Available in black or white and in three sizes (from a stingy 512 MB to a generous 2 GB), the YP-U2 looks like a slightly chunkier version of the first generation iPod shuffle. However, it has more controls, more features, a screen and glowing blue lights.

Samsung is calling this a media player rather than an MP3 player because as well as DRM'd tracks from plenty of subscription services - which means WMA DRM - it supports the open source Ogg Vorbis (at least in the UK). Ogg is not popular, but is a codec with good audio quality.

This is a robust little player and far from flimsy; skins and cases are available, but this isn't a player that really needs protecting. Remove the clear cap and you get a USB connection ready to plug straight into your computer. The cap snaps firmly back into place; if you put it on the wrong way, it still grips tightly enough not to fall off in a bag even though it doesn't slide on all the way. In fact there's only a "wrong way" because the cap has a latch that fits into the USB connector itself. Irritatingly, you can't clip the cap onto the other end while the player is in your USB port, and although there's a lanyard hole there's no lanyard in the (sleek, black) box. It's just too heavy to dangle comfortably from your headphones, too. Putting the microphone and reset control on the end of the player - where you really want the headphone jack - means the headphones stick out at the side, which just feels a little awkward.

The controls are spread over the front and sides of the player; the power button on the side, next to the recording control, is also the play/pause button. The button on the front surrounded by back, next and volume up and down acts like an OK button, selecting when you scroll through tracks or settings. Even though you press it to start playing a track, though, pressing it again gets you the track list (or the menu if you press and hold) rather than pausing the track. The hold slider on the other side has a nice firm action; it's not going to slip or get knocked in your bag.

Navigation is quite different on the US and UK models. Even though you can connect directly to Windows Media Player, UK users may prefer to drag music straight onto the device, because to navigate easily, you'll want to order tracks into folders. If you just sync music across, you'll be navigating it by file name, which means you'll get all the first tracks labelled 01 together. This is very primitive compared to the similarly sized Sony players and rather pointless; if you're going to put a screen on a player so you can choose songs, and you're going to have 2 GB of music to choose from, the player needs a better way of picking a track. The US model drops the Ogg Vorbis support but offers navigation by ID3 tags which is clear and simple; you don't have to waste time making folders, and can create an on-the-go playlist.

Startup is slow: over ten seconds while it loads, builds a playlist and tells you what it's doing, when what you want is for it to be playing music immediately. If you leave the pause button on the system goes to sleep to save battery, although it starts up more quickly than if it's been powered right down. The screen shows the current track, selected settings and your choice of total, play or remaining time on the track. When you're selecting music you can see four tracks on screen at once, another reason tag navigation is better.