The Samsung U5 is a small MP3 player in a long USB stick form-factor. Highly portable and inexpensive, it’s a good alternative to larger MP3 players, especially during workouts when the heft of your phone or iPod can prove to be a bother.
At first glance, it looks much like a regular flash drive, complete with a USB plug up top. Closer inspection, however, will reveal a four-line 1-inch OLED across the panel along with a four-way navigation pad and a headphone jack down the bottom opposite the connector.
Being a small panel, the UI doesn’t really act as a prime feature on the U5, although Samsung did take some time to dress it up beyond just being a nominal display. Apart from letting you navigate through menus and track lists, the screen shows album artwork along with the current song, comes with a useful fitness utility (which works with the built-in pedometer) and integrates animated characters called Popcon into the interface. It’s not much, but it’s a better effort than what we’ve seen from other small MP3 players.
In the box, the U5 comes with a pair of earbuds (with 4-foot long cables, no less) and a snap-on belt-clip that both do their jobs pretty well. The buds are comparable in quality to the units that ship with the iPod, which makes them pretty adequate, though most certainly not the best.
Sporting Samsung’s DNSe 3.0 sound enhancement technology, it plays tunes wonderfully – with possibly one of the best sounds I’ve heard out of such a tiny machine. You get eight audio presets, along with the option for user-defined settings, that really customization of music playback according to your tastes.
In terms of features, the U5 offers much more than you’d probably expect from a small, bite-sized music player. It’s got FM radio, a voice recorder, folder and ID3 sorting, and support for a good range of formats (MP3, WMA, Ogg, and FLAC but no AAC).
At $40, there’s would have been little reason not to choose a Samsung U5, if not for the paltry 2GB limit on storage. Geared as a secondary, fitness gadget, though, it might be an understandable decision. Still, with the quality of music playback, it’s going to be hard to ignore.
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
