For a 4GB player, it's kinda chunky. The magnesium case is almost three times as thick as a nano, even though it has a slightly bigger footprint. But you would too if you had speakers built into your ass, mounted on sliding rails. I think I remember hearing that they're 1.5 watts, total. How loud are they? You know when there's some asshole talking on his cellphone in the library, and you just tell him to shut the hell up? It's about that loud, except it's not annoying. Flipping on the EQ's 3D mode drew a soundscape I thought came from stereo speakers about a foot apart when I closed my eyes and gave a listen.
How does the rest of it hold up? We unbox, review from head to toe, drop the stat-smather, and even shoot some b-roll video of the speaker, after the jump.
Samsung YP-K5 MP3 Mini Boombox: First Unboxing, Review, and Video.
When this machine is off, it looks like a black bar, with a glass face. When it's on, it boots into music mode, with a fancy 20+ band spectrum analyzer bouncing around. Mesmerizing...
Huh? Turn it off and you get this lame animation that looks like...I don't know what it looks like. Don't turn it on.
The music menus include the usual suspects: Artists, Albums, Tracks, Genres, playlists. Next topic!
Let me get this out of the way. The touch controls can't scroll through long song lists nearly as quickly as the iPod's wheel. But unlike the LG chocolate, they actually work really, really, really well. The menus are animated, which I found cute at first, but navigating through them got slightly annoying after a bit. I've got ultimate ADD, so your mileage may vary. It takes a special person to complain about split second menu delay.
The player does a decent job of showing off photos on its 1.7-inch OLED screen, but it's not the sharpest screen we've ever seen. Photos are a little dark. It's nice the music still plays while the photos are slideshowin'.
What other extras? There's an FM radio tuner that uses the headphone cable as an antenna. I wasn't impressed by the reception, to be honest.
The way I'll use this player the most? As an alarm clock. You can save a couple of alarms, each with individual settings. I'm talking about Mon-Friday for the daily grind, Mon-Saturday for the grind plus morning cartoons, and Mon-Sunday for masochists. You can choose from a few different alarms, but the best thing is ADJUSTABLE SNOOZE. I set my snooze at 10 minute intervals, but more morning-oriented people can choose 3- and 5-minute gaps, too. What's cool is the time is displayed in a flipclock style. What I didn't like is that no place in the regular menus is the time displayed. What time is it, Samsung? Time to put a clock somewhere where I can see it!
The player goes for 6 hours in speaker mode, and 30 hours with earbuds. And it'll charge in 5 hours by USB, or 3 hours through a wall charger. It comes in pink, but thank god, Samsung sent us the black one.
The verdict: Awesome mini boom box, innovative design, great alarm clock, but only if you can get over the chubby form factor. Gizmodo Hearts the K5.
Unboxing, Video, and Stats, below.
Stat-Smather:
File support: MP3, WMA, OGG, ASF, JPG
Dimensions 98 x 47.5 x 18.1mm
Syncs with Plays for Sure
USB 2.0
1GB/2GB/4GB
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