Samsung YP-S3

The Samsung YP-S3 takes its style cues from its good looking big brothers, Samsung's YP-T10 and YP-P2. The slim, cell phone esque design is sure to appeal to fashionable folks who aren't tied to iTunes. And what's better, for only $100, you get 4GB of flash memory. The S3 doesn't offer great video performance and may not be a breakthrough product, but it's certainly a solid one. Truly tiny, the S3 weighs under 2 ounces and measure 1.7 by 3.7 by 0.4 inches, with a 1.8 inch 240 by 320 pixel display.

The controls on the front of the player are backlit, touch sensitive buttons that seem to disappear when not in use, an effect that Samsung has used before on some players but that's particularly cool here.

The typical navigation arrows and Play/Pause/Enter button are complemented by a control that takes you back to the previous menu and the extra features button for various options, depending upon the menu you're navigating.Buzz up! on Yahoo! The S3 comes in five fun colors green, red, blue, black, and white.

There's a side switch for Power and Hold functions, a lanyard loop, and a proprietary jack that connects to a USB port for computer syncing.

(A cable is included.) The bundled earbuds are low quality; as always, I recommend an upgrade. Ultimate Ears and Radius both have new, inexpensive higher quality pairs on the market. My biggest design complaint with this player design is one I've expressed before, lthough the touch sensitive buttons look cool, they don't always respond as quickly as you'd like, and it is easy to overshoot your selection when browsing the menus.

The menu is arranged in typical Samsung style, with animated graphics behind each option: Music, Videos, Pictures, FM radio, Datacasts, Prime Pack, File browser, and Settings. Most of these options are self explanatory, and the interface organizes everything intuitively, not unlike on an iPod. Datacasts houses your podcasts and audiobooks and the Prime Pack section includes games, a world clock, alarms, and text explanations of functions on the players.

In the Settings menu, you'll find tools to change the menu style (each with a different graphics theme), set the EQ, and adjust the display's sleep timer and screen saver, along with other standard adjustment options.