Your iPod can't do this

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 21 September 2005 10:00

Your IT - Entertainment

Who knows if they ever will

Samsung YP-T8, $299 to $499, www.samsung.com.au

Digital music players are evolving faster than ever, with the newest from Samsung a prime example of what all music players will eventually be able to do, and that's do much more that just play music.

The YP-T8 plays recorded videos, TV shows and even movies on a 1.8 inch LCD screen. Naturally it plays mp3 music, and with sizes of up to 2Gb of storage space, you can store up to 1000 songs.

Interestingly, it has built-in 'motion sensing', with an interactive dart game where you 'shake' the unit to throw a dart as an inbuilt game. We're not sure if more games will be made available, but this is more of a bonus feature, the Samsung YP-T8 is not designed to compete with Sony's PSP.

As it has a colour screen, you can also view your photo collection and for those who will eventually get bored of the music they've stored on the unit, before they've had a change to transfer some new songs, you can tune into FM radio which you can record from straight onto the unit.

It's available in sizes of 256mb through to 2Gb, and if you can afford it the 2Gb version is naturally the best. The YP-T8 itself is tiny, available in white or black and weighs a feather-like 55 grams.

Software is included to help you quickly and easily convert your existing video clips, shows and movies onto the unit. Battery life is a welcome 20 hours, so unless you've got the unit permanently switched on, you won't run out of music or video before you run out of day. No other player offers so much in a package so small!

ALEX ZAHAROV-REUTT