Samsung's newest PMP, the Samsung YP-P3, uses the updated EmoTure interface, but does it have the features to stand out?
Samsung's high-end portable media players have always zigged where other have zagged. While other flagship all-touch players are focusing on Wi-Fi and internet capabilities, like the newly announced Sony Walkman NWZ-X1000, the Samsung YP-P3, like the YP-P2 before it, focuses more on some acrobatic feats of Bluetooth. The media player can pair with your phone, and then the music will pause when you receive a call. Further, you can even take the phone call using your headphones and a built-in microphone on the Samsung YP-P3. Finally, you can even place a call using an onscreen keyboard. We've tried these features on the YP-P2, and they work nicely to bridge the gap between the cell phone and the music player, if you don't want a single device.
Unfortunately, the Samsung YP-P3 doesn't see much of an update from the YP-P2. The body is now die-cast metal, but the basic form remains the same. There is a touch sensitive slab beneath the screen set aside for gestures to control media playback, which is a nice touch, but not revolutionary. For storage, the Samsung YP-P3 will come with internal memory ranging from 4GB all the way up to 32GB, which brings it in line with the best compact touchscreen players.
Instead of a feature bump, Samsung is heavily promoting the new EmoTure interface design. We've heard this rap from Samsung before, about how products will stimulate emotions and we'll be able to personalize out devices to our hearts content. Honestly, we think customization can be overrated, since we're not full-time designers, and we'll take a highly sensitive touchscreen and great music transfer software to stimulate our emotions. In the last generation player, the customized interface designs relied heavily on users to generate the new designs, and this caught on, sort of.
We think Samsung might be resting on their laurels here. In our hands on time with the Samsung YP-P3, the interface design reminded us just a little bit of the TouchWIZ interface making its way onto Samsung's newest all-touch phones. We wonder why Samsung didn't just go all the way and create a super-UI that could be used on both their phones and their PMPs. Apple does it, and it works great.
We also think that Samsung is making a mistake in neglecting a serious hardware feature bump for the Samsung YP-P3, unless a price cut is what they have in mind. We'd like to see Wi-Fi, GPS, an accelerometer and maybe some other cool, new features. Unfortunately, Samsung's high-end has become quite conservatively mid-range.
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