Samsung has been making slow inroads into the market for portable music and media players. The latest addition to its Yepp line of players is a flagship product that should stand up against anything else on the market The Yepp YM-PD1 portable media player has a sleek black exterior, 30GB hard disk drive memory and a sizable 10cm colour display. What makes the YM-PD1 special is that it supports digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), which is currently only available in Korea. DMB uses digital signals to transmit television broadcasts, resulting in superior image quality and a lot more features, such as programme information. Unfortunately, Hong Kong still uses analogue television signals and has not set a launch date for digital broadcasting. But the YM-PD1 has other impressive features. It plays back just about anything, including audio files in MP3, WMA, OGG and AC3 format; MPEG-4, WMV and DivX videos; JPEG, GIF, BMP and TIFF photos, as well as text files. It also supports line-in video recording and voice recording from a microphone. Like many hard disk drive players, the YM-PD1 supports USB host mode. This feature lets you connect to other devices - such as digital cameras and personal digital assistants - to download files directly into the YM-PD1. Thus, the device also serves as a source of portable memory storage during trips, when you might take lots of photographs. There is also a slot for an SDIO memory card, which would expand the device's memory. The YM-PD1 also plays games and has a built-in FM radio. Overall, the YM-PD1 is an impressive device. It has a 16 million-colour display and lots of software support to meet most user requirements. On the other hand, the sizable screen results in a frame measuring 150mm x 77.8mm x 21.6 mm, which limits its portability. The YM-PD1 should be available on the grey market next month, priced about $3,000- $3,500. PROS: high-quality display; USB host support; extensive file format support CONS: local release date yet to be announced
