Digital Audio and MP3 players are still mainly youth products and player manufacturers feel they have to attract buyers as much by appearance as by the technology itself. Samsung has just introduced the typographically-challenged Yepp (they call it yepp'), a miniature player around 60mm by 80mm by 25mm thick, though its heavily curved lines make it look even smaller. The front and back plastic covers are coloured blue or orange, depending on model, but aren't interchangeable.

The unit itself has no display, but just four buttons on its front face; these are for play/pause, stop, rewind and fast forward. There's a sliding eject lever, too, for an optional SmartMedia card; as standard the Yepp has either 32MB or 64MB of fixed internal memory.

On the top of the player is a toggle volume control and a plug for the remote control. Providing a remote with such a small, mobile system may seem overkill, but the idea is that you clip the Yepp to your belt - it comes with a belt-mount caddie - and use the miniature remote to control it. The Yepp's remote has a six character, back-lit LCD display and although this can display some alphanumeric text, it's primarily numeric and there's no facility for track or artist display.

As well as controlling music play - start, stop, rewind, forward - you can also adjust the four position equaliser. This has settings for classical, jazz and rock music as well as a flat response, but in use the differences were marginal. Sound quality was generally good, though, with better bass response than is normal from an MP3 player. The hook-in-the-ear headphones felt more solid than most.

The supplied MP3 management software is split between a copy of RealJukeBox and the Yepp Explorer. RealJukeBox manages MP3 files and can rip audio files from your own CDs. By default, it encrypts the resulting files, which won't then download to the Yepp. However, you can turn this security off and the Yepp Explorer will then successfully copy the files to your player, though you must use an 'ID'ed SmartMedia card to expand the Yepp's memory - another copyright security measure. The Yepp doesn't support Microsoft's WMA format.

The product manual could do with anglicising, as it is - let's put this tactfully - written by someone whose first language isn't English. The Yepp is also comparatively expensive, with the 64MB version coming in at around £170. The cheaper 32MB model will only hold around 30 minutes of music.

Verdict
The Yepp is a neat and stylish MP3 player with well-balanced sound and good expansion potential. It's easy to use, though the remote feels a bit fragile and there's no track information display. The supplied Windows software for MP3 management is straightforward though not that well featured. Ultimately, it's a bit over-priced, even for a 64MB device.

Company: Samsung

Contact: 0800 521652

Tags: realjukebox remote control mp3 windows media audio liquid crystal display digital audio multimedia music and audio