Can Samsung succeed with mp3 S2 Pebble and the S3 Slim?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 26 April 2008 10:20

Opinion and Analysis

Although neither player will hit the market until June 2008, in the US at least, Samsung has been hard at work improving not only the stylish look of both players, but also their ergonomic form factor.

After all, your mp3/media player mustn’t only look good, but be comfortable to hold, and it’s really just a matter of design and attention to detail.

Samsung say that ergonomics was a ‘core’ consideration, both for smoothly fitting in one’s hand, and in one’s pocket. Although you’d think design was an important consideration, consider for a moment all the rather useless mp3 players you’ve seen over the years, and you’ll know that talking design is easy, but actually creating something stylish and smooth is something else entirely.

Samsung have also tried to differentiate its music players from the rest with another proprietary feature: its Digital Natural Sound engine 2.0 (DNSe), which Samsung says “provides high-quality acoustics that are optimized for playback through the included earphones.”

Now, it has to be said that Samsung’s idea for a ‘Pebble’ based mp3 player isn’t new. To begin with, there have been plenty of tiny mp3 players over the years. Apple’s Shuffle is also tiny and thin. But the company that probably has dibs on a pebble shaped player is Creative, with its Creative Zen Stone. Stone... pebble... it’s all very similar, although Samsung’s version does look rather smooth, as you can see here.



Available in metallic red, green, purple, black and a sort of stone-like off white, the S2 Pebble naturally looks like a rounded, polished stone. It comes with a necklace/lanyard style set of headphones, which transform the S2 Pebble into a fashion accessory as well as an mp3 player.

In addition, the 3.5mm headphone socket is also where Samsung's cleverly designed USB connected plugs into - the USB connector for data transfer and battery charging is reportedly shaped like a 3.5mm plug, which from memory is how Apple does things with the Shuffle... readers who know better are welcome to refresh my memory.



All the S2’s controls are actually placed along the back face of the Pebble, including play/pause, volume, playback options (standard, random, repeat), and DNSe 2.0 audio enhancements for a “straightforward interface that is easy to navigate even without seeing the buttons”.

Samsung have placed a “hidden LED” along the bottom edge which flashes in numerous colours and patterns based on the selected playback mode and EQ setting, which Samsung says is “just another way to go beyond simply listening to music and enhance the Pebble’s already distinct appearance” – as there is no LCD screen, just as with the Zen Stone or iPod Shuffle.

It plays MP3, WMA and OGG files for up to 13 hours on a single charge via the rechargeable Li-Poly battery, and includes support for a mobile playlist, while the 1GB of included, non-expandable storage is “enough storage space for approximately 16 hours of audio”.

So, what about the nano-esque S3 Slim portable media player? Please read onto page 3.