Performance
One noticeable problem was the slight lag with the navigation. There's a tiny gap between button presses and the system responding, and a slight delay when skipping tracks. It's off-putting, but it's made more bearable by the easy-to-use menus. There are no other significant navigation problems, though we'd rather use the back button on the front to go back a step than the button on the side.
The bundled stock headphones are only average, although this is par for the course. We tested the T9 with a pair of mid-range Sennheiser headphones and heard an astonishing improvement over the bundled set. The bass of Yeah Yeah by Bodyrox was powerful and full-bodied, while the high-pitched operatic vocals from Sarah Brightman's performance of Naturaleza Muerta were sharp and clear. Audiophiles will certainly find the YP-T9 offers excellent audio performance, but a pair of quality 'phones will have to be on their shopping list.
It's getting more common for small players such as this to support video playback, and the YP-T9 does a good job of playing back video encoded with the software provided. Video files are automatically rotated to take full advantage of the screen size. Although the player is smaller than a nano, the screen is larger, making video clips very watchable. You wouldn't want to watch a full-length movie on here, granted, but music videos and occasional TV shows are perfectly watchable without eyestrain. Photos are also well taken care of and look good on the bright colour LCD screen.
Samsung claims a battery life of 30 hours for music -- this was borne out by our tests. Our model played music continuously for 30 hours and video for 6, which are excellent figures.
Conclusion
Samsung has produced an astounding MP3 player that's packed with features, easy to use, a pleasure to operate and delivers excellent sound quality. If you're after a slimline, lightweight and feature-packed music player then don't miss the Samsung YP-T9.
It's the only model we've seen that could deliver a knockout blow to the iPod nano, thanks to the extra features such as radio, Bluetooth, voice and radio recording, and crucially, video playback. Don't worry about paying the extra -- it's worth it.
Available from AdvancedMP3Players.
Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Nick Hide
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User reviews2
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mahutchinson 6 June 2008
Good: Radio, Bluetooth, nice size and construction, cheap deal
Bad: Software, radio inteference
Comment: Excellent product with great sound adjustment options obtained new from ebay auction at a really good price. 2 complaints - radio has surprisingly worse reception than my Sony Ericsson K800i and annoyingly adds every working frequency for a radio station rather than just the optimum one. The biggest disappointment however is that it doesn't appear to support Ogg files as stated here and on the Samsung website. The manual makes no mention of Ogg and the software won't transfer the files. This may require a firmware upgrade but if so this iis not made clear here or in the Samsung manual.
Paul McCarthy 15 July 2007
Good: Outstanding audio quality, battery life and drop dead good looks!
Bad: Proprietory connector, yet to find a battery pack for it
Comment: I purchased this at J&R in NY whilst on holiday to replace an Ipod shuffle as my main mp3 player for the gym and travelling after having read the reviews on Cnet.com and I have not been disappointed. It's a slim stylish player that can play video on a screen that you can actually view without eye strain and the sound is superb. I've used it with Shure E3c and Bose Quiet Comfort 2 headphones and have been rewarded with crystal clear sound. Using it in the gym with the Shure E3c's, I've been able to pound the treadmill to the Who, Led Zep et al without being disturbed by MTV. Yes it's a tad more expensive than a Nano but on this baby you have a choice as to whether you want to use a volume limiter.
Overall buy one, you won't regret it!
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