We were
looking forward to testing the Yepp YH-925GS's sound quality, since the unit included SRS surround sound
options. We were not disappointed with the player's audio qualities at
all, though it did seem to us that the EQ played more of an active role than it
maybe should have.
Using 'normal' or no eq setting,
sound quality was excellent. The Yepp YH-925GS has more than enough volume
to satisfy us and do serious ear damage to the average user. The eq
choices are accessed through the 'settings' menu and include the mundane 'jazz',
'classic', ' 'pop', 'rock' and 'bassboost' presets present on almost all
MP3 players. These worked as expected. The three more
interesting EQ options are 'SRS', 'WOW' and 'Trubass'.
SRS processing provides
a virtual 3D stereo effect, Trubass is a bass booster that can be used
with or without SRS and WOW combines the two effects. To be frank, it's
hard to imagine using either of the former two options instead of WOW. A
separate settings menu is reserved for the SRS effect, and allows you to control
the level of TRUbass and SRS processing as well as affect the 'focus' of the
sound.
The WOW EQ setting proved to be
our favourite for most of the music we listened to, as it gave the music a
fuller and more expansive sound. We did notice some flaws though.
Volume dips and rises in the music tended to be exaggerated by this EQ setting,
almost to the point of being distracting, while some tracks distorted with the
default 'earphone' SRS settings we were using for the WOW EQ.
The included earphones are about as good as
you'd expect, which is not particularly. Still, they are fine for walking around and listening I
suppose. Invest in a decent pair of earbuds for this player at
the earliest opportunity though, as the included ones do not do it justice. They do
have a nice long cord though, so they will not cramp
your style.
Samsung YH-925 vs. iPod?
Our final take on the Yepp YH-925GS Hard drive MP3 Player? It's good enough that
we'd want to own it, but it has enough issues that if we did own it
we'd probably be slightly annoyed with it...
As a
music player, the Samsung
Yepp YH-925GS sounds great and has more EQ options than
the average MP3 playback device has, but suffers from a poor control layout
that makes using the device occasionally more annoying than it should be. Samsung
really needs to invest more time in planning out and testing the user interfaces for
its hard-disc players. On the bright side, the volume level is more than
adequate to damage anyone's hearing.
As a photo viewer, the Samsung Yepp YH-925GS has a decent upside.
The 1.8" LCD display is attractive, bright and reproduced our test
photos well. It's small though, so this feature is more of a frill than a
reason to buy the player. The ability to create slide shows that include
music was cooler than it sounds and we enjoyed the effect greatly. The LCD
has a rather poor viewing angle though, so only one person at a time can enjoy
the pictures.
The fact
that this player can only be used with the Napster client or
Windows Media Player 10 is another questionable design decision. While we
have no issue with Media Player per say, it's not as fast or intuitive as
dragging and dropping files, and the licensed bundling of the Napster client
left a bad taste in our mouths. Hopefully someone will figure out how to
update the player's database manually so that drag-and-drop file transferring
will work with music files instead of only other types of data.
While it might seem that we are being overly negative here, the
reason is that we really wanted to like the Yepp YH-925GS. It's small for
a HD-based player, it has good battery life, a fast connection, great sound
and volume, nifty photo viewing abilities and the rare ability to transfer files
over USB without a computer. Sadly, the design of the controls and the
restrictive software policy make getting to grips with the player more difficult
than it needs to be.
At a
price of about $300+CDN ($249USD) The Yepp YH-925GS
compares favourably to the latest iPods in price, if not design. If you
are in the market for a hard drive based player with some frills, Samsung's
latest option is certainly worth considering.
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