All Style, little Substance - part 2

!A while back, I wrote about the ridiculous ineptitude of my Samsung SGH-D528 phone. Today, I write to confirm that Samsung is nothing if not consistent. Presenting Exhibit B: the Samsung YP-U3 MP3 player:

This product is typical of the mindset of Samsung: designed for looks and nothing else. The YP-U3 has a sleek, simple aesthetic (sporting the look made popular by iPod) sure to appeal to many potential buyers. What kills the product is the functionality. In a word, it sucks.

Ironically, the unsuccessful "borrowing" of the iPod-esque interface is this device's worse deign flaw. The 5 buttons on the front (used for RWD, FWD, Vol Up, Vol Down & Previous Menu) are nice too look at but awful to use; they're heat sensitive so can easily press too lightly or too hard, or even accidentally press the adjacent button. And that goes for holding the device too, because any stray contact with any of the buttons will trigger them. Which means that after you've made your selection, you have to enable the KEY LOCK, which is really stupid because it means that any time you want to adjust the volume or whatever, you have to first disable the lock before selecting the button that you wanted to press. You can't just reach into your pocket/bag and press the button you wanted.

Which is actually a moot point because you you need to take the damn thing out of your pocket anyways to see where you're pressing. This is because the buttons are totally smooth and flat and provide no tactile interface at all so you don't know if you're actually pressing in the correct location, which means you can't just rely on blind touch. This problem is worse if you want to use the device in the dark because the buttons don't have any backlights.

Plus, the button labels are painted on, so what happens when the paint rubs off? You won't know where to press anymore!

Repeat: A damn stupid design. I'm just glad that I didn't have to pay for this crappy POS (well, I wouldn't have been buying a Samsung in the first place).

Samsung Sucks...has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

FOLLOW UP:

After a week of using it, I'd like to add the fact that the radio reception is pretty bad; stuck on Mono reception for 90% of the time. My old Sony could consistently maintain Stereo.

Also, there's no clock feature. Not a deal breaker but taking everything else into consideration, it's another nail in the coffin. I mean really, how hard would it have been to throw in a Time functionality? Not even Date/Time, just Time would have been enough.

Another idiot design: the microphone is located at the back. Which is stupid because if I want to record something, wouldn't it make sense for the mic to be somewhere other than the opposite side of the display and the buttons? What if I want to put the player on a table? If I put it mic up, I won't be able to see the display. If I put it display up, that means the mic gets muffled against the table.