Samsung YH-999 review

Unlike a Media Centre PC, the Samsung cannot record videos or display live TV. This is strictly a playback-only device. Any videos, photos or music we stored on the Samsung were transferred there via a PC.

You can synchronise the Samsung with your desktop computer – this ensures you’ve always got your newest movies and music with you. Unfortunately this process is sluggish – probably down to the USB connection. Firewire might have been a wiser choice here.

Performance

We found the Samsung’s screen looked disappointingly washed-out under most lighting conditions. The viewing angle is limited and overall the display looks very much like those you find in your headrest on international economy flights. Compared to a laptop LCD the difference is striking. The brightness on our review model was already maxxed out, so we couldn’t adjust any settings to improve the picture. However, viewing movies in low light makes the screen look bright and clear.

The quality of the YH-999’s display is not overwhelmingly different from the display on most devices of this size – but it’s worth bearing in mind that the screens on these smaller media centres don’t compare to those on modern laptops.

Video playback occasionally stuttered to begin with, but once things got rolling, movies on the Samsung looked smooth and flawless. Unfortunately, because it’s so closely tied to Microsoft’s media software, the YH-999 will only play movies in WMV format. There are a few third-party plug-ins you can use to trick other video formats into playing on the Samsung – but why aren’t these an option out of the box?

Although the process is sometimes slow, one advantage to using Windows Media Player to transfer movies to the Samsung is that the process is so seamless. We didn’t run into any problems uploading TV or video to the YH-999.

Frustratingly, Microsoft have gone out of their way to make it hard to transfer formats like DVD and DivX to Windows Mobile devices like the YH-999. While this may stop a few pirates in their tracks, it’s also incredibly irritating for anyone who own legitimate editions of DVDs they’d like to watch on the move.

Battery performance on the Samsung is also slightly depressing. We averaged 3 hours for video playback and a much more respectable 12 hours for audio only.