Samsung YP-K5 (4GB)

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It has been a long time since we've seen an MP3 player that can draw gasps of geek envy from the team. Most of the time, new MP3 players that enter our domain are nitpicked to death. The YP-K5 is different. Pictures do not do it justice, either. Though it's certainly thick for 2GB--the onboard speaker panel makes up half of its heft. The other half of the YP-K5 has a cool black exterior and touchscreen physical controls to up its charm.

Design
Pick it up. It feels surprisingly light for its size. The 1.71-inch OLED screen is bright and clear. Even under direct sunlight, we could discern the display, only barely. But it's certainly better than most OLED panels which blank out when viewed under sunlight.

	YP-K5 next to the iPod nano Click for larger image

Closed, the YP-K5 resembles a fat piece of dark chocolate. Turn it on and you get a pleasing visual experience--shades of blue lights serving as indicators for the touch-sensitive controls. Otherwise, the layout of the buttons is not revolutionary. A center select button sits in the middle of four arrows arranged in compass directions. A Back and Menu button rests on the adjacent two corners, while the bottom edge of the player houses the headphone jack and a proprietary USB port.

The touch sensors are well-spaced-out, very important to prevent accidental activation. Despite its susceptibility to smudge in the YP-K5 prototype, we are happy to report that the final retail version has been treated to minimize this. That's a good thing, too, since no cleaning cloth is provided.

	And against the Creative V Plus Click for larger image

Controls are minimal yet offer decent functionality and control. We find the graphics user interface (GUI) to be organic, much akin to the iPod and Creative Zen players. There's a button that calls up a contextual sub-menu based on the current active feature. And unlike the Creative Zen V Plus which does not include sound equalizer controls in the sub-menu, the YP-K5 does.

The YP-K5 is decidedly chunky at 98 x 47.5 x 18.1mm and weighs 106g. But while it does not possess a voluminous hard drive or a huge screen to justify its bulk, it does pack a set of built-in speakers. These are cleverly concealed in a sliding mechanism which, when opened, angles and tilts up at a good angle for sound projection.

The mechanized slide motion of the speaker panel is addictive. For a good 5 minutes, we were incessantly obsessed with it in the same way a listless smoker flicks his butane lighter. Samsung calls it the "slide and tilt" motion. Smart move. The tilt angle of the panel doubles as a stand for the unit. The display also reorients itself to a horizontal plane once it detects the speaker panel sliding out. We've seen MP3 players with built-in speakers before, but none have shown this kind of ingenuity.

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