, the 4 GB S3 will store all your favorite songs and still have space leftover for any extra files you wish to transport to another PC.

As a video player, 4 GB is not enough space. If you wish to play video content, you should purchase the 8 GB S3: Samsung S3 8gb Mp3 Player - Black. For some reason, Amazon doesn't offer the 8 GB model. Even with 8 GB, you may not be content playing video on a small 1.8" screen. For video, you might want to opt for a different model, perhaps one of the OEM makers which offer 3" screens.

Samsung claims 25 hours battery playing time, again probably for 128 KBit MP3's. After you have gone through several recharging cycles, expect about 12 hours playing time for your 256 KBit MP3's. I haven't done this yet.

Finally, because the S3 uses Microsoft's proprietary USB MTP standard, it has some rather high PC requirements: minimum XP SP2 and WMP10. I upgraded my system to XP Pro SP2 (dual-boot system). Even after the upgrade, I was STILL unable to access the S3. I had not realized my SP2 disk only has WMP9. After wasting half an hour trying to find the problem, I realized I needed WMP11 and upgraded. Why the brand name MP3 player manufacturers don't use the universal USB UMS standard I don't know. If you use Linux, Ubuntu or other non-Window$ O/S, you will need to convert your S3 to UMS (probably voiding your warranty in the process). Visit AnythingButIpod and you'll find the Samsung BIOS and instructions.

Overall, after loading my S3, I can say this is a great little player. It costs LESS THAN HALF of iPod's. The S3 has very high sound quality and plenty of space. I have not been forced to recharge yet. Hopefully Samsung will improve their SMS software and then the package will be perfect. If you want to buy a better set of earbuds, try the JVC HA-FX66: JVC HAFX66B Air Cushion Headphones (Black).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars As others have said, it's good for the price, December 14, 2008

By	Peny Lane "musiclover" - See all my reviews

I got this after my Samsung YP-K3 went kaput after an incident while working out on the treadmill (don't ask). I've heard a lot of good stuff about this device so I decided to purchase it. First, let me just say that I'm a simple gal with a limited budget. This means that I don't have the moolah to spend 300 bucks on an iPod (I don't care how AMAZING they are), nor do I feel the need to spend money on a device that has everything under the sun. I just want something that plays music. If it has some cool features like games and cool graphics under a reasonable price, then that's fine, too. Which is basically the S3. I got the 4GB one in green. It plays music, has some videos, can read text files, and have some games. I basically use it so far for the music only. Another plus for me is the fact that there's built in space for playlists. There are 5 playlists that hold up to 100 songs, which I think is cool. I have some issues with this however. In the beginning, after I charge it, the playlists would disappear, and then reappear after I add a song to it. That doesn't happen anymore though. It also doesn't recognize playlists I made in Napster. It would go directly to the File Browser but would then split apart the playlists and file the songs under the Artist's name. However, it automatically recognizes the ones downloaded from WMP. Odd.Haven't used the other features in length so I can't really comment on those. I will say that I'm glad I purchased this device, though I'm thinking of getting the 8gb one so I could download more music. All in all, this is a good device for those who don't want to spend alot of money on something whose sole purpose is to give you the pleasure of listening to music.

E.T.A.: One thing I like to add is that I wish there were available accessories for this device. I don't really want the silicone case because it reminds me of the one I purchased for my old sansa device that I had years ago, that ripped apart. It's sad that there's millions of accessories available for the iPod and Zune because these companies assume that those two are the only ones that everybody buys when it's just not true. So, I'm searching for suitable cover cases so that there'll be no more cracks. Any suggestions?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fair, April 18, 2009

By	Albert Lee Esse - See all my reviews

Cons

* The clock and calendar has to be reset every few days, because the clock and calendar are unreliable.
* Cannot play all the songs in a genre. I am using firmware 1.11 US.
* When playing files selected with the file browser, sometimes the genre is displayed incorrectly--a number.
* Cannot rename the music subfolders if already on the S3.
* A bit of noise.
* Cannot expand memory.
* Touch controls take a while to get used to. Often I accidentally press the wrong control.
* Cannot display song ratings.
* Supplied earbuds are OK, but you should upgrade to something better if you care about sound quality.

Pros

* Very good sound quality.
* Easy to use.
* Good nine-band equalizer. Lowest band is 60 Hz.
* Can browse by folders and files.
* Stylish.
* Boots in eleven seconds.
* Syncs with a wide variety of media players or just copy-and-paste music as long as Windows Media Player 10 or 11 is installed. I never even bothered placing the installation CD in my DVD-ROM drive.
* Can record from FM radio.
* Can load a picture to use as wallpaper.

Actual usable capacity is about 3.68 GB, and the S3 is made of plastic with metal plating for the trim. The SanDisk Fuze is much better.