Bad Customer Service, faulty product

The one I received as a gift never worked. I sent it in for repairs twice, and twice it was returned with the same problem. Customer service promised to contact me with some sort of resolution. Nope. When I called back a week later, nothing had been done to get me an exchange or a refund. Apparently, my case wasn't even forwarded yet to the department who could authorize any decision. I'm still waiting. Do yourself a favor and check out the better business bureau's report on Samsung Electronics, Ridgefield Park, NJ BEFORE buying an MP3 player from them. The vast majority of complaints are either unresolved or not responded to.

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Nice all-rounder, great battery life

I originally went shopping for a nano, and was convinced in-store to give the Z5 4Gb a go instead. The main benefits I've like are the loooooong battery life, easy PC connection via the USB cord and being able to play MP3 files natively, without having to convert to Apple's music format. So file transfer is fast and simple, and the player is very compatible "out of the box" without having to add on iTunes or any kind of proprietory software.

The Z5 connects directly to Windows Media Player, so I can set up sync lists. The interface this way is a little cumbersome though, and the sync can be a little tedious for deleting files -- and you need to have good tags in your MP3 files to have albums sorted correctly (although I doubt that is a negative against the player -- it's only reading the available data!). But you can access the player's files without Windows Media Player, directly from Windows Explorer, so that's an added bonus.

The navigation can be slightly over-sensitive at times, it's easy to scroll past an item in the window, but doesn't take long to get used to. The player switches off the screen pretty quickly, which helps prolong battery life. And I can easily scroll through my songs whilst another song is playing, easy to setup the next song to play if I'm looking through all 600-plus songs on the player. Easy too to hook up an FM transmitter to the headphone jack to play songs through the car radio.

It also has a picture viewer but I don't see the point of it: it's not video and the screen isn't that big to enjoy too much picture viewing. But then again, I don't think any small screen size devices really lend themselves to extended or frequent picture viewing. I'm sure others have their own opinion, so if a picture viewer is appealing, there's one here.

Overall, it's a bit bulkier than the nano, but still small overall and doesn't feel at all flimsy, so likely to avoid scratches and should last well in the long term. Recharging is simple via USB. Not the range of expensive add-on products as iPod, but that's not why I bought the player: it has been a reliable MP3 music player and I'd happily recommend it to friends.

I'm nearly tempted to only give it 4 stars because of the navigation being a bit sensitive, but I don't think it warrants a full star downgrade. Probably 4.5 stars, but happy to say 5 in this case.

The only reason I'd get rid of the player is for a video based player (ideally with SD card slot to store camera pics) of about 80Gb or more -- but that's really a different category of need -- this is great for music!

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Great Mp3 player available for less.

I own two of these....a 1gb and a 4gb. Great battery life, Easy to transfer music to from windows media player, solid casing that does not scatch easily, cost...available on ebay for Less than $125. It's a excellent unit and I love mine. Never had any problems with either.

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