[Exclusive Review] €999 Samsung YP-W3

[lebellium]

Introduction

Do you know the YP-W3?
It's the rarest and most exclusive Samsung DAP ever released, unveiled at CES 2005 in January. It has a nice neo-retro design, like an old pocket watch. And indeed, it can display time with hands! A cool device for rich people.


The different versions
Pictures in that section are not from me. They belong to their respective owners.

The W3 came in a standard edition in June 2005 but also previously in a luxurious Limited Edition studded with diamonds in March 2005. It's "funny" to notice that the standard edition already cost much money and is almost as rare as the diamond edition. That is why this is a very exclusive player, whatever the version.
I had the chance of my collector's lifetime some days ago when I found the diamond version for sale at a very low price.
Then I began to search everywhere on the internet for info about that player to be able to offer you this well-researched review.


Standard edition



The standard edition was sold together with in-ear earphones EP-450, a white leather carrying case, a USB cable, a neck strap, the user manual and the installation CD.
Based on my findings, it only sold in 2 countries, obviously in a few quantities: China and South Korea. Available in 256MB, 512MB (339,000 won = ~$335 or ~€275 at the time) and 1GB (399,000 won = ~$395 or ~€325 at the time) capacities.
This version is also referenced by Samsung Singapore and Netherlands websites but I found no evidence that the W3 actually sold there.




Photo reviews:
Korea: http://www.popco.net/zboard/view.php?id=mp...eview&no=23
Korea: http://www.popco.net/zboard/zboard.php?id=...c=asc&no=11
China: http://minivian.tistory.com/49
China: http://www.imp3.net/1/show.php?itemid=3298


Diamond edition





The Limited Edition features 8 natural diamonds - 0.007 carat each - (Certificate of Authenticity included), a scratch-resistant sapphire glass and a more luxurious packaging with more accessories: presentation wooden box, portable case, Louis Quatorze Paris white leather carrying case, belt chain case, EP-1 earphones, wall-charger, 2 different sizes USB cables, cotton tissue, neck strap, belt chain etc etc
Several media also said it is white gold (18 carats) plated but the official Korean website only specified Platinum. So more likely it is only platinum plated.
The EP-1 earphones were Samsung's best at the time, reviewed here in english. Their price was 100,000 Won in Korea, about €80 or $99 at the time.



This version only sold in 3 countries in a very few limited quantities: China (88 units, 8888 yuan = ~$1075 or ~€880 at the time), Hong-Kong (30 units, HK$6,800 = ~$875 or ~€715 at the time), Korea (200 units, 899,000 won = ~$890 or ~€730 at the time) and France (30 units, €999 =~$1220)
It seems that a US release was once planned (referenced by the Samsung US website, english user manual by Samsung Electronics America, spare parts available on samsungparts.com located in the USA) but as far as I know, the W3 actually never sold there.
Thus, if all my sources are correct, barely 350 units of the diamond version were sold worldwide.

The 200 units sold out in less than 3 days in Korea! A store representative commented, "The majority of the purchasers were business men who have purchasing power and who are in their 30's and 40's. Most of them purchased the YP-W3 as a collector's item."

Photo reviews:
Korea: http://minivian.tistory.com/48
Korea: http://www.popco.net/zboard/view.php?id=mp...c=asc&no=93

Standard edition vs Diamond edition: http://mp3.zol.com.cn/2005/0324/158689.shtml

All existing variants:

• YP-W3Z: 1GB, silver, diamonds
• YP-W3LVB: 256MB, blue
• YP-W3LVS: 256MB, silver
• YP-W3LXB: 512MB, blue
• YP-W3LXS: 512MB, silver
• YP-W3LZB: 1GB, blue
• YP-W3LZS: 1GB, silver

The specs are not particularly impressive:

• Dimensions: 52,8 x 62 x 15mm
• Weight: 68g
• four-grayscale screen, unknown resolution
• Formats: MP3, WMA, ASF, Ogg
• SRS-WOW sound effects
• Recordable FM radio, voice recorder
• 8 hours battery life with 128kbps MP3 files (320mAh battery)

My diamond YP-W3
Sorry for the poor picture quality. Have a look at the photo reviews above for better pics.

Introduction




I have known this player for years now and I long hoped to spot it for sale. Of course the probability was very low and I finally thought that would never happen. Indeed, Chinese and Korean people usually live in their own internet world, they don't use the same shopping and auction websites as we do, for exemple no ebay. And it is very difficult for us to buy something on their local websites because of the language barrier and the different ways of payment.
That is why I could only count on French people. But according to a single source dated March 2005, only 30 units have reportedly been reserved for the French market and sold in a few stores at a price of €999.

As regards the second-hand market, I know that the diamond W3 went for sale once on ebay.fr in January 2008 for €200 http://feedback.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...tab=AllFeedback but unfortunately I missed the auction at the time.

It might be that this is only the 2nd time since 2008 that there is such an opportunity to get this player. I am very lucky since the auction title on ebay.fr was "Mp3 Samsung". Typing "YP-W3" or "W3" in the ebay search engine would not have helped at all. I'm also lucky because the "buy it now" price was only €70 (=~$90), which is more than 10 times cheaper than the original price. However the player is not in perfect condition and some original accessories are missing. Indeed, I don't have the wooden box, the EP-1 earphones, the Certificate of Authenticity for diamonds, the neck strap, the belt chain case, the cotton tissue, the user manual and the installation CD. That being said, €70 for the YP-W3, the Louis Quatorze Paris leather carrying case, the portable case, the 2 USB cables as well as the wall charger is still a very very good deal!







Design





My YP-W3 was made in Korea in March 2005 and obviously it did not stay in a showcase like a collector's item during all this time. Actually the previous owner used it as a simple mp3 player, that is why you can see some signs of wear on the pictures. Moreover, the battery is slowly dying. That being said, it is still in a very good condition. The sapphire glass made the job: not a single scratch on the screen. No doubt that even 7 years later, the W3 is still a beautiful device. The 8 small diamonds make it a desirable jewel for women. The first time you hold it in your hand is very surprising: its 68g are not so light, you feel it is heavy, some people like it, others don't. Overall, the build quality is good. Only the hold slider and the black plastic of the 3.5mm output look a bit "cheap".






User Interface




When you first press the play button, it only displays the analog clock. Actually, you only have the choice between analog and digital type for the clock that displays as screen saver during music playback. This restriction is not really annoying since it is with the analog clock that the W3 looks the most classy. That way it really looks like an old pocket watch with its four-grayscale screen and the blue backlight. Some of the rare reviews at the time blamed it for not featuring a color screen. But a color screen would not have been coherent with the retro concept.



When you press the play button once again, it really starts the MP3 player.
The User Interface has been especially made for this player (while many Samsung DAPs shared a common UI at the time) and indeed the R&D did not really have the choice for that since it is one of the very few players to have a round screen. Well, actually it is a simple square LCD screen with unused edges. However, the (unknown) display resolution is not enough to hide the visible aliasing on the circle or on the clock hands.
The main menu looks rather good with its graphical icons. Unfortunately the screen is not large enough to display text without scrolling.

For the navigation and playback controls there are tactile buttons (play/pause, rec, menu, hold) as well as touch keys (up, down, prev, next) with nice blue backlight. Of course it exists more ergonomic DAPs (the touchpad is not perfect as usual) but I already reviewed worse too. Overall, the navigation is intuitive.

Music



There is no navigation by tags here, only a files and folders browser. Surprisingly the W3 doesn't seem to support playlists.



The now playing screen is quite overloaded but doesn't display so much good information though. This is partly due to the round screen and some useless things like the peak meter. First, the file name is scrolling then come the id3tags. It doesn't really like my id3tags v2.3 since it displays Asian characters instead... The scrolling is very slow (no speed setting) which quickly gets very annoying. The file format is displayed (mp3, wma, ogg) but unfortunately this is not the case for the bitrate. The volume control on right side of the screen is nice.





Sound quality



What about the SQ? If you read carefully so far, you would understand that the very high price doesn't justify a particular and exceptional audio processing. The limited edition doesn't sound better than the standard edition 3 times cheaper which doesn't sound better than the other still cheaper 2005 Samsung flash-players. It just sounds OK, nothing really exciting. Modern players do a better job. No DNSe sound effects here, the W3 still belongs to the SRS-WOW generation. It seems that the firmware is slightly different between the limited edition and the standard edition released later since my W3 doesn't feature a 5-band user EQ contrary to the standard version. But the most annoying thing here is the audible hiss and background noise with sensitive IEM. Unfortunately I don't have the original EP-1 earphones so I can't tell you how they sound.


FM radio



Contrary to the now playing screen, the FM UI is completely uncluttered. There is only the current frequency and the battery indicator, as well as the preselections if used. The tuner picks up well, nothing to complain about here. Moreover the radio can be recorded, a feature that is unfortunately missing on some recent Samsung DAPs. However, you can't navigate on the device while listening to the FM radio.




PC connection/transfers

Good point, the W3 is full UMS/MSC and the transfer rates are surprisingly good for a 2005 flash-player. Indeed, 258MB of music files have been transferred in 38 seconds, that is to say 6,8MB/s in average. Unfortunately the device has a proprietary USB connector.




The YP-W3, the Sansa Clip Zip and the new Samsung YP-W1.


Conclusion

The YP-W3 is undoubtedly a unique device in the MP3 players history and more specifically in the history of the Korean brand Samsung which probably wanted to prove that it can compete with real luxury brands like B&O and their Beosound series. If the standard version doesn't seem to have sold well, probably because of the too high price, the Limited Edition studded with diamonds sold out incredibly fast despite its exorbitant price. Samsung won the challenge. The W3 is a desirable jewel for any collector. And indeed it should really be considered as an original and exclusive collector's item. Because if you simply consider it as a mp3 player, you may be disappointed by its average performance and specs, which are not worth the price. But who cares? The luxury world is not necessarily rational.



Sources:
http://www.imp3.net/1/show.php?itemid=4272&page=7
http://www.teardown.com/TechAlerts/Competi...1/CA050225.aspx
http://www.cnetfrance.fr/produits/samsung-...mo-39296081.htm
http://www.popco.net/zboard/view.php?id=mp...eview&no=23
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsgs.as...chtype=Previous
http://www.newsluxe.com/samsung-yp-w3z-1-go/
http://books.google.fr/books?id=_F4EAAAAMB...d=0CEcQ6AEwBTgy
http://www.head-fi.org/t/116848/what-mp3-p...45#post_1376737
http://www.scmp.com/article/494546/fashion-call
http://web.archive.org/web/20051224111451/...sp?SMSESSION=NO
http://www.luxe-magazine.com/0-653-Samsung...5&k=Samsung

[WalkGood]

Nice review lebellium

[Lorenz092]

Yes indeed a nice vintage review
It is clear that this wasn't a player meant to be high-quality technically speaking, but all in all it looks like kinda professional, feels high-class
The design it's not bad at all, of course I would never buy such a toy, these are pretty suited for lebellium!!
Great, I think now you're collection is going to be completed sooner or later or?
Keep on!!!

[lebellium]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

Nice review lebellium

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Lorenz092

of course I would never buy such a toy, these are pretty suited for lebellium!!

lol

Great, I think now you're collection is going to be completed sooner or later or?
Keep on!!!

By definition, a collection is never complete!

[skip252]

I'd like to call this a nice review, but I can't. That's because it is an excellent review!

The level of detail and research that went into this shows it was a labor of love. Very, very well done. Front page material for sure.

I like the idea that yours shows signs of actually being used. No sense in paying that type of money to put it in a showcase. It's a shame not all the accessories were included. Then again, if they were that might have priced it out of reach.

You mentioned hiss with sensitive IEMs. Considering this was made when the tech hadn't come to the point of expected excellence we enjoy today I guess that's not surprising. Have you tried it with less sensitive IEMS or full size cans? If you have, did that reduce or get rid of any audible issues?

[ripn3s]

Holy cow what an eye catcher!It "should" have been sold "complete"!Two things that would send me on a journey/mission would be the Certificate and the Earphones.Being about 8 years old,maybe theres hope you find what you'd like as far as accessories go?!Very Nice.

[Jeven]

Well done for managing to track down what you really wanted as a collector.

And great pics! I've borrowed one as the screensaver for my Nexus 7 because your W3 is such a quirky but enchanting looking device.

[lebellium]

Originally Posted by skip252

I'd like to call this a nice review, but I can't. That's because it is an excellent review!

The level of detail and research that went into this shows it was a labor of love. Very, very well done. Front page material for sure.

Thank you! Indeed, I surfed on Korean, Chinese, English and French websites for 5 days to gather all existing information about that player. Was a huge and not so easy work (google doesn't translate Chinese and Korean languages very well^^)
Thanks to Andreas for the front page article.

It's a shame not all the accessories were included. Then again, if they were that might have priced it out of reach.

Yeah it's a shame for the missing accessories, all the more as I don't think that would have actually cost more if they were all present. Indeed, the seller did not really know what she was selling. She told me "Friends gave it to me in 2008 or 2009, I don't remember exactly. They told me this is a Limited Edition by Samsung because of the diamonds and the leather case. I guess at the time they paid a high price but I never knew the real price."

You mentioned hiss with sensitive IEMs. Considering this was made when the tech hadn't come to the point of expected excellence we enjoy today I guess that's not surprising. Have you tried it with less sensitive IEMS or full size cans? If you have, did that reduce or get rid of any audible issues?

You're right, this is not very surprising and actually listening to it with my Westone UM3x is rather anachronistic I guess
I tried it with less sensitive earphones (I don't have full size headphones around here) and that reduces the audibles issues.

Originally Posted by ripn3s

Holy cow what an eye catcher!It "should" have been sold "complete"!Two things that would send me on a journey/mission would be the Certificate and the Earphones.Being about 8 years old,maybe theres hope you find what you'd like as far as accessories go?!Very Nice.

Unfortunately I don't think I can find them separate from the player. AFAIK, the EP-1 earphones have only been sold as accessories in Korea at the time. It seems that a few accessories are still available here http://www.samsungparts.com/Products...Z/Default.aspx but the prices are rather crazy. Look at yourself:
$116.46 for a brand-new Louis Quatorze Paris leather carrying case, I guess I'll get stuck with my used one
$30.57 for the Neck Strap...

Originally Posted by Jeven

Well done for managing to track down what you really wanted as a collector.

And great pics! I've borrowed one as the screensaver for my Nexus 7 because your W3 is such a quirky but enchanting looking device.

Thank you! But well, my pics are not really great. Taken with a Galaxy S2 under poor light conditions. Some of the pics from the different old Korean reviews are awesome!

[jupitreas]

I gotta say, I really love this design idea from Samsung. Pocket watch meets DAP? WIN. Great review as well, and I am really glad that you made me aware of this concept, Lebellium.

I am now considering converting one of my antique Soviet pocket watches into a DAP. Perhaps a transplant of the Clip's innards might work... hmm

[The DarkSide]

Why is it that every time you post something it's always markedly better than the last??? Excellent review,...I come to expect nothing less. And you never disappoint!!!

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by The DarkSide

Why is it that every time you post something it's always markedly better than the last??? Excellent review,...I come to expect nothing less. And you never disappoint!!!

Now I'm just waiting for the next thing he posts.. Its going to be EPIC!

[The DarkSide]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Now I'm just waiting for the next thing he posts.. Its going to be EPIC!

I hope you got a few drinks & some popcorn waiting,...

[austinv]

wow, nice find. this is one of the rarest DAPs ever made.

i took the first pics of this model back at CES 2005 for dapreview.net. wanted one ever since! unfortunately, not too many foreign models end up on ebay USA and that's my only source.

in the unlikely event you want to sell, i'd love to have this for my collection and would pay a handsome sum.

thanks for the review!

[austinv]

FINALLY

The rare and beautiful W3L did make an appearance on ebay USA. first time i've seen one there since i started looking in early 2011.

i sniped with a ridiculous bid at the last second, and won! My Precious, it is mine.

first thing i thought is, i should find lebellium here and share my victory. he's the only other dude i know who has one (..and cares...).

but... bad news. it turns out that it was only me and lebellium who were (unknowingly) bidding against each other ARRRG

damn. sorry brother, but now we each have one

I'll post more when it arrives

[lebellium]

Yes, I'm a bit frustrated

But at least I know it will be in good hands. It's important to preserve the DAPs heritage!

[musichound]

So let's get this straight. Lebellium, are you selling yours to austinny, or is this another YP-W3 that's being purchased? Inquiring minds want to know

[lebellium]

I will never sell mine to anyone

We both were looking at this auction http://www.ebay.com/itm/181225443461...84.m1423.l2649
And he won

So I still have my YP-W3 Diamond Edition
And now AustinV has a YP-W3L Standard Edition.

[austinv]

Originally Posted by lebellium

So I still have my YP-W3 Diamond Edition
And now AustinV has a YP-W3L Standard Edition.

OH I SEE HOW IT IS haha. well. yours may be extra sparkly, but i think my poor man's edition is in better condition.

edit: got it the other day! all good. looks new & holds a charge. i'll have to figure out how to load it up now.

[lebellium]

We want the pics now