Samsung YP-F2 (1GB)
Design
Samsung has dubbed the YP-F2 ''the pendant'', and its design certainly lives up to its nickname. The successor to Samsung's YP-F1, the F2 is smaller and lighter at 28.1mm by 52.5mm by 15.5mm and weighs 20.5g. This micro MP3 player comes with a necklace-like headphone cord, giving you a clear indication of where Samsung thinks you should be wearing it. We're personally not big fans of the whole wear-around-the-neck headphones style, so we quickly changed the headphones to another set. The YP-F2 also comes with a clear plastic belt clip which can be detached from the main unit when not in use.
The YP-F2's controls are all arrayed along its silver edges -- there's a hold toggle and two-way navigation button on one side, and a menu, play/pause and volume controls on the other. The proprietary PC connector (via a supplied USB cable) is located behind a plastic flap at the bottom of the unit. The buttons themselves are relatively big and well spaced out for a unit this small -- only the fattest fingers should have trouble manipulating the buttons on the YP-F2. The front and the back of the unit is encased in a clear plastic enamel -- the model we tested was pearl white, and generally looked decent if a little plain. In the middle of the YP-F2's front face is a sliver of a screen. The mono LCD can only display three lines of text at a time, and is meant to be used in landscape mode.
The overall look of the YP-F2 left us strangely nonplussed -- styled to look more like jewellery than a traditional MP3 player, its target market obviously isn't CNET.com.au tech geeks like ourselves, but rather fashion-conscious buyers. The YP-F2 features clean lines and a compact design -- we'll leave it up to your personal taste to decide whether it's stylish or not.
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