Samsung YA-BS300 Bluetooth Speaker Review

The Samsung BS300 Bluetooth speakers are compact, portable, and extremely versatile. If you're looking for a portable speaker that can be used with almost anything producing sound, this is one serious contender.

Source: Amazon.com is where mine came from. Around $130 the BS300 is pricey. It pays to shop around as BHPhotoVideo.com has them for $90. For comparison the Samsung P2 8gb media player can be found for $149. Yet for your money you get portable speakers that will work with any MP3 player, wireless speakers that will work with most cell phones supporting Bluetooth as well as every Bluetooth MP3 player I've tried including the Samsung P2, Samsung T10, Cowon S9, iriver SPINN, and Insignia Pilot. Using it with a cell phone it can serve as a hands-free speakerphone as it includes it's own microphone. It works great with my Samsung Instinct.

Dimensions: Much smaller than it appears in every add I've seen, the actual measurements are 95 x 47 x 13mm. Roughly 3.75" x 1.85" x .51". 62.6g weight. Small enough to fit easily in most pockets. You can see it here next to the Samsung T10 and P2. In the lower photo you can compare it's thickness to the Samsung T10.

Included: In addition to the speaker you get a USB charging cable, a 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo patch cable, a small folding stand, a multi-language user manual, and a small (1 year) warranty card.

Connections: On the left end you'll find the DC charging port and a small connection point for a lanyard. On the right end you'll find the 3.5mm line-in port.

Controls: Most of the control are along the top edge. There you'll find the Power button, Play/Pause, Next/Prev, Vol+/-, a DNSe button and a small reset hole. On the front you'll see the microphone and above that a Call/End phone button. Above that are a charging status LED and an operation status LED.

Features: Although small, the BS300 packs in the features.

+ It's line-in jack lets you connect any electronic audio source directly.

+ On-board volume controls let you control volume from the speakers themselves.

+ The rechargeable battery lets you take it with you beyond the power grid, and means you'll never have to buy batteries for it.

+ DNSe settings include a 3D sound mode, a Bass Boost mode, and a combined 3D & Bass Boost mode.

+ As a speakerphone the BS300 allows Answering a call, Ending a call, Rejecting a call, Redialing, Voice Dialing, Switching a call between phone and speaker, and 3-way calling. Of course your phone has to support these features too.

+ You can have your phone and an MP3 player connected simultaneously to the BS300 and the music will pause when a call comes in.

Audio Quality: For such a small speaker, the sound is pretty impressive. You won't hear much if any bass from your music even with the DNSe bass boost on. At 1w per speaker (2w total) it's not going to shake the rafters, but is a very good alternative to earbuds when you need something extremely portable but also shareable. Sound is directional out the front, and drops off by nearly 1/2 from the back. The included stand holds the speaker up at an angle so you get the best audio it can produce. I've tested larger portable speakers that were worse, and none that were better. There is no appreciable stereo separation. The DNSe choices didn't seem to make much difference, with the Normal setting producing the best sound anyway. The Bluetooth feature allows volume control from the speakers OR from your player. Sound using the patch cable sounded only a little less tinny than using bluetooth, but will let you use any sound processing options your player has. The Samsung P2, for example, can use one of several DNSe (equalizer) presets over cable that won't work over bluetooth.

Summary: At $90 the YA-BS300 are a great value. More pocketable than any previous portable speakers I've found, they still do a great job of letting you hear the content of your media player without headphones. Don't lose the included charge cable though. The BS300s are rated for about 4 hours playtime, so expect to be charging them periodically. Those 4 hours should last you through a couple of movies. Battery life is my only complaint, as there is no way to swap in new batteries when your 4 hours are up. It'll take 3 hours or so to recharge the BS300. If you need a small hands free speakerphone for your cell phone, this is a fantastic choice. It wouldn't be hard to find a 12vdc to USB adapter so you could keep the BS300 charged in your car. I can't hear my cell phone's speaker very well. Using the BS300 makes call audio more easily understandable.

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4D

Cowon S9 Review.

Intro: Cowon is famous for it's media players. Latest in the line is this beautiful S9 Curve. The first thing I look for when I get a new player is the latest firmware. Cowon is on the ball. Version 2.05 came out before mine arrived, and I ordered mine from Jetmall.net the first day they were available in the U.S.. Version 2.06 came out 12/24. I've always thought Cowon's players were bulky and not very practical or portable. The S9 changes the rules. Clearly Cowon has noticed that beautiful, innovative looks can help sell players.
Included: The S9 comes with a USB cable and earbuds with pads. The USB cable is proprietary, although my S9 also works with the cable that came with my iriver SPINN. Replacements for the included charging/data cable shouldn't be hard to find. The User Manual shows optional TV output and line input cables that should be available in the near future. You get a set of token iAudio earbuds. I recommend investing in a better set of headphones to fully appreciate the S9's audio output. You get a small CD which includes the JetEffect media player/sync application. There is also an array of paperwork including the User Manual, Cowon's Warranty Policy, Russian and Korean registration cards, and an offer from eMusic for 35 free songs + 1 free Audiobook. Controls: The top edge reveals a volume +/- rocker, Play/Pause button, and FWD/REV rocker. A power/hold slider is on the bottom edge beside the 3.5mm headphone and data cable jacks. There is a microphone and reset hole on the back. The top mounted controls make sense if the S9 is in your pocket, but are a little hard to reach when holding the S9 naturally.
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Dimensions: 2.2(W) x 4.17(H) x 0.5(T) inch. Slightly thicker than the Samsung P2. In fact it is thicker than the P2, Touch, and SPINN. It uses the same AMOLED screen as the SPINN. The P2 ends up with the smallest screen among those shown.

Music: Yes, it plays music. In fact Music appears to be one of the best applications on the S9. Cowon did some work here, and it should leave you pleased.

+ File formats supported include MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG, WAV, and APE.

+ The Music app features a hortizontal Cover-Art mode accessible by tipping the S9 on it's side.

+ You can Zoom-in on art or lists. Great if you need reading glasses!

+ You can sorts songs by several categories, although getting to that category list is several iconic taps from the main menu.

+ There is a nice Quick Menu which can slide out from the side to display the previous, current, and next song in the cue.

+ A tap on the cover art will reveal information about the current file.

+ There are 26 equalizer presets to choose from.

+ There are four user-definable equalizer settings.

+ You can add any song to a Favorites list.

+ You can tag A and B spots in a song to repeat between.

+ You can sync media to the S9 using Windows Media player 11.

- There is no full-screen cover art option.

- There is no on-screen volume control.

- The horizontal Cover-Flow display shows every song rather than just individual albums. If your album has 20 songs you'll have to pan through 20 copies of that same cover art on the screen.

- Access to song and category lists takes backward, cumbersome steps from the Now Playing screen.

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Pictures: Yes, it displays photos. Unfortunately they forgot to include a full-screen photo display option (without icons)!

+ JPGs at any resolution will work so long as they are not progressively formatted.

+ You can easily zoom in on a photo, and once zoomed-in can pan around with finger strokes on the screen.

+ You can swipe left or right to move to the next photo.

+ There is a variable speed slide show option with two transition options.

+ Photos can be rotated by simply rotating the screen or using left and right rotate icons on the screen.

+ You can turn OFF the G-sensor to prevent photo auto-rotation.

- There is no option to use a photo as wallpaper on the S9.

- There is no way to clear icons off the screen so you can see a photo unobstructed! The Pictures app still needs work. With such a great screen the S9 should allow unobstructed photo viewing. B-
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Video: Yes, it play videos. Oh my!

+ AVI and WMV are supported. Maybe more. 480x272, 30 fps (recommended).

+ You can bookmark a time position in a video to return to later.

+ When vertical, the video player displays size, frame rate, kbps, kHz, and any equalizers that may be associated with the current video.

+ When horizontal you can turn OFF the G-sensor to keep the video from switching to portrait view. Useful when handing the S9 to someone else.

+ You can have the S9 make thumbnail images of successive scenes in the video. You can then jump directly to any scene by selecting it's thumbnail.

+ Video will display full screen when the S9 is horizontal, and videos smaller than screen resolution can be stretched to fit the screen.

+ You can save screen shots from video which can then be found in the Video Capture folder under Recordings. One example:

It is clear Cowon spent a good deal of time developing the S9's video player. It makes good use of the G-sensor, great screen, and audio capabilities of the player. Subtitles can be turned on or off (from the Settings Menu). While it would be nice to have screen brightness control from the video player, I don't count it's absence as a negative. Video playback on the S9 gets an A.
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Documents: Yes, you can display text on it.

+ You easily can zoom in or out on text.

+ You can change the background and font color.

+ You can manually scroll or page through a document.

+ You can have the S9 automatically scroll through text, with timing you can set.

- No alternative fonts to choose from (yet).

- No horizontal viewing of text.

- No full screen (no icons) viewing of text.

The document viewer would be far better if it could actually display PDFs or Word DOCument files. Alas, I haven't found one player yet that could. I'll rate the S9's document viewer a B-. Better than average, but just barely.
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FM Radio: Yes, you can listen to FM radio on the S9.

+ It has a 24 position preset station array which once set makes it very easy to get quickly to the station you want.

- The autosearch function is a bit too sensitive though, as it will find stations above and below the actual frequency in addition to the one you want.

+ You can remove frequencies from the array, and easily add your current manually tuned station to any spot.

+ The S9 also will leave the radio playing after exiting the Radio app. You can listen to radio while viewing photos or text or simply browsing around.

+ You can record from FM to a WMA file.

+ You can choose from 32kb/s to 256kb/s quality level for recording (in the Settings menu).

- FM does not broadcast over bluetooth, which is a shame. It does on my Philips SA5245BT player.

- There is no Stop, OFF or Mute of the radio, and the only apparent way to turn it off is by shutting the S9 off or entering the Music or Video App.

- no RDS support.

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You'll need to have headphones plugged into the S9 as they will serve as antenna for the radio. You can select from Korea, Japan, USA, and Europe/China for your country. The player uses an original and clever graphic analog wheel as one way to tune the radio. With the inaccurate auto-tuner and NO MUTE option I give FM radio a B.

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Recording: There are three sources you can record from on the S9. The FM radio, internal microphone, and from an external source via the options line-in cable. You can set each source independently for the quality you want to record at up to 256kbps. The onboard mic is fairly sensitive. Mounted on the back of the S9, it does a good job picking up voice from the front. It will take further testing to determine it's range and usefulness. I may update this section later. FM recording is good, so long as you've got a good signal. I don't find this very useful as it's hard to anticipate exactly when a DJ will start a song, and many DJs like to talk over the beginning of songs. Line-in is where some interesting potential lays. You could record songs directly from a portable CD player, skipping the PC altogether. Recording is in WMA format. Recording on the S9 is simple and straightforward. You can pause and resume. There is also an untested Auto-sync option, which would conceivably allow the S9 to seperate a long record session into seperate tracks, using silence to trigger each new file. Recording gets an A. Line-in put it over the top.

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Bluetooth: The S9 supports bluetooth headsets and remote control from those headest. I've tested my S9 with Sony BT50's, JBL Reference Series 610 Bluetooth Headphones , Insignia NS-BTHDPs, and a cheap headset that simply identifies itself as BT Stereo. Only one connection at a time is allowed, compared with the Samsung P2's two simultaneous headsets. Connection was easy (assuming you know how to put your headset in pairing mode). The S9 keeps track of devices it has previously paired with, making subsequent connections much simpler. Equalizer settings DO work over Bluetooth, a nice surprise. One thing that doesn't seem to work is connecting to Bluetooth speakers. My SPINN also suffers from the same problem. The Samsung P2 sets the standard for Bluetooth implementation. The S9's Bluetooth is comparitively limited but functional. B.

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Flash. Yes, flash games formatted for the 480 x 272 touchscreen will play on the S9. The S9 didn't come with any, so nothing to report here.

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G-sensor. The S9 will detect rotation of the the screen when playing music, videos, or photos. In the Music player, the horizontal position gets you something akin to coverflow on the iPod Touch. Album covers are displayed and you can pan left and right through them to find the next album you want to play from. It works tilting the S9 either right or left from vertical. Videos can be viewed vertically in a small window, or full screen when the S9 is horizontal. Photos are the same. Unfortunately Text does not rotate nor does the G-sensor detect rotation in the Radio player, File Browser, or Recorder app. Perhaps in a future update we'll see some more clever use of the G-sensor. Other devices with similar technology use the G-sensor to detect a shake for changing song tracks. I also see some potential in games for the S9.
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User Interface: The S9 has external button controls as well as a touchscreen to interact with. Cowon obviously learned a lesson from the first iPod Touch. The biggest complaint against that Touch was no external controls. You'll find Volume +/-. Play/Pause, and FWD/BACK controls on the top edge of the Cowon. A great idea as that's where they will be easiest to access when the S9 is in your pocket. Samsung did the same thing with their new YP-P3 touchscreen. The only thing wrong with top controls in your pocket is that the headphone jacks are on the bottom edge of the S9 and P2. The S9 and Samsung P2 both have Bluetooth though, so it's possible to use wireless headphones. You could always cut a small hole in the bottom of your pocket, though. ;-)

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The S9's touchscreen is fairly sensitive. I've had to tap it more than once on occasion to make it work, but that is something I've experienced with every touchscreen player I've tested. The S9's touchscreen is better than most. Once turned on you'll see an array of icons to choose from. Things get a little more confusing from here on. You get two set of icons to choose from, with one being more colorful than the other. You can choose Music, Videos, Pictures, Documents, Flash, Browser, Radio, Recorder, Utilities, or Settings. Music is what most people will use most, and here is where the S9 is most confusing. One tap on the Music icon takes you immediately into the Now Playing screen. You've got to find and tap on a small menu icon to get to where your music is listed. It'll take another tap on another icon to get a level up to the categories list. You can sort music by Folder, Artist, Album, Song, Genre, Year, New Music, Playlists, or Recordings. To me this seems a little backward and requires more steps than usual to find a particular song. Video and Radio is the same way, taking you to the player before letting you pick a file or station to play. In contrast the Picture and Document apps list files first before displaying them. The S9 UI has many inconsistancies like this. Icons are not always obvious as to what they do. You'll jump from the top of the screen to the bottom more than should be necessary. Options for many of the media players are within the player, but many more can be found in the Settings menu. A final complaint I have is that there is NO on-screen volume control. The top edge is not the most ergonomic place to reach when naturally holding the S9 in your hand. UI: A-

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Aesthetics: I'll have to admit the S9 only caught my eye because of the original curved body images cowon teased us with several months ago. Although the actual device isn't professionally lit when you see it in person, the design still holds up. You don't notice the curves much from the front, but the S9 feels very comfortable in-hand. Thebody curves from top to bottom, and also from side to side. It will rock in both directions on a flat surface. I've never tried to control a touchscreen device while it lays on a table, but if you do, the S9's curve may challenge you.

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Conclusion: As is, the S9 is a good device. $239 for the 16gb Titanium Black version compares well with the iPod Touch 16gb at $299, Samsung P2 16g at $250, and other 16gb players with fewer features. Audio format support and sound quality is excellent. Video playback will entertain you well for hours should you ever find yourself stuck in an airport or on a long bus ride. Photo display needs a tweak. Cowon has already updated the S9 once. I fully expect them to solve the problems I've noted and make it an amazing player over time. With it's potential looming, I recommend the S9. It will only get better.

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4D

FLASH: The New Application Strategy?

1. There is a new trend from the Korean MP3 player manufacturers to include a FLASH player in their new MP3 devices. The iriver SPINN, Cowon S9, and Samsung P3 all have 480 x 272 touchscreens and a Flash player app on board.

2. WiFi is one feature of the iPod Touch that is hard to compete with. The App Store with thousands of applications for the Touch is the other. High end players from anyone else would need a similar source of apps to even begin to steal market share from Apple. Having better Audio output, FM radios, and Bluetooth isn't enough.

I predict we'll begin to see incentive from the Korean manufacturers to develop Flash applications for the new family of touchscreen players. Maybe even an online store and profit share strategy for developers. I pick up my Samsung P2 when I want to listen to Music, but the iPod Touch is my main source for games. I'd LOVE to find a source of great applications that would play on the SPINN, Cowon S9 and P3. New products would then only have to include a Flash player to have instant access to all those apps.

What do YOU think?
4D

Catching Up. MP3 Players Hot on the Heels of the iPod Touch.

In August I wrote about possible new MP3 players from the major manufacturers. You can read that entry HERE. Some predictions have come true. Some have been close. Some are yet to be realized. Many companies have revealed their hands, and this post will take another look.

Apple showed us it's new iPod Touch. I guessed it would get a plastic back, and missed on that one. The iPhone, however, now has a Plastic back available in White or Black. The Touch got a lower price and a couple of hardware improvements. The new model (2nd gen) will get you a speaker, Volume controls, internal Nike Shoe support, and a new headphone jack that supports headsets with microphones. It's a better value than the first gen, with more features and that lower price. Same screen and form factor though.

Samsung has revealed the P3 it will introduce formally at CES in January 09. It has already won an award for new technology. The same size as the P2, but with a new interface, haptic screen feedback, improved audio processing (DNSE 3.0), better Bluetooth (2.1), a speaker and an aluminum body. There will also be a P4, but it is expected to be a leap ahead and available along side the P3 but with more features. The P2 and P3 are amazingly feature laden, so I strongly suspect the P4 will have WiFi. That's the only technology the P2 and P3 don't have. Samsung has shown us a folding OLED screen. The potential is great. I expected to be amazed by the P4.

Microsoft updated the Zune with new firmware and desktop software. They made the existing hardware more useful. The new Zunes are the same form factor but with a few new color options and greater capacities. Prices went down. They added the ability to buy songs from the Zune Marketplace using the Zune's WiFi. They also added a feature to let you tag a song you hear on the radio for purchase and direct download. Their desktop software is amazingly good, with quite a bit of original thinking over the competitors. Rumors include Microsoft porting the Zune UI into the Windows Mobile software. Time will tell.

Dell decided to get out of the game. Again. I'm guessing they took a hard look at the competition and realized they weren't ready. You can read a bit about it HERE.

I predicted Sony would be working hard on their own touchscreen player, but holding off on releasing it until they knew they had a great one. Latest leaks indicate their will be a touchscreen Walkman showing at CES. With Wifi and access to Amazon's Music store perhaps. A thin form factor, and original media interaction. Surely smaller and thinner than THIS player, and the best direct competitor for the iPod Touch out there. No one has seen the interface yet, and that's where many other players have failed. I'm counting on Sony to make a strong comeback though. They used to own the personal media player market. Let's just hope their new player is affordable.

There are other new players out there as well. Iriver brought out the SPINN. Cowon just released the S9 Curve. Even Coby has a 3" Touchscreen player. I've reviewed the SPINN and found it still needs work. I've got an S9 on the way. No WiFi in either, so their best competition is the Samsung P2 and P3. The Coby MP-835 is a poor attempt. The SPINN doesn't quite keep up. I'll let you know how the S9 does in a week or so. It has the most potential to unseat the Samsung players.

It's a great time for touchscreen media players. I have to give credit to Apple. They raised the bar for both cell phones and media players with the iPhone and iPod Touch. They brought all the competition up to a new level. I'm looking forward to 2009. CES 2009 is THE place to watch in the next few weeks. It's all happening there.

4D

Sansa Clip 4gb. My Review.

In some cases good things DO come in small packages. A great example is the Sansa Clip. Available with 1, 2 or 4gb of internal storage, the Clip is a great value for the money. Best Buy had the 4gb model on sale last week for $49, which means you can have 4 times the capacity and three times the features for the same price as the 1gb iPod Shuffle. The Clip even matches the Shuffle with 5 available colors (black, red, pink, blue, silver), although the 4gb version is only available in silver.

What you get with a Clip but not with a Shuffle is FM radio (including the ability to record it), and Voice Recording. You also get a small screen so you can see which application you're using and the song or channel you want to listen to. On the 4gb silver model the screen is hidden behind the mirrored front. It only appears when lit, showing through the mirror.

Controls are very simple and 'almost' intuitive to use. There is a Power and Hold slider on the left side next to the mini-USB port. The right side is where you find the volume +/- rocker and the headphone jack. The front features a 4-way control pad with center button and a separate Home button. Lastly there is a small hole for the microphone on the rear of the top edge.

The Music option is fairly complete. You won't see cover art, but you can chose a song by artist, album, songs, genre, top rated, playlist, podcast, audiobook, or recording. You can also simple select "Play All". Music play options include Shuffle (on/off) or Repeat (on/off). When a song is playing the small screen will display the artist, title, number (in the database), and progress. There is also a small icon to indicate when in shuffle mode.

The FM radio option is fairly straightforward. Once selected you see the current frequency along with a graph of your location in the entire frequency range. There are 4 radio options including Add Preset, Auto Presets. View All Presets, and Recording. If you select Recording you'll see three options including Record Now, Play Recordings, and Delete a Recording.

Voice Recording is also simple and direct. You can choose to Record Now, Play Recordings, or Delete a Recording. Voice is recorded as a WAV file. You can also play back FM or Voice recordings from the Music app.


The last option to choose on the Clip is Settings. There you will find a set of equalizer profiles, Power (power off time, and a Sleep setting), Display (backlight and brightness), Language, FM region and mode, Volume (normal or high), System Info, Reset All, Format, USB Mode (MTP, MSC, or autodetect), and "Press and Hold" (Add a song to Go list, or Rate a song).


The Clip package included the Clip, a set of earbud headphones, a (short!)USB cable, an installation disk, a BestBuy Music Store pamphlet, Safety Instructions, an Audible offer, and a nice "Let's get playing" guide.


Sound quality is excellent, even with the included earbuds. Very crisp, no static. I could easily pick out individual instruments from bass to piccolo. Even the subtle strumming of guitar strings was there.


I love the mirrored screen of the 4gb model. It gives depth to the display when backlit, and allows the clip to blend in via reflected surroundings.


Conclusion? If all you need is a clip-on music player, this little Sansa is a gem. Great capacity for the price. Extra features. Excellent sound. While not as "pretty" as the iPod Shuffle or Samsung S2 Pebble, you get FM radio and a Voice recorder for putting up with the dated aesthetics. The control pad is a little confusing, but easy to get used to. The player will return to the previously used function when turned on, which IMO is a feature you should be able to turn off. Even so, I recommend the Clip over a Shuffle or any other competition. You won't regret it. At $50, the 4gb silver clip will look GREAT under the Christmas tree. Put some holiday songs on it for an even warmer hit.


4D

iriver SPINN. My Review.

The iriver SPINN caught my eye when it was first shown several months ago. Beginning prices ($290ish) were too high for the listed features IMO. This week I saw the 8gb version for sale at Newegg.com for $220 with no tax and free shipping so thought I'd take a look. Still a little high, but a good sign that the SPINN is moving down to reasonable prices with time. For comparison you can get an 8gb Samsung P2 for $160 or less, and the P2's features are a bit more evolved than the SPINN.

The feature that most intrigued me was Bluetooth, as I'm a big fan of wireless headphones. The SPINN limits it's bluetooth to stereo headsets though. The Samsung P2 throws in cell phone pairing, file transfer, and bluetooth game play. If you're all about music then the SPINN's bluetooth should cover you. There is some unused potential here though.

One feature that stands out on the SPINN is it's 3.3" 480 x 272 AMOLED screen. It's HUGE compared to the 8gb Zune's 1.8" screen shown above. It is the same resolution as the Samsung P2 and the Coby MP835 but noticeably larger. The three players are nearly the same in width and height, but the SPINN's screen uses more of the front surface area. You don't need a big screen for music, but if you're interested in photos and video playback then the SPINN will delight you. Simply beautiful.

The main options of the SPINN include FLASH games, Voice recording, Pictures, Video, Music, FM Radio, Text, File Browser, and Settings. If you lived in Korea you could add DMB TV and a Dictionary to those. Unfortunately other countries get fewer features.

Flash is where some interesting potential lies, but out of the box there were only two flash applications on the SPINN. More "might" be available in the future. It is suggested that games made for cell phones using the same resolution touchscreen would work. Time will tell.

Voice recording is one of those features I want but don't really need. The SPINN does a decent job allowing low, medium, and high quality settings, as well as the ability to only record when sounds are detected. If you need to spy a little, that feature might be perfect.

The Pictures app needs a little work. As far as I can tell there is no auto rotation of photos to fit the screen, and no manual rotate either. There is a zoom icon to tap on, but all I get is a "this file format is not supported" message when I try and use it. There is a slide show option along with a variety of slide transitions you can apply. The transitions include Fade, Wipe left, Wipe right, Wipe up, Wipe down, Random, and off. You can set the delay to 3, 5, 7, or 9 seconds between photos. Lastly, you can select one of your photos as the SPINN's background wallpaper.

Videos look great on the SPINN. Above is the same movie on the P2 (top) and the SPINN. The video player could use a few more features though. Options include Scan Speed, Resume, and Sequential Play. There is no way to zoom a video to fill the screen if it's not 16x9 format, and there are no direct options to brighten/dim the screen or tell the SPINN to connect to bluetooth from within the app. Again the SPINN could use some more options for video playback. I'll have to do more testing, but with Bluetooth on I noticed considerable frame dropping on a movie I was watching. Th same movie looked fine with no dropped frames on the Cowon S9 and Samsing P2. It appears the SPINN's bluetooth relies on the main process of compression, and in doing so steals processing required for movie play. A real shame.

The Music player seems to have gotten the most development time, but it fails to take advantage of the great screen. Album art never shows up any larger than a postage stamp on the big screen. The image above compares album art between the SPINN (top), Samsung P2 (left), and Coby MP835. You can list your music by Songs, Playlists, Albums, Artists, Genres, or Podcasts. The Album selection displays your cover art, but only three full images to choose from at a time. If you've got a small finger you might be able to select one of the albums that is cropped on the left or right. The font and spacing used only show five songs at a time. If you go into settings though you can rotate the screen display and see up to seven items listed at a time. It would be nice to see a longer list though so any song from an album could be picked without having to scroll the screen. If you just list songs in the portrait display it will show nine at a time. The portrait display isn't optimized for the SPINN's external controls, but if you prefer touching the screen it is more efficient. Options in the music player include Play Mode (Normal, Repeat, Repeat One, and Shuffle), Select EQ, Scan Speed, Playback Speed, and Lyric Display.

The FM radio application is decent, but also could use some additional features. You can record from FM which is nice and very simple to do on the SPINN. There are three quality settings for FM recording. There is an Auto-Preset option that lets you store up to 30 channels, and the SPINN make it easy to switch between presets and manual tuning. In manual mode a long touch of the arrow buttons will have the radio search for the next active channel in that direction. You can select the Tuner region, and also switch between stereo and mono modes. There is no RDS to help you determine the station/song/artist, which is sorely missed. The Zune or Samsung P2 both display RDS data from stations that support it. There is no way to pause or mute the radio. If you leave the radio app the radio stops playing. Better players will allow you to listen to radio while viewing photos or text.

The Text viewer is very basic. Only .TXT files are supported. You have three sizes of letters to choose from but only one font. There is an auto-scroll option and the ability to vary it's speed, but that is about the extent of it. Text looks fine on the screen, but white letter on the gray background will get tiring to look at if your document is long. The Samsung P2 has a GREAT text reader with background, orientation, fonts, font color, and other variables to play with.

The File Browser is just that. It displays the folder structure on the SPINN and you can drag any file displayed to a trash can icon for deletion.

The options accessible in the Settings menu include: Bluetooth, Date & Time, Sound, Display, Advanced, and Smart Key. With the Bluetooth option you can Add New Headset, choose from a previously listed headset, or drag a previous listing into the trash can to delete it. Date and Time simply let you set the current date and current time. Sound is where you'll find access to the custom equalizer, SRS WOW HD, Fade-In, and SPINN Volume (on or off?). Display Settings include Display Orientation, Backlight Timer, Wallpaper choices, Screen Brightness, Themes, Fonts, Menu Type, and an option to save the current UCI (assortment of display settings) for later recall. Advanced settings include Language, Sort order, Text Scroll Speed, Rebuild Library, Music Browse Type, Connection Type, Vibration, Power Off Type, System Info, Auto Power Off timing, and a Reset All Settings option. Lastly there is a Smart Key Setting which lets you assign what happens when you press and hold the SPINN's wheel.

User Interface. One thing I like about the SPINN is that it gives you a choice. All the touchscreen players out there suffer from fingerprint marks. The SPINN is the first one I've tested that allows you to control it with external controls OR touches of the screen. The key to it all is the SPINN wheel.

Add the Back button on top and you have almost every input you need. Spin the wheel to move up and down between menu choices. Press down on it to select. You can set a custom command to be activated when you press and hold the SPINN wheel. The touchscreen is fairly sensitive. I found it responsive. The only minor complaint is that many icons are near the edge of the screen and the raised screen frame occasionally limits fat finger access to those icons.

What the SPINN needs is more work. I sure hope IRiver is working on it. There is no gesture support. No multitouch. There is rare distinction between a short tap and a long touch on the screen. While better than several touchscreen players I've tested that use interfaces ported from non-touchscreen players, the SPINN has a long way to go to compete with the iPod Touch or Samsung P2.

The SPINN came with three applications including a Firmware Updater. What shows immature development is that the updater doesn't recognize the SPINN. It leaves me in doubt that they will improve the SPINN's firmware quickly.

EDIT: It's december 26th, and the Firmware Updater finally did recognize the SPINN. It looks like iriver is working on the web end of support for the SPINN. It's a good sign, but slow to get here.

Conclusion? The SPINN is a good player, but it's not worth the current asking price. The Samsung P2 is far more evolved. There is a P3 coming out in January that will be even better. The spin wheel is a great idea, but they should have exploited the touch screen more. I encountered a few (signal dropout) bugs using bluetooth. If you're looking for a great touchscreen media player, the SPINN isn't there yet.

4D