Samsung YP-P3. My Review.

Samsung's YP-P2 was my favorite player for the last year or so. The Cowon S9 with it's AMOLED screen has leapfrogged it though. Now Samsung's P3 has arrived at my door, so it's time to see if the new kid on the block has what it takes to earn the title back.

Included in the box:

- Samsung's proprietary USB cable.

- Earbuds + foam covers.

- Warranty card.

- Quick Guide

The user manual and Emodio software are stored on the P3 itself. This is a new trend with Samsung and it makes perfect sense to me. One less little CD to deal with. My P3 arrived with firmware version 2.10 U.S.. The battery was full out of the box. Already on the P3 were sample files including 5 MP3 files, 2 videos, several sample photos, and a couple of text files along with their associated TTS (Text To Speech) files.

Media play capabilities includes Music, Videos, Photos, FM radio, Flash apps, and Text. For fun the P3 supports widgets, and comes with several.

Hardware features include Bluetooth, Haptic, an on-board Speaker, microphone, and FM radio.The P3 unfortunately is short on hard controls. You get volume +/- and a Power/Hold button. That's it. The P2 at least had Play/Pause in addition to what the P3 has. Compare this to the Cowon S9 with Play/Pause, Volume +/-, and Track FWD/BACK along it's top edge. The little grill you see above is the P3's speaker. On the bottom edge you see the data and headphone jacks. There is a tiny reset/mic hole as well. There is also a mini-touch area below the screen that when swiped provides quick access to music play control when not in the music app.

The touchscreen is more sensitive than that of the P2. It takes only one tap to pick and play a song from a list, whereas the P2 required a tap to select it and another one to play it. Samsung has clearly been working to make the interface smoother, although when scrolling through a song list I often end up picking a song I didn't mean to. Their algorithm still needs a little tuning. Still, the P3 is very responsive and graphics move about much more fluidly than they did on the P2.

The P3 uses many little interface tricks. You can touch, long touch, double-tap, swipe, drag, and draw circles on some screens to great effect. Read all about it beginning on page 20 in the USER MANUAL (4.68mb download). You'll want to know these tricks as they make getting around on the P3 very efficient.

These players are all about media playback, and the P3 is very polished at it. Music formats supported include:

MP3 (8kbps ~ 320kbps, 22kHz ~48kHz),
WMA(8kbps ~ 320kbps, 8kHz ~ 48kHz),
AAC-LC (16kbps ~ 256kbps, 8kHz ~ 48kHz),
AAC-Plus (16kbps ~ 256kbps, 16kHz ~ 44.1kHz),
Enhanced-AAC-Plus (16kbps ~ 256kbps, 32kHz ~
44.1kHz)

The P3 will play your DRM-free iTunes AAC files!The Signal to Noise Ratio is 89 dB. A higher number is better here. For comparison the Samsung Q2's S/N Ratio is 90 dB. For what it's worth the Q2 also supports the lossless OGG format. Although not mentioned, the P3 also plays WMA lossless files at 1152kbps. It won't play them over Bluetooth, and they require the P3's full attention. I've been listening to the P3 while writing this post and am having a hard time hearing any faults with it. Audio is crisp and detailed. Individual instruments are easy to distinguish. You'll hear the singer's breath and fingers slide across guitar strings. This all assumes you've got high bitrate samples and are using something better than the included earbuds. The Music Play screen (above) is clean with album art, album title, song, and artist all displayed. You have several ways to sort your music, and the album sort option gives your three clever ways to graphically see your album covers as you flick through them. It requires an annoying extra tap to call up the play controls. You have access to all music settings from a submenu here. I'm giving the P3's Music app an A-. More format support and fewer taps to make it work is what it still needs.

Video playback is exceptional. The P3 plays AVI/SVI, MP4, and WMV formats at 30fps. You can play files larger than the P3's 480 x 272 screen resolution. The screen is beautiful. I'll have to do a side-by-side comparison with the same movie file on each device to decide if it's any better or worse than the AMOLED screen of my Cowon S9 or the LCD screen on the Samsung P2. A quick glance tells me the colors are truer, more saturated on the 3.3" AMOLED screen of the S9. You won't be disappointed in any case. The P3 also shares a trick with the Cowon S9 in that it can take an array of snapshots of videos scenes so you can more readily jump to a give point in the video. A larger screen is always nicer, but the P3 will be a better fit in your hand and pocket. I'm giving the P3 an A for video play.

Picture display is improved from the P2. You get a slideshow option with three speeds and some nice transitions between images. A double tap on an image will zoom it in to 2x, 3x, and 4x it's original size on the screen. Once zoomed in you can pan around on the image. You can also set any image as the booting image. The P3 simply has better graphics processing power than the P2, which makes pans and transitions much more fluid and impressive. You can put huge photos on the P3 and it will still display them, but don't expect to zoom in progressively to see tiny details in those large pictures. 4x is all you get, and it's limited to how big the image appears at 1x on the P3's 480x272 screen. The Picture app is a couple of steps up from the P2's version. I'll give it an A-. There is still room for improvement.

FM radio is relatively unchanged from the P2. You'll need to switch to the EU version of the firmware to enable RDS support for FM stations that broadcast it. To switch to EU, copy and save the following text into a CONFIG.DAT file (use NotePad on your PC) , then copy that file into the root directory of the P3:

YP-P3

EU EN MTP

Then unplug the P3 and let it reboot. If the station supports it you may notice added info below the frequency number near the top of the screen. Station IDs, current song and artist, and even the genre may show up. It all depends on the station.

You can switch between preset and manual tuning. You can set the FM region and sensitivity. There is a small speaker/mute icon to tap near the frequency number, and you can RECORD anything you hear on the radio. I'm giving the FM Radio app an A. It could be a little better, but not by much.

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Flash support is the latest trend from the Korean manufacturers. The P3, S9, and iriver SPINN all play FLASH apps and games. The P3 comes with a Metronome app, but many more can be found in cowon S9 forums at www.anythingbutipod.com. You will probably have to register there to be able to download them. I haven't had a chance to try any additional Flash apps on my P3, so this post may be updated in the future.

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Bluetooth. The P3 not only does bluetooth to stereo headphone. It allows game play over bluetooth to other Samsung players, file transfer between bluetooth devices, and can even act as your cell phone once connected via bluetooth. Yes, you can receive and make calls through the P3.

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There is plenty more to keep you entertained on the P3. You get a great text reader that can read your text to you, a simple calculator, a calendar, contacts, a memo pad, several games, a subway map app, a world clock, an alarm clock, and a sleep timer. I'm sure I've missed a few things.

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So is it a good buy? For $149 you can buy an 8gb ipod Nano. You'll get Music, Videos, Photos, and the same "extras" such as alarm, calendar, clocks, games, and notes. The Nano has a 2" screen. The P3 has a 3" wide format touchscreen, adds FM radio, Voice recording, FM recording, Bluetooth, file transfer, inter-device play, and more. No math is necessary. Buying the Samsung P3 for the same $149 is a no-brainer.

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4D

Jensen SMPV-4GBTA. Portable Digital Media Player. My Review

I stumbled across this interesting player while browsing my Target portable electronics aisle. Just under $70 for 4gb capacity it plays songs, little videos, tiny photos, ebooks, and even does a decent job of recording voice. It's also got an attractive but slightly confusing touchpad interface.
Included in the package is a standard USB cable, some basic earbuds, a registration card, small software disc, and user manual. The device itself is as simple as can be. The bottom edge is where you'll find the USB port and headphone jack.
The top edge has a simple power/off slider and a place to hook a wrist strap. There is a microphone somewhere, but no marked indication for it on the body. Construction is decent, although they took no time to disguise the screws that hold it together. Looks like it would be easy to inspect the insides if you wanted to.

It's not large at roughly 1.69"wide x 3.5" long x .375" thick. It weighs 51 grams or 1.8 ounces. It has a nice heft to it. Below you can see it next to my Samsung T10. The screen is only 1.46", but is full color for photo display. You can choose from dark, blue, or pink for the background menu color. As for photo display the resolution is only 176 x 132 pixels. Most inexpensive photo key chains do better.

Voice recording is decent. The mic is more sensitive than most I've tested. There are Quality (Long Play, Normal, and High), VAD (Voice Auto-Detect), and AGC (Automatic Gain Control) toggles in the settings menu for recording. Recordings are saved as WAV files, and can be played back from within the recording app.

Music playback is acceptable, although it's hard to sort through and find a specific song when you want to. You can only see one song title at a time on the screen. It'll play MP3, WMA, and WAV files. Estimated play duration is about 7 hours before needing a recharge. You can sort by file or classification (id3 tags). There appears to be one playlist you can create and play from. You can enable A3D mode for a more 3D sound, although the effect depends on your music files. There are 6 EQualizer presets to choose from but no user defined options. You can shuffle or repeat. Nothing much more.

Video playback isn't worth bothering with in my opinion. The only supported format is MKV (MatrosKa Video). This is the first I've heard of this format despite having reviewed quite a few other video capable players. There is apparently no licensing fee required to support it, so it's likely we'll be seeing more and more of it. For now the included software is required to convert video into this format. With the required resolution being 160 x 128, there won't be much detail to appreciate on the Jenson's tiny screen. No further info, as it's not worth my time to convert a video for testing.

Photo display is possible, but again limited by the small screen. This Jenson will display JPG and BMP formats. You can put photos on that are larger than the display, but there is no zoom function and you'll only see a 160 x 128 version of them. I copied a few 480 x 272 photos to the Jenson. Color reproduction is close. The images load and display on the small screen. Tapping the bottom "play" control started a slide show of the images, although I can't find any way to control the timing of the images, and it was impossible to stop the show until I went back to the main menu choices.

Text (ebook) viewing is also supported, but again I don't see the point. The Jenson supports only .TXT files. I suppose a simple grocery list might be handy to have with you, but even a short story would be a trying experience to read on this small screen.

There is one game include on the device. Gobang it's called, and essentially your goal is to get five tiles in a row before your opponent (the computer) does. While it is not impossible to play, the control pad is difficult to master and with such a tiny screen a magnifying glass may be required to see what you're doing.

Key Lock. If you don't touch the screen for 30 seconds the device locks off all inputs until you unlock it again. To unlock you have to hold your finger on the menu icon for a few seconds until the padlock image opens. This is an extremely aggravating "feature" of the Jenson. There is no way to turn it off or change the time to a longer period. Imagine listing to a song for a minute or two, then wanting to skip to another one or even change the volume. You won't be able to do either until you press the menu icon for a few seconds to unlock the device first. VERY annoying. For this reason alone I get aggravated every time I use this device.

UI. The user interface needs work. There is what appears to be a four direction (NSEW) with center button touchpad, and a "M"enu icon to press. Yet the direction pad is only left and right, while the center vertical strip is a scroll pad for going up or down a list or controlling volume up and down. The M button is your main select/enter command. This is not intuitive at all. A long press of the M button will take you up to the main menu choices. A long press at the bottom of the vertical touch strip will power off the device. Tap the bottom of this strip for play/pause control. Nothing happens when you tap the center spot of the controls. I don't see why manufacturers feel the need to re-invent how you control a player. Jenson may think they've got an original input scheme here, but it's a cludgy system for accessing your media.

Conclusions? There are too many things wrong with this Jenson player for me to recommend it to anyone. I was surprised to find it didn't have an FM radio, as every other player I own (except iPods) does. Finding a particular song is difficult if not impossible. The user interface is unintuitive and frustrating. I'd have been more impressed if they had left out photo and video play in exchange for a better music app. Yes, it will play your music. Yes it will show photos and videos and text. It does none of these things well, though. My advice? Don't buy one.

4D

iRiver P7. My Review

If you are looking for something that has a big screen and can play your videos then the iRiver P7 may be just what you need. With a 4.3" touchscreen and an original interface the P7 is an excellent video/photo display device. You also get ebook (TXT) display, Music play, FM radio with recording, and voice recording. There's a world clock, calculator, and calendar too. Included in the box is a Quick Guide, Software CD, Warranty booklet, Headphones with pads, Data Cable, and a stylus.
The Data Cable is proprietary. Plugged into your PC you are presented with three options: Power and Data, Power and Music, or only Power.

One nice thing about the touchscreen is that you can touch it with your finger or a stylus. A simple aluminum (I think) stylus is included. Dimensions are 0.53" thick by 4.44" wide by 2.9" tall. It weighs 174 grams or 6.1 ounces. For comparison my iPod Touch weighs 4.2 ounces and my Zune 80 weighs 4.9 ounces. It's no lightweight for sure.

Controls include a power button, volume +/-, and a menu button across the top edge. Along the right side is the headphone jack, microphone, hold slider, wrist strap connection point, microSD slot and a reset hole. The data port is under a sliding bar on the bottom edge. The back has a speaker slot, and the front has a small led charge indicator light.
UI. Turned on you are presented with "designed by iriver" as the Operating System loads up. No icons on this touchscreen. The home page is like a contemporary magazine contents page. Each application has it's own section of the screen. Music displays the album art of the last or current song playing. Photo is the last one you viewed. If there was art with the movie you last watched it'll display in the video section. You'll see the last radio channel listened to, and in the document section you get a snippet of the last text you viewed. I have to admit that I was not overly impressed the first time I turned on the P7. It's not obvious what to do, but touching any area on the screen invariably opens an application. Touch the album cover art and you'll find yourself in the music application. The upper most level gives you the choice of Now Playing, Quick List, All Music, Artists, Genres, "My Playlist", and "My Rating" to sort your music by. Quick list is basically a playlist you can create as you browse through your songs.

The Music App is straight forward and competent. Supported formats include MP3(8-320kbps), WMA(8-320kbps), OGG(Q-Q10), FLAC, and WAV. Music sounds great. The options along the bottom of the Now Playing screen include back (to music list), RWD, Pause/Play, FFwd, AB tagging, Bookmark, and Goto (bookmarks). You get a roughly 1.375" square album art image, a dynamic waveform graphic, the Title, EQ option, Shuffle/Repeat access, and the option to rate (0-5 stars) the song. A side menu gives you access to SRS WOW HD settings, User EQ settings, and Fade-in ON/OFF. If your song has lyrics attached a swipe across the album art will reveal them. A long swipe across the width of the screen will slide the art over to show a short section of the song list to scroll through and choose from. Lastly there is a standard M in the top right to take you to the home menu from any page. Video playback is also right to the point and excellent. Formats include AVI, WMV, MP4, RM.RV, DAT/MPG, 3GP/K3G, and FLV. The video app remembers where you are within any video previously played. You can stretch video to fill the whole screen. The expected skip back/forward and play/pause are there. You also get the same bookmarking options the music app had. The submenu has Ratio, Video Option, and Subtitles, with Scan Speed and Play mode under Video Option. I've tested MP4, AVI, and WMV files on my P7. All played fine. The only negative thing I can find about video play on the P7 is related to the screen technology used. The AMOLED screen of the iRiver SPINN can be viewed from any angle without color distortion. The P7's LCD screen discolors when viewed from any low angle, and dims a little when viewed from the side or above. It's also a little washed out compared to the same video played on any AMOLED screened player.

Photos are beautiful, although again not as stunning as they appear off the AMOLED screens of the Cowon S9 or iRiver SPINN. The P7 will rotate your photos to best fit the screen automatically, or you can rotate them yourself. Zoom and pan to 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4 of the photo on the screen, but not fluidly. Photo scaling and sliding is nothing to be proud of but it does work. You get to control the timing of your slide show, and can sort photos within folders to specify a subset you might want to slide show through. The 4.3" screen certainly improves the experience as it's close to the size of dedicated digital photo frames. You may not mind looking at your photos on a 2" screen ( of an Ipod Nano for example), but once you see them at 4.3" you won't want to go back. Recording is straight forward and versatile. Tap the red circle on the home screen and you're in the recording app. The submenu lets you pick from 3 quality settings including 64, 96, and 128Kbps WMA. The mic is on the right end of the P7, and I got the best recording if I talked directly into it or at least tilted the P7 so the right end was toward me. Once you have a recording or two you can play them directly from the recording app. Your list of recordings is revealed if you slide the screen from right to left.

The calculator appears better than I normally find on Korean made PMPs. This one has memory functions, square root, and percentage. Using it is a little confusing, however. One simple way to find the Golden Ratio is to take the square root of 5, divide it by two, then add one. This calculator won't let me enter "5 √ ÷ 2 = + 1 =". The math can be done, but not without employing the memory to save intermediate values. It doesn't seem to cache current results for the next calculation. Fix this, iRiver!Radio. Nothing special here. The P7 FM Radio app won't bother doing anything until you plug in some headphones (antenna), and actually reminds you to. Once plugged in, you can manually tune or have the P7 automatically scan for and create a preset list of available channels. No RDS. You can record from FM, and choose from three different quality settings. There is no scheduled record. Competent, but not extraordinary.

Text. A nice option for a big screened player. You can put any TXT file on the P7 and view it there. The screen will report how many pages of text there is in the file. It will auto-scroll the text for you, using a variable rate you can set in the submenu. You've got three sizes of fonts to choose from, also in the submenu. You can also pick from several languages. There is a bookmarking option, and once you have set at least one bookmark in a file you can then pick from a list of the bookmarked positions to go to. There is no font or background color option. The black/gray text on the white background is easy enough to read though. My old eyes appreciate the large font option.

Conclusions? At $199 for a 16gb model I think the P7 is a bargain. It has a microSD slot that supports at least 8gb cards (largest I had to try). It's not ideal as a pocketable player, but would be an excellent media device to keep in your briefcase or purse. It's an excellent way to show off photos and videos. You can sync media with it using Windows Media Player or the included Jetaudio app, or just drag and drop media files directly onto it. It played everything I put on it except a protected WMV file that was included with a BluRay movie. There is a rumor that it supports video output, but I have found no concrete proof of this.

I've you've been looking for a large screened player, this is a good one. It's likely to get better with firmware updates. I'm keeping mine.

4D

Firmware version 1.15 LINK (English). IRiver LINK.

Pinnacle Video Transfer Review

The Pinnacle Video Transfer (PVT) device makes it simple to convert videos from DVD, VHS, and cable or satellite box to digital files you can play on your portable media players or PC. I bought mine from Newegg.com for around $80 after rebates. The PVT has a USB port on the bottom end which you can plug a USB thumb drive or portable hard drive into. There are red/white/yellow RCA and an Svideo jack on the top end. Plug an output cable from your player in here and you're almost set to go. Add the include AC charger cable to power up the PVT and you are treated to a nice display of red and blue LEDs while the system checks itself up. You'll get a row of blue lights when the PVT detects a video and audio source. The other end will give you one blue LED when a satisfactory USB storage device is ready for recording. The front face has a single round icon which can be pressed at the bottom to toggle through recording modes an pressed at the top to begin or stop recording.
One thing to do when first receiving the PVT is to update it's firmware. You can download new firmware HERE. Pinnaclesys.com/pvtsupport. Simply copy the downloaded file to an empty USB thumbdrive then plug it into the PVT. Full instructions can be found at the link.

The three recording modes are there so you can choose the best video format for the device you intend to put it on. There are Good, Better, and Best modes with Best being 720x480 interlaced (DVD quality), and Good and Better modes supporting devices with smaller screens.

I found the PVT easy to set up. It came with it's own A/V patch cable, but you may want to get an A/V switch box or multi-output receiver to allow monitoring the video you are recording.

Results depend on the quality of your source. VHS tapes won't have the resolution of a DVD. Cable and Satellite boxes vary in the quality of their composite or Svideo output. Garbage in, Garbage out. Work with the best source you can. Svideo should be better than that yellow RCA composite signal.

Conclusions: I used an old VHS tape of Lost In Space to test the "better" mode, and ended up with a 640 x 480 .MP4 video file. The file played fine in iTunes, although with a bit of scrabbled scan line along the bottom edge which I'm sure was due to the VHS format not actually supporting 480 lines. My VCR had shut off and ejected the tape when it was done, and the PVT stopped recording automatically when the video signal was lost.

I haven't tried the Good or Best modes yet, but will update this blog post when I have. iTunes had no trouble syncing the digital copy over to my iPod Touch. It took a few minutes, but when finished I had a MP4 version of a VHS movie playing on my iPod, and it was nearly as simple as just waiting. You'll have to wait for the source movie to play in real time, then wait a few minutes to copy that movie from the thumb drive over to your iPod on your PC. This was far less painful than the process of ripping a movie from a DVD onto the computer and converting it to play on the iPod. I highly recommend the Pinnacle Video Transfer.

A Good price HERE. Newegg.com.

Some more photos HERE. Newegg.com.

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

Coby MP835 Review. At Last!

It took them long enough, but Coby is finally producing the touchscreen MP3 player they announced back in May. Mine arrived today, and while it's a great looking player the user interface is a disappointment.

Included in the box:

- the MP835

- USB cable

- Ear buds

- Installation CD

- A felt slipcase

- Limited Warranty

- Quick Start Guide

- Tech Support card

- Instruction Manual

- A card for 50 Free Songs from www.eMusic.com/coby.

Ear buds: The included ear buds are better than most. Fitting in the ear rather than hanging on the earlobe, they block out external sounds and let you appreciate your music without distraction. Like most ear buds they fail to reproduce the lower bass frequencies. Get some good headphones and you'll be pleased with the MP-835's audio quality.

Cable: I'm not sure why manufacturers feel the need to use a custom proprietary cable on their higher end players, but Coby is no exception. Don't loose this cable. I could find no place on Coby's web site to buy a replacement.

Size: At roughly 2" wide, 3.875" tall, and .4" thick the MP835 is nearly identical to the Samsung P2. Weighing 75 grams to the P2's 83 grams the difference can be chocked up to a smaller battery in the Coby. That also implies less play time on a charge as well.

External controls include a power/hold slider on top, and a volume +/- rocker on the right side. There is a microSD slot (limited to 2gb) on the left side. The bottom edge contains the earphone jack, proprietary USB connection, and a reset hole.

Screen: The screen is 3" diagonal with 480 x 272 pixels. It is identical to the P2's. The Coby will play music, videos, photos, text, and FM radio. It has a few extras including a World Clock, simple Calendar, simple Calculator, and Sleep Timer. You can input your name/user ID to appear on startup of the player. There is a file browser. You can also reformat the player.

UI. Coby misses the boat here with the MP835's user interface. It's as if they've never seen an iPod Touch or Samsung P2. Instead of allowing you to tap directly on the option or file you want, a tap on the screen brings up a direction pad. You then have to tap on up/down or left/right arrows to move through menu or media choices. They've ported this UI from their non-touchscreen players with no consideration given to the efficiencies a touchscreen can impart. The Coby MP-835 UI gets a D-. Barely passing. Hopefully they'll overhaul it in a future firmware update.

Music. This player will play MP3 or WMA files. You can sort your music by Artists, Albums, Tracks, Favorites, Genres, or simply Explore the music directory structure. There are 5 Equalizer (EQ) presets, and one user EQ setting to choose from. You can Repeat One, Repeat All, Repeat Shuffle, or simply Shuffle your songs. You can change the play speed from 70% to 130% of original speed, although pitch will change with speed. Podcasts in particular can get very interesting with a change in play speed. The screen will display cover art, the shuffle mode, EQ mode, and the song title. The lower half of the screen is a real-time graphic equalizer. Music could benefit from a full-screen cover art display, more EQ modes, and a playlists option. There is a single favorites list you can add songs to and play from, but this functionality is limited. I'll give Music a B. Sounds great. Could be more functional.

Video. The Coby plays AVI and WMV files at 480 x 272 pixels, 30fps. The Coby came with a video conversion utility on the installation CD but I have not tried it. You can adjust screen brightness and search speed, or capture a screen shot from any video to be saved as a photo. Three music videos are included, and all look great on the large screen. You still have to tap to bring up the direction pad, which makes anything but simply watching a video very cumbersome. With only 4gb of internal space, and a limit of 2gb on an external microSD card, there won't be room for very many movies on this player. It's a shame. The high resolution wide format screen is perfect for them. Video gets a B+ from me. They only thing keeping it from an A is the clutsy UI. Shame on you, Coby!

Photos. For photos this Coby will display JPG, BMP, GIG and PNG files. You can zoom up to 2x, 3x, and 4x, so long as the photo is 2, 3, or 4 times larger than the screen's native resolution. Trying to zoom a small picture beyond it's original size will get you a "We cannot support" message. Photos can be rotated in 90 degree steps. Moving to another photo,zooming or rotating all has to be done after calling up the direction pad. Horribly inefficient. The Samsung P2 allows a simple swipe, double tap, or gesture on the screen for those functions. Photos look great, but the poor UI within the photo app gets it a frustrating C.

Text. Only simple TXT files are supported. Most word processors can save in the TXT format so this should be no problem. I haven't tried it, so no grade here.

FM Radio. Like every other player I've tested, the MP-835 requires your headphone cable to be connected to serve as the radio antenna. It can be tuned manually or from a list of up to 40 presets. You can set US, Europe, or Japan regions. You can force mono reception (as opposed to stereo). To limit or expand the list of stations you can receive you can set low, medium, or high signal Sensitivity. The screen displays the current frequency, preset number, and a graphic equalizer on the lower half. No RDS data is supported or displayed. FM Radio only plays within the radio application. Leaving the radio application turns off the radio. I'll give FM Radio a B. It's a decent application, but no RDS data brings it down a notch.

Reliability: The firmware included is version 1.01. Hopefully they are still working on it as I've had to reset my MP835 several time in the short time I've had it. A press of the reset reliably restarts the player, but there is no excuse for such poor behaviour on a new device. When it DOES work the audio, video, and photo quality are excellent. The radio works better than most with no static or signal drop once a station is found. I haven't tested the text reader, but the screen has enough resolution to suspect it should be fine. For needing to reset the player I'm giving it a B- on reliability.

Should you buy one? For the same money you can find a 4gb Samsung P2 with bluetooth, games, a far better UI, and much more. Save your money and skip the Coby MP-835 4G until they seriously improve it's User Interface and lower the price. It doesn't compete at the moment.

4D