Samsung YP-Q3CB Q3 8GB MP3 with FM Radio and Video Player - Black

Forenote:
Just to give you some background, I'm not an audiophile by any means, but I do appreciate good quality music, and music gear. There are a few mentions below to the iPhone 4, and of course I know there is a considerable price and quality difference between them, but the iPhone 4 is my day to day music player and a lot of people will own iphones and iPods or have listened to them so it simply provides a reference point, rather than a direct comparison. I won't be marking each section /5 or /10 as I think it's better you simply read my review and come to your own conclusion :)

First impressions:
Small, neat looking and light. All qualities I look for in a PMP (Portable Music Player)

Build quality:
The player is very light, and although this might put some people off, in its defense I can say that this thing will probably survive any amount of drops (which I hear is the most common death to mp3 players). Most of the structural strength comes from the aluminium ring around the side of the player, with the front and back sides being plastic. If you're thinking an extremely cheap iPhone 4 type build, you wouldn't be far off! There is no light spill from the screen, and no creaking (yet) so positive marks here. I just wish the screen was glass instead of plastic as plastic scratches and smudges much more.

Menu & Navigation:
Easy, simple, and quick to learn. No complaints here, you even have basic options to adjust the layout to suit you, which is a nice touch, although I don't see why anyone would need/want to change it as its layout is very intuitive.

Display:
I'm afraid there is no way around this one, the display is pretty bad. It has a very poor viewing angle, anything away from dead center and there is noticeable colour shift and even straight on (or at least as straight on as I could get, accurate to +/- 5 degrees) there is colour shift from the top and bottom of the screen. The resolution is adequate, but not mindblowing in any way. Text is reasonably sharp and suitable only for the minimal reading you need to do. For video it is again, adequate, but with the poor viewing angle and screen panel quality it is very difficult to watch anything and certainly impossible to watch something with a friend.

Sound quality:
Redeeming feature here, the sound quality can be very good on the player. At default it's flat, and uninspiring, but during either video or music, you have access to advanced sound features. On video there is a 5.1 emulation, and normally I find these things immicky and crap, but in this instance it works very well. The 'theatre' setting is also good, adding more depth to sound. 'Concert' basically adds reverb (echo) and lots of it. Not very useful.

In music, you can adjust EQ and choose settings from the 'SoundAlive' menu such as Vocal, Instrument, Tweeter and Big Bass, as well as a few custom options. Suffice to say, I couldn't really tell much of a difference between each of the settings, other than Big Bass which is as big as Mickey Mouse. I tend to keep the SoundAlive on Auto, and it's fine. The music sounds good, not mindblowing, but definitely listenable for prolonged periods. As a budget MP3 player, this sounds pretty good.

FM Radio:
Works as described, it has auto search for finding stations and it's pretty efficient. Sound quality is variable but generally fine, but not as good as imported 128kbps MP3 more like 56kbps if I had to compare.

Earphones:
The supplied earphones are in-ear headphones of higher quality than received with any iPod model, for instance. They come with a spare set of smaller earplugs if the defaults are too large. I first tested these earphones with an iPhone 4, on a few songs to which I know intimately, enough so that I would be able to know the differences in quality (for reference, I listen with Sennheiser HD 555s at home and Klipsch S4i outside. Let me say, these earphones are above the quality of supplied iPhone, HTC etc earphones, but not the same quality (both sound or build) than say Sennheiser CX300 ii's. They do a great job on an iPhone, but fair less well on the Samsung, but I'll attribute this down to the sound engine on the player rather than the earphones themselves. In terms of comfort, the earphones become uncomfortable after about an hour and a half (to me, at least) but until then they are fine, and unobtrusive.

Battery life & Connectivity:
Connectivity is via a proprietary usb format which is a bit of a bugbear because if you lose it, you'll need to buy another just like it. The stereo jack is on the bottom of the device and suitable for both straight and corner connections. Battery life is good, it'll last a few days on a single charge, and doesn't take long via usb so this is a positive point.

Software:
Like most MP3 players, this one asks you to download their own software 'Kies' which personally I don't like. It's fine in operation, but its just another audio player and as I already use iTunes, Songbird and Zune, as well as the fact that you can add songs manually via folders, I just don't think its necessary.

Final thoughts:
If you're looking for a budget MP3 player exclusively for music and radio, this will do you just fine, but if you're looking at this as an alternative to say, an iPod Nano, you will be disappointed. It simply doesn't hold up in terms of build and sound quality. It's hard to be negative as understandably, it is in a different market, but overall I could see myself using this day to day, and more importantly I can see it lasting a long time. So overall, positive.

This little mp3 player had so much going for it but it seems as if Samsung went out of their way to hamstring it. I'll start with the positives:

The sound quality is great. Being an audiophile having acceptable quality on the go is a must for mp3 players, and it definitely doesn't falter here when coupled with good headphones, and it has an EQ equaliser with plenty of scope to tweak the sound to your desire. The headphones are the standard cheap, low quality ones all mp3 players come with but these are actually managing to keep me going till my replacements for my sennheisers arrive, without giving me the urge to rip them out and tear them in half, which is pleasantly surprising overall. They don't fit too bad either.
Battery life is excellent. I had it for over a week seeing pretty heavy use before I realised I hadn't charged it since I got it.
So far the processes of charging and transferring files via USB has had no hiccups so far, another plus.
Also, when starting up after shutdown it at least remembers where you last were in the song that was last playing, which has saved my mp3 from being thrown out the window on many a time for reasons I'll get to now.

Yes, on with the negatives, the ones that leave me actually angry at my mp3 player in ways I've never felt for an electronic appliance before. First off, the locking system is ridiculous. Pressing unlock when locked will elicit no response from the mp3 for a brief moment, before a little unlocking symbol appears, which then disappears and only then can you do anything. Why all the delay? It's a good 3 seconds between first unlock and actual unlock, to me thats too long. And any grazing of the lock button during this period will lock the system right back up, forcing us to go through the same drawn out process again. Also turning off the display after a while being idle is all well and good, but could you at least remember the menu I was on instead of booting me back to the directory of the song thats on. If I want to know that I'll go to Now Playing.
But the most criminal mistake of all by Samsung is the assignment of the lock function to the same button as the power button. Countless times the mp3 player has unlocked in my pocket and then promptly turned itself off, cutting me off mid-song with a mocky sparkling Samsung 'bye-bye' sound, making me think the battery has just fallen out the back. And then after you finally get past the annoyance and get it turned back on you find it has reset your volume control, like Samsung has become some sort of overbearing mother to us, fearful what all that loud noise we listen to will do to our hearing. Speaking of turning on, why on earth do we have to hold down the power button for ages before anything will happen? It definitely didn't take that long to shut down when it was booting me out of my listening experience without so much as a by-your-leave. And to me any mp3 player that regularly interrupts your listening experience is not a good mp3 player, and thus I find it incredibly hard to recommend.

If you use the mp3 player only while sitting down or not moving much you won't encounter the random shutting down so much, and all the other annoying frustrations that come with that (long startup, volume reset) so it does become a more appealing player. But for out and about be prepared to wrap it with bubble wrap.

Lets put it this way I've had Samsung players for ooh about 7 years now, but I'll be starting from what I consider one of the best MP3 players ever built this machines ancestor the YP-Z5A, it was perfect, except for the battery.
I'm not expecting things to change in this regard these players Li-on batteries last at best 2 years, and you can't easily replace them which is why I've retired my YP-Q1 and bought this player.
Skipping a few generations forward things are as I would expect absolutely wonderful sound, video looks good, neat little radio and voice recorder is shiny too. And lo! they got rid of the bundled software EMODIO (which I'm fairly certain means 'God of Emos'as you will never experience a more crushing sense of depression than using that awful program) and replaced it with KIES which is remarkable only in its un-remarkableness, it is another great thing that you can just ignore it and drag and drop music and video straight into the player, although it has some difficulty recognizing old playlists which is annoying.
Its a surprise to hear the sound even better than the last player, Sound alive is fantastic, and I love the audio upscale.
If your just using it for music it lasts a decent age between charges listening to it for about 8 hours a day it will last over a week on 1 charge.
But... I don't know what it is with Samsung they seem to get everything right bar a couple of things every time. This time round its the lock, which is a real irritation because when you press the button to unlock the player you have to wait for the little padlock icon to slowly open before you can access the player, and it has the habit of re-locking the player while your waiting or if your not quick enough, then you have to press the unlock button again and wait for the padlock icon to slowly open... What was wrong with just a bog standard physical button lock?
May be its trying to teach me patience... And failing miserably.

If you really want to up your experience with this player I recommend most highly getting a pair of Koss Prota Pros... The sound is mind blowing, but bear in mind Koss Porta Pros leak sound quite badly so remember that in polite company.

All in all a great sounding and flexible player and a good choice for those who don't want to join De Apple-Reich.