Samsung's YP-K3 is an incredibly slim and stylish MP3 player, with a touch-sensitive interface and a seamless design. Although not bursting with features, the K3 rivals the iPod nano with its ease of use, attractive design and solid performance.
This 4GB MP3 player is available for an affordable £99, however those with smaller music collections can opt for the 2GB version, which is just £79.
Design
The K3 is lightweight, super slim and a devilishly attractive piece of kit to boot. Complimented by a sophisticated silver border, the metallic black finish and seamless design of this player just oozes class.
One thing that separates the K3 from most competitors is its complete lack of buttons. Samsung has opted for a touch-sensitive interface that's invisible until touched, magically lighting up the controls. It looks seriously cool, but there's no tactile feedback given from the buttons, meaning you can't feel that a button has been pressed.
In the karmic world of MP3 players, however, no good seems to come without an equal and opposite bad: the K3 picks up fingermarks like there's no tomorrow. This can easily be remedied with a lint-free cloth though, so we're not panicking.
The 46mm (1.8-inch) 160x120-pixel colour OLED screen is nowhere near as sharp as Samsung's more recent YP-T9 model, but performs its job adequately.
Features
Samsung has designed the K3 to be simple, functional and stylish. The menu gives you four options: music, radio, photos and settings. It couldn't be simpler to use. Each menu item is animated but it takes a second for the animation to finish before you can select the option you want. This can be quite frustrating.
The music playback screen is made up mostly of a large graphic. Sadly, there's no support for album art. Artist, album and track name are scrolled at the bottom of the screen, along with the track number and progress information. A context menu is accessible with a push of the menu button, allowing you to choose one of four effective sound effects ('vocal', 'bass boost', '3D sound' or 'concert hall'), choose a different visualisation and select play modes such as shuffle or repeat.
The FM tuner inside the K3 is intuitively implemented. The left and right navigational buttons seek through the frequencies, or you can select an 'autoseek' function. Autoseek found a plethora of mainstream stations but also saved a few stations of white noise for us, too.
If there's one thing we're disappointed with in the K3, it's photo support. Photos are unclear, pixellated and dull.
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User reviews2
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Abbas Jagani 19 April 2008
Good: cheap (now!...not when it was new!)
Bad: I'd have to think really hard!
Comment: brilliant piece of technology! cool touchpad! nice LED lights. suitable sized display. small and compact.
i think the reviewer above has unfortunately just had bad luck. personally, i think that you should disregard his/her experience as it was probably a rare occurance! mine works perfectly fine, haven't had any problems in the 9months i've been using it!
Brian Judge 17 May 2007
Good: Everything if only it worked!!
Bad: It doesn't work!!
Comment: My initial feeling was wow. It was an impressive player, Build quality and sound matched the quality of the design. If only its reliability and Samsung's warranty were so impressive.
The unit failed after 2 weeks use and was sent back to Samsung for repair. It's now been with them for a further 4 weeks and I have now been told that it cannot be repaired and a replacement will take a further 3-4 weeks to be despatched!!
If only I'd bought an iPod!!
A fantastic product let down by very inferior support!!
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