Till recently, Samsung did not really have an MP3 player that could rival the iPod nano. For an MP3 player that is infamous for its propensity to attract scratches by the megaton and a screen that is known on occasion to crack, it has done pretty well considering the circumstances. This is precisely the competition that the YP-Z5 has to match up against. Can it burst the nano bubble? Here's what we think.

Upside: The YP-Z5 is certainly slim. It's shorter than the nano by a hair's breath (0.1mm), but it's still thicker and broader by a tad. On the whole, the quick look we had at CES 2006 pretty much confirmed that this player is going to sell mainly on looks.

The one that caught our eye came with a silver aluminum finish. Very chic. And with its broad angular design, rather snazzy, too. There is a champagne gold version for glitter lovers though we would probably reserve that color scheme for dad when it ships. A big bonus is that Samsung claims it's scratch-proof, a property that will give it a boost over the nano.

Unlike its other flash-based MP3 sibling, the YP-T8, the controls on this one look to be fixated on a square-ish control pad. From what we can observe, the control pad will take care of the playback controls as well as menu navigation, while volume adjustment will be activated from the dedicated side buttons.

Too bad there's no video playback, but the 1.8-inch screen is a nice addition over the nano's 1.5-incher. Photo format support is limited to JPEG, but what we like is the touted 24-hour battery life. Some sources claim 38 hours. We will know for sure once we have it in for testing.

Downside: No FM, no radio, and for users who like to hear sexy DJs trade banter over the airwaves, they are out of luck. Battery is not removable as much as we can gather. Voice recording also seems to be absent from this setup though we hope Samsung is not aping the nano too much in this case and will come up with an improved version with all the missing features by the time it reaches store shelves.

Outlook: It's a pretty player, though not terribly exciting by any long stretch in terms of features. But given that Samsung makes the same flash memory chips for the nano, it would be very cool if the final retail version could come with an 8GB capacity.