Gizmodo: K5

Samsung YP-K3: The K5's Little Brother, Sans Speaker

Gizloco — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 08:03:17 EST

The Samsung YP-K3, scheduled to make its debut at CES in January, is the slimmed down successor to the YP-K5. Supposedly it's Samsung's "slimmest and sleekest," which, given the picture, would be hard to argue against. The biggest difference between the new K3 and the K5 is that that K3 is believed to be lacking the built-in speaker that made the K5 unique amongst other DAPs. The screen is a little larger, too, this time coming in at 1.8 inches versus the K5's 1.7 inches. Whether or not it's any better at viewing pictures is anyone's guess. There's a higher-res shot after the jump.

Other than those most basic facts, nothing else has been officially announced by Samsung. All it needs to do is correct a few of the complaints we had about the K5, which was a little clunky and some of its extras like picture viewing and FM radio weren't as well-done as they could've been, and the K3 could end up being a fine DAP indeed. – Nicholas Deleon

CES Innovation Honorees [CES 2007]

Samsung YP-K5 Ad Goes After The iPod

Jason Chen — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:00:10 EDT

The Samsung YP-K5 MP3 player with built-in speakers that we reviewed and saw someone run over has its own ad now, just like a big boy music player.

Directly challenging the iPod, the ad focuses on using built-in speakers to connect people instead of separating them—one of the main complaints of street iPod use. Except how happy will you be when some ass is listening to their YP-K5 on the bus when you're trying to get some sleep? Yeah, that's what we thought. – Jason Chen

Guy Runs over Samsung YP-K5 with Car, Declared Mentally Unstable

Travis Hudson — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:13:47 EDT

Seriously, who does that? There are starving kids all across the world dying for an all-in-one mini boombox digital audio player and this jerk-off is running them over with his car. The YP-K5 survived the test, which says something about its durability, but that's not the point. Don't run over expensive and pretty electronics, it hurts us all in the wee-wee. – Travis Hudson

[Via dapreview]

Belkin Releases Accessory Line for Samsung Players

Travis Hudson — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 12:23:52 EDT

Well I'll be a monkey's blue-assed uncle. It was just a little while ago that we presented our first, exclusive look at the Samsung YP-K5 MP3 player and Belkin already has a line of accessories out for this player. The other Samsung players Belkin will be accessorizing are the T9 and Z5.

For a little vehicular love, Belkin is releasing the TuneCast Auto for the T9. It is a FM transmitter and cigarette lighter charger. Also released is the TuneDok for the Z5. The TuneCast will retail for $49 and the TuneDok will retail for $29. Belkin also released a couple dual charging kits for K5, T9 and Z5. Two easily swappable adapters allow for the players to be synced to a PC via USB, charged via a wall outlet or charged via a cigarette vehicle outlet. The charging kits will retail for $34. Also Belkin is releasing screen overlays for the K5 and T9 players. Pretty basic—thin pieces of plastic overlays to protect the screen from scratches.

Belkin has also released a ton of different cases for the different players. The K5 player will have a convertible case, and a carabiner case. The T9 will have a neoprene armband, lanyard case and sports jacket. And the Z5 will have a sports jacket, folio case and sports jacket lanyard case. All of these cases will retail for $29, except for the sports jacket cases, which will go for $19. – Travis Hudson

Press Release [Belkin]

Samsung YP-K5 MP3 Mini Boombox: First Unboxing, Review, and Video.

Brian Lam — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 05:24:00 EDT

Here it is. You might have seen some fuzzy flyby images of this MP3 player with speakers built into its backside. But we've got it in our hands. And we love it.

For a 4GB player, it's kinda chunky. The magnesium case is almost three times as thick as a nano, even though it has a slightly bigger footprint. But you would too if you had speakers built into your ass, mounted on sliding rails. I think I remember hearing that they're 1.5 watts, total. How loud are they? You know when there's some asshole talking on his cellphone in the library, and you just tell him to shut the hell up? It's about that loud, except it's not annoying. It's fucking great. Flipping on the EQ's 3D mode drew a soundscape I thought came from stereo speakers about a foot apart when I closed my eyes and gave a listen.

How does the rest of it hold up? We unbox, review from head to toe, drop the stat-smather, and even shoot some b-roll video of the speaker, after the jump.

When this machine is off, it looks like a black bar, with a glass face. When it's on, it boots into music mode, with a fancy 20+ band spectrum analyzer bouncing around. Mesmerizing...
...
Huh? Turn it off and you get this lame animation that looks like...I don't know what it looks like. Don't turn it on.

The music menus include the usual suspects: Artists, Albums, Tracks, Genres, playlists. Next topic!

Let me get this out of the way. The touch controls can't scroll through long song lists nearly as quickly as the iPod's wheel. But unlike the LG chocolate, they actually work really, really, really well. The menus are animated, which I found cute at first, but navigating through them got slightly annoying after a bit. I've got ultimate ADD, so your mileage may vary. It takes a special person to complain about split second menu delay.

The player does a decent job of showing off photos on its 1.7-inch OLED screen, but it's not the sharpest screen we've ever seen. Photos are a little dark. It's nice the music still plays while the photos are slideshowin'.

What other extras? There's an FM radio tuner that uses the headphone cable as an antenna. I wasn't impressed by the reception, to be honest.

The way I'll use this player the most? As an alarm clock. You can save a couple of alarms, each with individual settings. I'm talking about Mon-Friday for the daily grind, Mon-Saturday for the grind plus morning cartoons, and Mon-Sunday for masochists. You can choose from a few different alarms, but the best thing is ADJUSTABLE SNOOZE. I set my snooze at 10 minute intervals, but more morning-oriented people can choose 3- and 5-minute gaps, too. What's cool is the time is displayed in a flipclock style. What I didn't like is that no place in the regular menus is the time displayed. What time is it, Samsung? Time to put a clock somewhere where I can see it!

The player goes for 6 hours in speaker mode, and 30 hours with earbuds. And it'll charge in 5 hours by USB, or 3 hours through a wall charger. It comes in pink, but thank god, Samsung sent us the black one.

The verdict: Awesome mini boom box, innovative design, great alarm clock, but only if you can get over the chubby form factor. Gizmodo Hearts the K5.

Unboxing, Video, and Stats, below.

Stat-Smather:
File support: MP3, WMA, OGG, ASF, JPG
Dimensions 98 x 47.5 x 18.1mm
Syncs with Plays for Sure
USB 2.0
1GB/2GB/4GB

Samsung's K5 will be available on September 10th at $210 for 2 gigs and $260 for 4 gigs. – Brian Lam

Samsung K5 [internal]