Samsung YP-T9JQB 2GB Portable Media Player (1.8", 6 Hours Video)

Samsung YP-T9JQB

YP-T9JQB 2GB Portable Media Player (1.8", 6 Hours Video) Review, by Paul Jasper January 22, 2007

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• Latest User Reviews 1 review
• Reviewed by: ddog2010

  Duration of ownership: 2 Months

  Strengths: Amazing picture qulaity, easy to learn, many things to do on it, playes video, mp3, supports photos, fm turner, voice recorder

  Weaknesses: low memory, buttons should be on other side

  Overall: The player is amazing but because it holds your video, photos, and muusic i would highly suggest getting the 4g instead of the 2g, but over all it is amaing and worrth the buy.

• Reviewed by: mlt9584

  Strengths: Plays many audio formats, videos, images, records, FM tuner and games.

  Weaknesses: Video resolution is limited.

  Overall: This is a really great MP3 player. For the price and features offered, this is a big bargain! The MP3 player itself is very small and thin. The LCD is the perfect size. The interface menu is easy to use and navigate. Transferring files to the MP3 player using the software that came with the product is so simple and fast. The software is even compatible with Windows Vista! The FM tuner picks up radio stations with a clear quality sound. The voice recording quality is fantastic. It even records FM tuner radio stations. Overall, I am very pleased with this MP3 player. It offers more features than an Apple Ipod and way much cheaper with a quality brand; Samsung. Highly recommend this product.

• Reviewed by: eewhiz

  Strengths: Large stunning Color LCD, a REAL 30 hrs of Batt life, Very nice form factor, Internal MIC can record High fidelity audio, Tough plastic case (very scratch resistant!)

  Weaknesses: Non-standard USB interface, poor accessory support

  Overall: I have been using MP3 players for over 8 years, and the best flash-based player I have ever used. The iPod NANO cannot even compete with this player. The PC World review (see under "expert" review) was probably written by an Appleholic. This is my 1st Samsung product, and I am impressed. This LCD may not be optimal for watching long movies, but it CAN do it. I have watched a DVD movie file (transcoded with supplied software) on this and since the screen is so sharp, it makes the experience much easier. My other active MP3 player is an Archos604Wifi (so I have a large library of movies on HDD). Where the Archos604 is too big for portability, this unit is so lightweight. I have been using WMP11 for syncing. You can set the internal mic to record @ 8K ~ 128Kbps MP3 (nice for ad-hoc hi-fi recordings). My main complaint is that it uses a non-standard USB (just like the Nano)!! and the accessories for the product seem weak, but perhaps that will improve with time... TD

• Reviewed by: Lvscott

  Strengths: Plays Videos, FM Radio, Voice Recorder, Photo Viewer, Text Viewer, Intuitive Menu, Good Battery Life, Nice Screen

  Weaknesses: Proprietary USB Cable

  Overall: After doing much research on MP3 players, I decided on the Samsung YP-T9 and am glad I did. To start with, it has a very nice size and shape. It feels very solid and not cheap like some other players. The screen is beautiful and there is a brightness control so you can view it even in bright daylight. The menu system is very intuitive. Although I did read the manual, I feel I could have skipped that and found my way around just by playing with the unit. The thing I like best about this player is the ability to play videos. This player comes with software that will allow you to convert your videos to a size and format to fit the screen. I have a TV tuner card in my computer that allows me to record TV shows. A half how show recorded in DVD quality is about 1GB, but when I run it through the included Samsung Media Studio converter software, it reduces the size to about 100 MB. You can see that you could fit quite a few hours of video on this 2GB unit. It takes about 10-12 minutes to convert a half hour show. You just select the files you want to convert, then go do other stuff like surfing the web, and it seems the conversion is done in no time. The videos play back at 15 frames per second, but despite being half the frame rate of regular TV (30 fps), the video is not jerky, flickering, or slow at all. It is completely watchable. There are also video bookmarks so you can set a bookmark at a certain spot in a video and come back to it later. The audio quality is amazing and even the FM radio and voice recording sounds terrific. You can also record directly off the FM radio. Later versions of firmware (1.5 and 1.6) only record FM radio in mono so that is something to be aware of if you like to record off the radio. There are several equalizer presets as well as a custom equalizer setting. If you are a fan of audiobooks, this is a great unit. The time display is in HH:MM:SS format so you can see your place. Earlier versions of the firmware (1.27 and below) had a problem with skipping audio when playing DRM protected audio books. This was fixed in version 1.5 and above. Version 1.6 is the latest release and it added audio bookmarks so you could set a bookmark and come back to the spot where you left off. There is also a playback speed option so you can playback your audio up to 3 times faster or slower. This works great if you have a slow reader of an audio book or if you want to learn a foreign language and need to slow the audio down to understand it. The unit comes with 2 games (3 if you update the firmware to 1.6). They aren't that great but they are interesting to try. There is a text viewer too and you can use it for ebooks. I have seen complaints about the lack of word wrap when using the text viewer so that words get broken up between the end of one line and the beginning of the next. I did transfer one text file with my name and phone number in case the player got lost but did not have any problems with word wrap. I am using firmware version 1.6 so perhaps the word wrap issue was fixed in this version. The unit can also be used as a UMS device if you update the firmware to version 1.5 or above. Version 1.27 and below were MTP only which require the Samsung Media Studio software or Windows Media Player to transfer files. Using firmware version 1.5 and above, your YP-T9 shows up as a USB drive in Windows Explorer and you can drag and drop files to it. You can still use Samsung Media Studio with firmware version 1.5 and 1.6 and it does a good job. I found Windows Media Player cumbersome to work with in regards to file transfers so I use the Samsung Media Studio, which also does the video conversion. I like the Samsung Media Studio software and have no problems with it. You can set up different playlists in the form of Albums to suit your different moods or activities. You can also transfer Album Art and have it display as the songs are being played. The battery life is very good. It is rated for 30 hours audio and 6 hours video. It is hard for me to give an exact time the battery lasts because I am switching between listening to audio and watching videos, but it is at least 20 to 25 hours. This is much better than your standard players that get 10-15 hours. The only negative I have found with the unit is the proprietary USB cable. If you want to charge the unit or transfer media to it, you have to take this proprietary cable along. If you lose it, you can't just buy a standard replacement USB cable. I have seen some complaints of slow file transfer speeds with firmware version 1.27 and below. Firmware versions 1.5 and 1.6 appear to have fixed this. I have used both versions and although I did see an increase in transfer speed with version 1.6, I didn't mind the speed at 1.27. I paid $129 for this unit a couple months ago and I have seen them even cheaper since them. This player is definitely worth the money, and I may but another as a back up.

• Reviewed by: kaidaddy

  Strengths: Great sound, long batter life, simple controls

  Weaknesses: A little bulky

  Overall: I purchased this to replace a 512K sized player. The extra space (2GB) is a huge advantage. The Samsung player not only looks great, but it is also one of the best sounding MP3 players on the market. A definate "buy"!

• Reviewed by: mir2121

  Strengths: FM tunerVoice recording30 hour audio playback

  Weaknesses: Too many buttons

  Overall: Great form factor, lots of features not included in regular iPods (fm tuner, voice and radio recording). Good battery life for audio. Display too small for video but that's an added bonus for me anyway.