Review - Samsung YH-820 MP3 player
- Posted by Rob (#1) on May 5, 2005 21:38 CEST
This morning I walked into the MediaMarkt and noticed a nice gadget: the Samsung YH-820 Digital Audio Player. Executive summary: I'm returning it tomorrow.
The sleek and compact 5GB digital music player holds up to 1200 songs. Plus you can transfer and store digital pictures and view them on the vivid color display.
For €200, that sounds like a lot of fun. I don't really need more capacity than 100 albums and JPEG support is a big bonus as I like carrying my photo album around. There's more to like about this model:
- The YH-820 uses USB 2.0 which provides excellent transfer speeds.
- Navigation is simple, smooth and sufficient: no complaints here.
- Samsung has looked at Apple it seems: the design is stylish and reminiscent of the iPod.
A seemingly clever device? Well, not really:
- The JPEG image viewer is virtually worthless. A resolution of 128x96 is simply insufficient these days: even cheap camera phones do better than that these days. The support for 65k colours didn't really show either with the pictures I tested. Pre-scaled pictures work best: the internal scaling is far from optimal (and non-scaled pictures obviously take up more disk space).
- Although photo transfers work out of the box, the YH-820 seems to require custom software for its music collection, just like the iPod. You'd think transferring a MP3 file to the Music folder would be sufficient, but alas: users cannot update their playlist from any computer without the software installed, which is slightly inconvenient for a mobile device. Users of Linux and FreeBSD (myself includeD) are completely out of luck. Even manually editing the PLP playlist files does not work.
- Because of the playlist drama, I have not been able to verify battery life. But it is not advertised on the box for a good reason: Samsung claims 8 hours and those claims seem to be somewhat correct. That's a shame, for 8 hours is simply not enough.
- The USB transfer cable and power cable for recharging are a single, non-seperable item. Probably designed this way so it is possible to transfer without draining the battery, but in practice it's just annoying.
Audio quality seems okay, but I will not keep the YH-820 around long enough to review those qualities. Samsung should get credit for making a product nearly as stylish as the iPod, but even moreso they should also be deeply ashamed for making it such a hassle to update playlists. I refused to get an iPod because it requires custom software and I will return the YH-820 for the same reason.
I'm probably going to trade it in for the YP-MT6Z and some cashback: I'll have to do with 1GB (that's still almost 20 punk rock albums), but the single-AA playing time of 42 hours sounds excellent for trips.
Comments
Spencer Wagner on Jan 14, 2006 00:07 CET (Post reply)
I have transfered over 300 songs with windows media player, no problems. Not a single one of those songs was bought from napster, no problems. You are just too much of a dumbass to figure out one of the easiest mp3 players I have ever used.
Derek on Nov 25, 2005 20:41 CET (Post reply)
Cant agree more. This player is the biggest pile of shite I have ever seen in my life. Not gonna go through ALL the problems (Same as the other guys!) Just wanna add that I am now on No 3 !!!! The store wont give me my money back, they just keep giving me replacements. I wouldnt mind if that fixed the problem. Looks nice, but I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND SAMSUNG TO ANYONE. Loads of other users posting the same problems. When are big companies going to realise that if they turn out a crap product, with no customer service, that word gets around SOOOO fast? The more they fuck us over, the more people are gonna buy elsewhere. I am gonna stop whinging now...... now where did I put that old Walkman??
Spencer Wagner on Jan 14, 2006 00:09 CET (Post reply)
Dumb-ass European!
lau on Jan 23, 2006 03:28 CET (Post reply)
Hey dont buy this thing..
What the ph-- happen with this product??
After 8 montshs of buying my YH-820 i thought it was the best product i have buy..1200 songs, photos, better sound than an ipod..the only thing i didnt like much was that it was very slow and i have to reset it like one time a week.that was not a problem,, until a thing about the HDD appear on the screen,, i thought .ok i ll take it to samsung , there they told me that it was because of reset it a lot and that the repair was not include in the guaranty..i oay 120 dolars for the har disk drive repair and after less tan a month the damned problem appear again!!
Mary K on Jan 25, 2006 06:39 CET (Post reply)
hi,
i'm wondering if you can help me with my samsung yh-820. i can't figure out how to build playlists. my disk didn't come with music studio, so i've tried using windows media player, but no luck ... i just want to know how to listen to the songs i like, in playlists to suit my moods... this mp3 player does stink. what a waste of money...
Mark on Feb 16, 2006 16:18 CET (Post reply)
My YH-820 thing stopped the music playback after just a month of a very moderate use. Formatting, firmware update etc could not help, though the device works as an external HDD. Samsung support Center did not reply to my e-mail request, local repair team could not help at all. Make a notice for yourself about the product and company's attitude to clients...
Joe on Mar 14, 2006 23:05 CET (Post reply)
Yh-820 and service from Samsung very poor. My HDD now fails to initialise and Samsung wont cover it under warranty although I have proof of purchase. Purchased in USA and now home in Scotland. DO NOT BUY THIS MP3. POOR PRODUCT.
ZE on Jul 8, 2006 19:43 CEST (Post reply)
Yeah, Really SLOW, my iPod nano better :p
By the way anyone know how to put musics that can't be inserted on the player like Chinese songs or so? i fount something on the player, on paste Fonts, korean.fnt, maybe need a chinese.fnt ?
help please
ACE on Oct 31, 2006 07:09 CET (Post reply)
COmplete piece of crap. I sent it in the first time, and it came back in a month, then it broke that week. I sent it in again, then it worked, then it broke. WTF i spent so much time on this crap. I just ended up buying an ipod and havnt had any problems.
DONT BUY
John on Oct 31, 2006 23:50 CET (Post reply)
Spencer Wagner, your a tossa! the dam thing is shit and all the comments people have written are fact. You must work for samsung, unless you've got something worth telling people how to fix the problems on the samsung 820 piss off....!
Marcus on Oct 2, 2005 03:23 CEST (Post reply)
VERY DISAPPOINTED!!! THIS IS VERY HONEST EXPERIENCE, TRUST ME!!!!
Ferrari style, but total crap under. The best example of today’s marketing fraud , how to sell the design and written facts and the bad product under!!! Simply unusable.
I should buy i-pod!!! I gave Samsung a chance, but never again. I had few MP3 players and this is the worst case scenario for me buyin digital equipment!
Hey people wake up! -we live in 21st century.
Nice design, average color LCD -(every mobile phone has much better one these days!)…but unusefull for image reviewing, unless you are 5 years old. The internal software is stupid, it’s worst than at old Motorola StarTac mobile phone! There is no sence in organizing and it is sooo slow! Volume control suck, organizing files ONLY trough stupid NAPSTER suck (errors in Windows) and MP3s that are not bought over Napster, you might have problems with them!!!
switching from one song to another takes forever, PC to device connection considering MP3s is unusable, using it as portable HD is OK, but isn’t that MP3 player???
I have this strong feeling that Samsung used some old mobile phone spare parts that were left in factories and put it in a nice shiny box to cheat the customers, they put in 5 Gb microdrive from Hitachi, which their “spare parts�? and terrible software (probably from some old Samsung SGH mobile phone) is unable to manage!!!
Who knows what they did!?
Samsung have all this fancy products which work very good and are very ergonomic, but what is this crap???
I bought the player 2 months ago. I needed exactly 10 hours to make it work. Only with Napster??? Come on!!! Boot time, are you kidding me!?!??! -when empty 20 sec. and more! - not to mention when loaded with 70% Mp3!!!! sometimes more than 2 minutes, Menus suck! After 1 month of usage all the Mp3s started to skip like an old damaged audio CD!!!??? I tried everything!!! Problems on booting (Boot time could go up to 6 minutes!!!) errors with USB connection, errors in widows, I tried to delete files (just wouldn’t do), I tried to upgrade the firmware and NOTHING, (I couldn’t do that.) Also Napster was in somekind of conflict with Windows Media PLayer (had any software conflicts or software take over problems before??? Get ready!!)
For 1 week I was trying to make it work, and 10 minutes ago the Widows didn’t recognize it anymore (( So I lost my nerves. Just before I sat down to write this review, I went into my garage, I searched for a BIG heavy HAMMER… And BUM. F**k that YH-820. R.I.P.
I feel free now. …and the life goes on.
Ex SAMSUNG YH-820 MP3 owner.
Marcus (Europe)
PS.
I KILLED MY 230 EUROS BECAUSE I LOST MY TEMPER!!!
SO the LEAST I COULD DO WAS TO WRITE THIS FOR THE PEOPLE!!!
BE SURE TO TRY IT IN THE STORE AND TRY THE PROCEDURE HOW TO DOWNLOAD MP3s AND CHECK ALL MY FACTS! YOU WON’T BUY IT FOR SHURE, UNLESS YOU ARE SOMEKIND OF DIGITAL SADO MAZO!!!
I will send all the parts to Samsung!!!
(I kept the headphones)