- Slim and robust 8 GB multimedia player with digital FM radio
- Built-in Bluetooth 2.0: compatible with Bluetooth headphones and speakers for wireless stereo playback
- 3-inch widescreen LCD with touchscreen controls
- FM radio, text viewer, alarm clock, world clock, and calendar
- Windows XP and Windows Vista compatible
As for the touchscreen, I have to admit it's pretty nice. I prefer tactile use, so I'm more of a fan of buttons than touchscreens, but Samsung has done a nice job executing this one. There are a couple of odd quirks to the touchscreen. For example, when you "swipe" the touchscreen to advance you have to swipe from right to left, which seems counterintuitive since you are advancing the progress bar from left to right. Obviously, the same is true of swiping to back up, where you swipe from left to right, even though you're going back on the progress bar.
Also, in the default menu setting, you make circular gestures on the touchscreen to advance through the menu. Neat? yes. Functional? not really. The biggest problem I had with this is that my thumb kept obscuring the icons as they moved into view. Ultimately, I found this too annoying and I disabled it in favor of a regular grid menu. Not as cool to show your friends, but much more functional.
The audio player functions are top notch. As a caveat to this, I will say that I could not get this to sync with Winamp 5.5. My Winamp crashed every time I loaded it when the P2 was plugged in. Instead, I did my syncing through Windows Media Player, and it worked fine. It synced playlists perfectly, and did a great job recognizing albums when I copied them directly like a mass storage device. The on-board player functions include a customizable EQ with quite a few presets and a clarity adjuster. There are preset visualizations including a couple of light shows (that do not track the music), album art, track info, and a spectrum analyzer.
The video player is pretty good, but I don't really like watching video on such a small screen anyway. I'm not a big fan of the fact that you have to convert through Samsung's software to get it to run, but I guess that's the case with most MP3/video players. The widescreen playback is properly formated. FM reception is satisfactory. Not sure how the eReader works since I don't have any ebooks for it, but you can see test screens of it.
This is, overall, a good MP3 player, even if it is a bit pricey. It is only $50 cheaper than the iTouch, but it also brings in an FM radio tuner and bluetooth support for up to two bluetooth devices--including a pass-thru for your cellphone to a set of bluetooth stereo headphones like the non-US release Samsung T9. Bluetooth is a great feature if you've got bluetooth headsets, speakers, or car radio. So you're getting more features than the iTouch offers. A major downside for me is the fact that it is primarily touchscreen-only (there are hard buttons on the side: on the left a lock button and a play/pause/power button; on the right, two volume buttons). Since I tend to like to keep my mp3 in my pocket, I prefer to have tactile skip buttons as well.
Samsung has made some great strides with their feature packed MP3 players. And while this one was almost perfect for me, it fell short of the mark only in the somewhat high price tag and the lack of hard skip buttons. I give them kudos, however, for having hard play/pause/power and volume buttons (FYI, play/pause and volume can also be controlled via the touchscreen).
Buy Samsung P2 8 GB Touchscreen Bluetooth Portable Media Player (Black) Now
I wanted a video player that was easy to use with UnBox and other video sites other than iTunes (I have owned a 3G 40G and own a 4G 30G video and 3G Nano 4GB). Here are my initial thoughts:Fast charging via USB
Easy to use Samsung proprietary software for music, video and RSS feeds
Nice User Interface with Touch Screen, bright colors
File transfer from UnBox a breeze, recognized immediately, very fast file transfer vs. IPOD
Easy interface to add, update and load RSS feeds
Drag and drop computer files for music and video
Syncing is much easier than an IPOD, does not sync all of your files to obtain new files to load
Updated firmware was fast and easy (Bluetooth upgrade)
Great sound quality and form factor
Cost per MB more affordable than an IPOD
Love it so far after 1.5 hours of use; will update once I have it for a week or two.
WORTH considering, like the fact that it does not require quirky Windows Media Player
Purchased for $200, which was a bargain vs. the 4G IPOD Nano
Considered the Creative Vision and Archos; Archos was more than I needed as I just wanted to plug and play and take this on a plane. :)
Update 1/20/2007: The Unbox and Vongo video downloads work great. Vongo at $9.95 per month gives a variety of videos to download (14 day trial). Vongo does load any video that you choose from your subscription (total rental fee per month) vs. Unbox which only lets you download purchases --no rentals for portable video devices.
I also purchased the JabraBT620s Bluetooth headset and it paired immediately. Wireless music and video. However, the P2 does not support bluetooth with FM radio. Price for the Jabra is around $38-40 from an Amazon seller, 1/2 the price vs. other websites. When on Bluetooth, you can not change the equalizer settings.
Wish this were 16GB which would hold enough music and video; Samsung is coming out with 16GB model. However, this is not a deal breaker. Just means that you have to take videos off and swap them, and that would be the case with Vongo as you can download new videos all of the time.
When I take a plane trip this coming week, I will come back and update my review. Will be using Bose Quiet Comfort 1 with this player.
Read Best Reviews of Samsung P2 8 GB Touchscreen Bluetooth Portable Media Player (Black) Here
Just wanted to post that if you are in the market for a portable player, you should not pass this one up. I have the 4 GB version, and I rate the sound quality 10 out of 10 with some KOSS headphones mp3 encoded at 256. The screen is bright and clear, and while the volume has to go almost to peak to push one set of my headphones it is crystal clear when I get there, and every step before it! I am impressed by the sound quality, and highly recommend it.Want Samsung P2 8 GB Touchscreen Bluetooth Portable Media Player (Black) Discount?
I anticipated this device arrival for a long time, and now that I have it I am somewhat disappointed.This review covers 16gb version, and latest European firmware (5.08).
Pros:
Hard volume and Hold buttons. Invaluable to me at the gym.
Bluetooth headphone connection. This was the main reason I got the player as headphone cords always get caught in things. Bluetooth also works fairly well without audio dropouts, though I have not been able to initiate file transfers using my laptop's Broadcom Bluetooth stack (works ok with Toshiba's). If you have Broadcom BT, beware.
Subway maps (note I have European firmware, this feature may not be available in US devices). Definitely a helpful feature as it has maps covering all major cities (i.e. London, NY, Chicago)
Solid sound and video quality (but neither really wow'ed me).
Handy and intuitive touch interface, though the touch controls are not always precise.
Great form factor.
Excellent Radio reception with RDS (I believe RDS is not available in US firmware, but I am not sure it is definitely there in EU firmware).
9-band Graphic Equalizer
Major Cons:
No gap-less playback. Any serious MP3 player should have this as a feature, considering how easy it is to implement.
No mp3 file info (bitrate at least???).
Very limited accessories. I am not obsessed over this but a decent selection of sports armbands, docking cradles, etc would be nice (oh and the wi-fi cradle that was mentioned all over the net like on YouTube is a fake).
A non-standard USB port on the device. Yet another redundant cable that I need to ensure I don't loose. Ridiculous and inexcusable. Thankfully it has a standard headphone jack (unlike my Sony Walkman cellphone). And yes I may sync up using Bluetooth instead of USB but it is VERY slow only useful for a few tracks. Transmitting a few albums can take a very long time.
No DSNe enhancements over Bluetooth. I am still holding out hope that this will be remedied, but I somehow doubt it. This makes two big selling points of the device (BT and DSNe) somewhat muted.
The Emodio software for data sync is a badly programmed joke (though I suppose it being a 'beta' is an excuse). But at least the player is recognized by Vista just fine so I don't have to use it (except you have to at times like uploading themes).
Radio does not work when using BT headphones. I understand the reasons for it, but do not completely accept them. Can't I just plug in regular headphones to act as antenna, while using BT to listen to the radio?
Minor cons:
Use of bad english grammar (just check out emodio website). This isn't an issue with a tiny company, but for a huge company like Samsung a worldwide player it is inexcusable especially for a top price charged for this device.
No bookmarking for MP3's so listening to mp3-based audiobooks is total pain. Bookmarking is however available for videos and text.
Video conversion is not very good (just try to dump one of TiVo To Go files to your player good luck). Thankfully this isn't why I bought it. It can be done by the way though you will have to look for alternative software.
Theme and skins support is very rudimentary and not impressive at all (whole 3 fonts available for selection and no size options, for example).
Wasted 'Home' screen it does not have any details on what's playing, BT or battery status. Considering amount of empty space there, this is inexcusable. Only a basic clock is available.
Support for only wav and mp3 audio formats (no Flac for example).
No song ranking or tracking how often a song is played which would be quiet useful if I want to hear least played or most often played, etc.
Five playlists are available for assignment on the fly but there is no way to create more while the player is detached from the PC.
No support for m3u playlist files.
Useless Features:
Cellphone bluetooth sync. Well to me at least. Since I use the device primarily over BT, this function is unnecessary. I suppose for wired headphone users this will be handy.
Text reader. It seems Samsung put more thought into text reader than they did into MP3 support. This obviously cannot be used for any prolonged reading maybe for a rare occasion its ok. It definitely works though.
Cosmos interface. What is the use of showing the menu few buttons at a time it sure is cool when you just unpack the player but this gets old very very fast.
So bottom line is that this is an OK player, but it is not a serious contender with only a few basic features for its primary use (listening to music), and seems like the 'sleek' factor and bluetooth is really the main selling point. It is to me of course getting rid of the wires at the gym is great but if you like plenty of control and tweaking, this device may not be for you as it is fairly simplistic.
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