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(More customer 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).
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Samsung S3 4 GB Slim Portable Media Player (Black)
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