Samsung Q1 Ultra: almost a full-fledged PC. Food, working hours

Type UMPC operating system Win Vista Home Premium / WinXP Tablet

CPU

Processor type A110 CPU frequency 800 MHz Number of processor cores 1 System bus frequency 400 MHz Intel 945GMS Chipset

Memory

RAM size 1 GB Memory type DDR2 Memory frequency 533 MHz Maximum memory size 1 GB

Screen

Screen size 7" Screen resolution 1024x600 Widescreen yes Touch screen yes Multi-touch screen no LED screen backlight no 3D support no

Video

Video adapter type Built-in Intel GMA 950 Video Processor Two video adapters no Video memory type SMA

Storage devices

Optical drive No DVD Storage capacity 60 GB Hard drive type HDD Rotational speed 4200 rpm

Expansion slots

ExpressCard slot no

Memory cards

Flash card reader There is Compact Flash support No Memory Stick support no SD support yes SDHC support no SDXC support no miniSD support no microSD support no microSDHC support no microSDXC support no SmartMedia support no xD-Picture Card support No

Wireless connection

Wi-Fi yes Wi-Fi standard 802.11g WiDi support no Bluetooth yes 4G LTE no WiMAX no GPRS support no 3G no EDGE support no HSDPA support no

Connection

Built-in network card There is Max. LAN adapter speed 100 Mbit/s Built-in fax modem No Number of USB 2.0 interfaces 2 USB 3.0 Type-C interface No USB 3.1 Type-C interface no FireWire interface no FireWire 800 interface no eSATA interface no Infrared port (IRDA) no LPT interface no COM port no PS/2 interface no VGA output (D-Sub) yes Mini VGA output no DVI output no HDMI output no micro HDMI output no DisplayPort output no Mini DisplayPort output no TV-in input no TV-out out no Connecting to a docking station no Audio input no Microphone input No Audio/headphone output No Microphone input/headphone output Combo No Digital audio output (S/PDIF) There is

Samsung players are not uncommon guests in our reviews, especially recently. The company pays great attention to the direction of personal, or, if you prefer, mobile audio and enthusiastically provides its new products for testing. Today it is the Q1 model. It does not contain anything previously unseen; all features have already been implemented in models by the company itself and by competitors. But this player can hardly be called uninteresting either; it has something that other models sometimes lack, and the manufacturer took care of the design.

Parameter	Meaning
Manufacturer
Name	YP-Q1
Dimensions	49.9 × 97.8 × 10.9 mm
Weight	61 g
Memory	4, 8 or 16 GB flash memory
Display	2.4" color TFT, 320 × 240 dots
output power	20+20 mW
Interface	USB 2.0
Audio formats	MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC
Video formats	WMV, MPEG-4
Graphic formats	JPEG, BMP, GIF, PNG
FM radio	Yes, memory for 30 stations
Audio recording	No
Battery	Built-in Li-Pol (claimed 30 hours of music playback and 4 hours of video)
Peculiarities	FLAC support

Packaging and equipment

The player, oddly enough, is packed in a cardboard box. We say “oddly enough,” because we are already accustomed to seeing new products produced by this company packaged in transparent plastic boxes, very, very nice and eye-catching. By the way, even the Samsung U4 model, which will also be reviewed, is packaged in a transparent box. But Q1 seems to be of a higher rank, and the company pays much more attention to it. But be that as it may, the box is quite high quality and cute. It is matte and pleasant to the touch. Having pulled out the second package from the frame, which is a kind of book, and opened it, we can see the player itself, as is usually the case, recessed in the “bathtub”. In the box, in special compartments, were also found: a cable for connecting to a PC (unfortunately, with a proprietary Samsung thin connector), headphones, and a set of silicone inserts for them. From the accompanying waste paper: a product registration card, a disk with the EmoDio program, a brochure about this program, a very short user manual, a warranty card, and also a small flyer that announces the opportunity to download one audiobook from the site for free every month. Well, we’ve sorted out the packaging and its contents, now let’s move on to the more interesting parts of today’s review.

Headphones

I think they should be mentioned separately. These are headphones of the “plug” type, as they are popularly called. They provide pretty good sound insulation. In the subway, it is quite possible to listen to not only the highest volumes, and not only music, but also audiobooks; speech is quite intelligible.

The sound quality is, of course, better than that of other bundled headphones of the same players from Samsung. Quite intelligible transmission of low frequencies is ensured due to the deep penetration of the earphone into the ear. But the bass is not deep enough, the high frequencies are also only approximate. If we compare the headphones with those that came with the , then I will definitely give them preference over the Samsung ones. In almost all respects, they are two heads higher.

In any case, the headphones that come with the Q1 can be used as spare ones, for example, for the same metro, where you still won’t see much quality. Yes, you can get used to them, and there is a good chance that you won’t need more :)

Appearance

In appearance, the player looks a little like a phone. Many, seeing it in my hands, asked what it was. And this misconception is very reasonable: a long, elongated shape, a large display, a menu mosaic similar to a telephone one, and the SAMSUNG inscription was confusing :) So, let's move on.

Unfortunately, the player is entirely glossy. Let's remember that it is also glossy, but the back is still made of matte plastic. Q1 decided to make the entire body glossy. Therefore, carrying the device in the same pocket with keys and other piercing/cutting/scratching objects is undesirable. Unfortunately, there is no case included. But perhaps they will go on sale over time. And, as a last resort, you can buy some kind of universal one. Many people probably came up with the idea of ​​covering their devices with protective films. The idea is correct, but it is unlikely to be able to stick it in large layers because the surface of the device is not perfectly flat. But you can stick something protective on the screen. For those who prefer to wear the player on a neck lanyard, there is a corresponding eyelet on the lower right side.

Most of the front side of the player is occupied by a 2.4” display. Below it is a block of six absolutely sensory buttons The back button and the soft key are not illuminated, but the other four keys glow blue. Moreover, when you press the corresponding button, it goes out a little, making it clear that it was the one that was pressed. When you press the center, between the four keys, all four illuminating diodes go out. The control system is clear and simple, and to master it, you most likely will not have to resort to the user manual.

We won’t talk about which buttons are more convenient: touch or mechanical; we invite each of you to decide this question. I’ll tell you better about the adequacy of the sensors used in the model. Only finger presses are perceived; the player will not respond to any other touches. You can press with almost any force; the player will respond equally well to both a very light touch and pressure with moderate force. The percentage of inaccurate hits is quite small, but sometimes they still happen. In particular, sometimes instead of the “back” button you hit the higher-lying return button.

There is a slider on the right side. When moving up, the player is blocked, down it turns on/off. The slider is quite stiff at first (in our case, at least), but after lightly lubricating it with oil it worked much better :) And after quite active use it develops.

There are no control elements on the top and left ends.

On the bottom there is a socket for, let's say, a not quite standard cable connecting the player to the computer, as well as a hole for headphones - of course, standard, 3.5 mm.

On the back wall there are two more parts: a recessed forced reset button in case of freezing and a microphone.

Menu

The menu is initially a 3x3 matrix of nine icons. The latest firmware at the time of testing allows you to choose between a matrix with colored icons, a matrix with white and blue icons, and a longitudinal list of icons at the bottom of the screen.

Moving between items is, of course, done by touching four buttons. The selected icon is accompanied by animation: it is slightly enlarged relative to the others and jumps, attracting attention. Entering one or another main menu item is accompanied by a spectacular animation: the current image blurs, enlarges and becomes transparent, and then a window appears with the selected function. Well, let's move on to the functions.

Music

The shelf of players supporting lossless compression formats has arrived again. The Q1 is capable of playing MP3, WMA, OGG, as well as FLAC. For some, this addition is of no use, but for others it becomes a decisive factor when choosing a player.

The player is inherently tagged, meaning it organizes music based on tag fields such as genre, album, or artist. Accordingly, in the “Music” menu we see the items “Artist”, “Genre”, “Album”. But the tags in the files are not always written correctly, and in this case you can use the file browser. It can be accessed both from the Music menu, where only the contents of the Music folder are displayed, and from the general file browser, presented in the main menu as a separate function.

The library itself is arranged in an unusual way. For example, when you have selected an album of an artist and already see a list of songs, a strip of three album covers of the same singer is displayed at the top of the screen, and by pressing left and right you can immediately, without going back, select another album or in general, all the songs of this artist at once. Therefore, if you have a well-designed library with images in tags, this feature will come in handy.

By calling up the context menu when a song is selected, you can add it to one of five already created playlists. Unfortunately, you can only add one song at a time; you won’t be able to add an entire album to the playlist. Using the EmoDio program, you can also create playlists, but, most interestingly, they are in no way related to the five that are in the player. The situation is this: using the player, you can edit only those 5 playlists that are initially present in memory, and using a computer, create as many new ones as you like with any names.

So, select some song and move to the music playback window, and here we will go into more detail. The following information is displayed regardless of the settings: playback mode, current time, battery charge, progress bar, elapsed/remaining time, equalizer mode. Next we observe the following situation. By default, the name of the composition is present on the screen, above which the visualization is played - an abstract, rather nice action. In the settings, you can select the type of this visualization, or you can instead choose to display information about the track artist name, album name, genre, as well as the name of the composition itself.

Next, let's talk about sound settings. All the latest Samsung players have a proprietary setting called DNSe. The memory already contains as many as 12 presets that cannot be changed, as well as three more presets that can be configured manually. They are stored in the appropriate folder, and nothing, in principle, prevents you from copying them and making a few more :) You can configure them using the player itself. There are several “chips” available for customization. The first one, which you can’t really call a “feature”, is a seven-band equalizer. Actually, if no other “improvers” are needed anymore, you can stop there. If you want something exotic, go further. The “3D and bass” item speaks for itself: three-dimensional sound settings are available, and you can also raise the low frequencies. Next comes the “Concert Hall” item, the settings of which simulate the sound in a concert hall. And the last point “Clarity”. Like the others, the function is not for everyone makes the sound a little more aggressive, which is good for some compositions, for others it’s quite the opposite.

By tradition, we present the results of objective testing performed using the RMAA 6 program.

For audiobook lovers

As is usually the case, there is good and bad news. I'll start with the bad ones. Firstly, there is no way to set bookmarks. Secondly, as is now very common, after playing the last track, the first one from the current folder/category starts playing. This forces the user to either create playlists, which not everyone likes, or to resign himself and take out the player every time and manually turn on the required track. Unfortunately, there is only one good news: rewinding is progressive, that is, it gradually accelerates.

Radio

The radio receiver is capable of receiving stations in the standard FM range. There is an auto search mode; you can also record stations into memory manually. There are 30 slots in total, and this number is quite enough. The player can record from the radio, but, oddly enough, there is no way to adjust its quality. It is conducted with unchanged parameters in MP3 format, bitrate 128 Kbps and sampling frequency 44 KHz. In principle, it would be possible not to compress so much and make 192 Kbps, but the developers thought differently. Like its predecessor T10, the player can receive RDS information transmitted by radio stations. The standardized subject of the program is displayed, as well as any other information transmitted by the radio station.

Podcasts

Podcasts are included as a separate item in the main menu. To automatically subscribe to them, you can use the functionality of the EmoDio program, which replaced the former Samsung Media Studio. You can do other things with its help, but more on that later. So, you can configure this system quite flexibly so that podcasts are automatically downloaded to your player when you connect the player to your computer and the program, of course. Moreover, you can subscribe to any kind of RSS feeds, including text ones. All these channels are saved in separate categories on the player, accessible directly from the Podcasts menu.

Dictaphone

The voice recorder in the player is quite simple and has no options. “White noise” is noticeable in the background of the recording, but this is hardly worth considering as a big minus for the secondary function. Unfortunately, player manufacturers have not made it possible to record using a timer for a long time and some would find it useful. The functionality of voice recorders is now reduced to a minimum: by pressing the button, the recording is turned on, and by pressing again, it is turned off. Recording is carried out with the same parameters as when recording from the radio MP3, 128 Kbps, 44 KHz.

View texts

The viewer is able to open files in popular encodings; only UTF-8 cannot be opened. A remarkable feature of the viewer in this device is the ability to display text on the entire screen. This way, more space is allocated for useful information, and unnecessary icons do not get in the way when reading. Some text display settings are available. For example, you can leave the radio or music playing on. You can also change the display orientation to horizontal. You can also customize the font size - you can choose small, large or medium size. For those who are going to read books from the player screen, the ability to make bookmarks will be useful. And lastly, you can customize the font and background colors. You can't change them individually, there are only a few available sets: white text on a black background, yellow text on a black background, white text on a turquoise background, white text on a pink background, black text on a white background, and pink on a pinkish background :)

Photo

The player is capable of displaying four graphics formats: standard JPEG and not so popular BMP, GIF, PNG. The player has “digested” all formats, but you just need to note that dynamic GIF is not displayed only the first frame is shown.

When you open the Photo function of the main menu, folders/pictures are displayed in the form of a matrix of preview images. This way, you can easily find the picture you need without opening everything. You can turn on music or radio while watching directly from the viewing mode.

Any picture can be set as the background of the player menu. Unfortunately, transparency cannot be set; it exists, but cannot be configured. During viewing, the photo can be enlarged by specifically specified 2 or 4 times. There is, of course, a slideshow mode and you can set the frame speed and transition effect.

Video

It is reasonable to assume that when choosing a player with a medium-sized screen, the user will want to watch videos on it. This kind of functionality is now present in players with screens of such diagonals that it is impossible to imagine how you can see anything on them. In Q1, the screen diagonal is 2.4", which, of course, is not enough, but sometimes it is enough.

Support for two formats is declared: WMV and MPEG-4. Any benefits from supporting more than one format can hardly be derived from the fact that almost all videos will have to be encoded before viewing. In the vast majority of cases, there will be some parameter that is not supported by the player, and all the other supported parameters will no longer play a role. For transcoding, you can use proprietary software, which will be discussed later, or you can use any other software that can convert video into these formats. Specific characteristics, fortunately, are indicated in the user manual (it can be found on the disk or on the website). Let's give them:

The maximum resolution in both cases is 320 * 240 pixels, frame rate 30 fps.

The player, as always in cases where video support is secondary, is simple, but has some advantages. Firstly, while playing a video, you can add a bookmark, only one per file, but this is quite enough. From the same menu you can delete this bookmark, go to it, or replace the existing one with a new one. Another possibility is installing a sound “improver”. There are two types of it available: “Drama” and “Action”. In some cases, their action creates a pleasant effect with sound. The last setting is the brightness setting: you can adjust it on a ten-point scale, thereby regulating the consumption of battery resources.

Prime pack

We decided to call this section of the review that because that’s what it’s called in the player menu itself. There are games and a metro map here (actually there is also a voice recorder, but out of habit we put it in a separate paragraph). The toys are very simple, there are three of them. Touch controls are not as convenient to operate as it would be with regular buttons, but still. Well, the metro map is an innovation that is also present in the latest firmware for the Samsung P2 player. I'll tell you a little more.

After turning on the function, a world map appears in front of us, divided into three parts America, Europe, Asia, Oceania (the last two parts belong to the same point). By selecting the desired continent, and then the country and city, you can view the metro map. From Russian cities, maps of the Moscow and St. Petersburg metro are available. The application as a whole can be useful, but it is quite slow, and the response to touches on the sensors is far from instantaneous.

EmoDio

The program, as I already mentioned, is the successor to Samsung Media Studio. Its functionality and program logic remain the same, but with some additions. After installation, it is added to startup, and thanks to this, it turns on immediately after connecting the player to the computer. Briefly about the possibilities:

• Of course, it is a music library with music divided by albums, artists, and so on.
• Capable of automatically downloading new podcasts and RSS feeds and loading them into the player.
• Ripping CD tracks.
• Helps update the player's firmware, and also updates itself as updates are released.
• Capable of encoding video to display it correctly on the player.
• For some other models, such as P2, it can download themes.
• Helps you configure manually, as well as download ready-made settings for the DNSe sound “improver”.
• The TTS function, which stands for TextToSpeech, is capable of converting text information into voice (you need to download the module for this), as well as automatically converting text (including downloaded via RSS feeds) into speech and saving the file in MP3 format to your player.
• Creating playlists. Implemented quite conveniently. You can immediately add songs to a playlist without first copying them to the player’s memory.

Computer connection

The player is connected to the computer using a non-standard cable, as we said at the beginning of the article. Such cables have been used for quite a long time and in many Samsung players. Everyone understands that mini-USB is more convenient; almost everyone who has a computer at home has such a cable, but the company chose a different path. In some cases this is justified - when the thickness of the player, for example, does not allow for mini-USB. It would fit quite well in Q1.

The Windows operating system defines the player as a removable media, so using the above program is not required. You can simply drop folders with music into memory, and then open it in any convenient way for you in the player - from the library, or using a browser. Every time you disconnect the player from the USB port, the database is automatically updated, so all the music will be displayed in both cases. If necessary, you can update the database manually from the settings menu, or you can disable its auto-update.

The speed when copying data to memory ranges from 5.5 to 6 MB/second when copying small files and remains around 7 MB/second when copying large ones. Very good results, compared to other players. It happens, of course, more, but very, very rarely.

Battery

The manufacturer claims up to 30 hours of audio playback and up to 4 hours of video. Quite good results, although, given the size of the player, the operating time could have been longer. When playing files of various quality, the player played out the stated time with interest, at a volume level of 22 out of 30, being connected to the included headphones.

Prices

YP-Q1 4 GB	YP-Q1 8 GB	YP-Q1 16 GB
N/A(0)	N/A(0)	N/A(0)

Conclusion

Being the successor to the Samsung T10, the player is an extremely interesting specimen. The presence of FLAC support will add it to the list of potential purchases of those who need this format, or at least would like it to be there. The medium-sized display will please those who want to watch cartoons or movies on the go. Displaying music both as a library and as a folder tree will appeal to those whose music collection is not equipped with the “correct” tags. Those who need, or, again, who would like to be able to record from the radio, as well as from the built-in microphone, will also find these functions in the described device. In a word, to each according to his needs. From Samsung we can only wait for new firmware that would correct the flaws that exist and which we told you about. And, of course, I would still like buttons, and not sensors, as control structures. It's up to you to choose external beauty or more convenient controls in other players. But even with mechanical buttons you can make a praiseworthy design, right? But in this case, the appearance of the player, worthy of our praise under the name “Original Design,” was achieved precisely by the sensors, their bright and effective backlighting, glossiness, and also the attractive menu design.

Content:

Contents of delivery:

• Player
• Headphones
• USB cable
• Headphone tips
• Disk with software
• Gift coupon

Samsung is doing well with players on the Russian market, and the main thing now is not to overextend or underextend. I mean that the company is not trying to make some kind of super players with huge displays, Wi-Fi and so on. And it doesn’t focus on cheap playdrives, they are also in the line, but the backbone is made up of relatively inexpensive models that have a strong price-quality ratio; for relatively little money the user gets quite a lot of possibilities. The player we are considering today is an intermediate model between the “monster” P2 and the bright youth S2 - a solution balanced in all aspects. And the price-quality combination has not gone away. On the contrary, it was expressed even more clearly.

Design, construction

The player is quite large, a sort of smooth block, it feels almost like a telephone. The design uses glossy plastic, fingerprints appear quickly, but are removed just as quickly - there are no protrusions on the body, the screen is not recessed, and you can wipe the Q1 quickly and efficiently. In addition, on black the dirt is not very noticeable; on white you won’t see it at all. The design is simple and quite elegant, but more just simple, nothing special. On the store shelf, if there is anything that will stand out about the Q1, it will be the color of the case; This is the case if, in addition to black, white, pink, and green options appear. By the way, it would be great to see green. As you can see, there are small dots on the bottom of the front panel - it's just a drawing, the plastic here is just as smooth. The groove for the strap is located at the bottom, next to the proprietary connector, where we also find a headphone jack (standard, 3.5 mm).

I liked the packaging, they have moved away from plastic cases a la iPod, it is simple, concise, everything is packaged quite intelligently, on the front we see the player in all its glory. In principle, this box can be immediately taken out into the display case, without any problems.

Finally, I will say that this model definitely suits white. The player dimensions are 49.9x97.8x10.9 mm, weight is 61 grams.

Display

The diagonal of the LCD display is 2.4 inches, the resolution is 320x240, the display is bright, high-quality, there is no accelerometer, or touch sensitivity. Just a good display with good viewing angles, it doesn’t go blind in the sun. Since it is possible to read books here (txt is supported), you can try... But my opinion is this - don’t spoil your eyes. It’s quite possible to watch photos and some videos, that’s true.

Control

There is only one mechanical button - this is the power on and control lock slider on the right side. The sensors so beloved by many are responsible for everything else. I forgot to put the word “favorite” in quotation marks, I don’t like this business too much, in our country the traditional system is much more convenient, especially considering the weather, cold, and so on. For example, in winter, I personally find it more convenient to click on a regular button on the street than to fish for sensors that sometimes do not respond. That’s why I’m now slowly getting off my iPhone; my main device will be something with a keyboard. On the other hand, most often we listen to music somewhere on public transport, in the office, at home, finally. So my dissatisfaction is not so justified. In short, there are seven touch pads, below the screen there is a return button and a function key, below there is a five-way joystick, it is inscribed in a diamond. The light indicator is located in the grooves of the diamond; it didn’t seem very clear to me, it was too bright, but young people should like it. There are errors with clicks, there is no way around it, but I would not say that everything is hopeless, far from it, you can get used to the Q1 sensors. But, it seems to me, it’s time for the company to give up on this matter; traditional controls would give the player a big plus in my eyes.

Contents of delivery

I'll start with the headphones; they differ sharply from the old, not particularly interesting, complete models in previous players. These are plugs, quite high quality, you don’t even want to throw them away. Moreover, they can be used without changing them for anything else, especially if you are not a super music lover with the desire to get some kind of mega-quality sound. There is no iron in the design, it is plastic, additional attachments are included in the kit, everything is as it should be in life. The “ears” are quite bassy, ​​by the way.

I’d also like to note a special coupon with a story about the site Mp3.samsung.ru, it informs that all owners of the company’s players can receive an audiobook as a gift every month - you just need to register. The site is not bad, it has firmware, information about players, a link to an mp3 store, podcasts, and so on. In general, an audiobook as a gift is an interesting offer.

Food, working hours

The kit includes a USB cable with a special connector, which can be used to charge the player and transfer data. No one is stopping you from using a network adapter, then the Q1 will charge much faster. Claimed battery life is thirty hours for music and four hours for video, I tested these figures. At full volume, with the screen almost always turned off, the player played the same song for about twenty-six hours; most likely, the battery was not yet “boosted” enough. The video was also tested, a full charge lasted for three hours. I think that after several full charges and discharges the performance will return to normal and become almost the same as stated, in any case, quite good. It took me about three hours to charge the player from USB; it uses a lithium-polymer battery.

Computer connection, memory

There are only three options for Q1 - two, four or eight gigabytes of memory. Prices also differ. The letters at the end of the player names are also different - the YP-Q1C, for example, carries eight gigabytes on board. The player is instantly recognized by the system as a removable disk; proprietary software out of the box does not need to be installed. Tested with both Vista and Mac OS. The data transfer speed is high; a file of eighty megabytes in size is “deleted” in a few seconds. I had the option with four gigabytes, the memory can be filled to capacity very quickly, perhaps you won’t even have time to really drink tea before there will be nowhere to stuff another album.

Menu

It’s better to see a hundred times than to hear once, so it would be better if you just look at the screenshots, but I’ll try to describe some special moments, differences from the same or. So, in front of you is the menu of the Samsung YP-Q1 player, at the bottom there is a large clock, at the top there are various items, these are music, video, pictures, texts, radio, datacasts (the same as podcasts), additional applications, a file browser, settings. The appearance of the menu can be changed, the cover is used, the icons scroll at the bottom. The font and brightness (ten positions) also change, and you can set the time to turn off the display. As you understand, each of the points hides, as it were, special rooms where we can go for a visit and be at home. I want to talk about some right away and not return to them. For example, in additional applications we find a voice recorder (the quality cannot be adjusted), its quality is quite good, the effective range is small, well, maybe four meters. But if you put it close to the one who is speaking, the result is quite normal. There are also games there, a little more about them: there is traditional Tetris, something like Bubbles and a chicken escape game. In principle, it’s normal, you can play. The apps also have metro maps, but I didn’t really like them.

The video room gives us the opportunity to watch all sorts of videos, they will have to be converted. The small photo room allows you to view jpeg, bmp, gif and png. The radio supports RDS, and it is possible to record; you cannot adjust the bitrate, as in S3. But it is written by default at 128 kbit/s, I think this is enough. The podcasts you downloaded are hidden in the datacasts, and there are a whole bunch of different items and fads in the settings. I already said about the display settings, there are also audio settings (an equalizer is also here, as well as a volume limiter), language parameters (Russian, of course, is present), and an item about time and date. There is a special line for the system settings, I don’t quite understand the need for such a thing as “My Profile” - it’s just a name and birthday, why? Below there are settings for “sleep”, initial mode (when turned on, we end up either in the menu or in the last visited section - music, video, and so on), auto shutdown, return to initial settings, memory formatting, device information and demonstration. Everything is clear, everything is logical, everything is simple. The menu raises no questions not only among sailors, but even among golems.

Musical Features

Let's download some music to the player, connect the headphones, insert them into the ears and try to enjoy it. As you can see, I used the tunes of the group "Bakhyt-kompot" (I accidentally got it on my desktop), the album Hotel from Moby, a number of mixes of varying degrees, and finally, Benny of our Benassi. The compositions of the latter showed all the bass power of both the player and the headphones, as the instructions say, here there are 20 MW per channel, which, I think, is very cool and great. The volume is adjustable by as many as thirty points, it is more than enough; the headphones here no longer isolate the music from others when the sound is at full volume. And the sound is quite honest, in my opinion. But I don’t quite understand where some strange “substrate”, some kind of background noise, appears at full volume. But if we put this oddity aside, then everything here with sound quality is normal, even very good, in my opinion. By touching the function key, we call up an additional menu; you can change the visualization, use a pre-set equalizer, or create your own. Supported formats include MP3 (tried very different bitrates, no problems), WMA, OGG and even FLAC. And he plays the video in Mpeg 4, by the way.

The start of sales of devices under the name UMPC in our market can hardly be called successful so far - today only two products are available here from Samsung and ASUS. This class of mobile PCs is quite young, and other companies are in no hurry to expand their product lines. However, not everyone is so conservative - for example, Samsung clearly intends to stake out a large part of this emerging market and therefore pays a lot of attention to UMPC. Apparently, the direction of movement was chosen correctly - the new ultraportable PC has every chance of becoming a role model for other manufacturers.

Samsung Q1 Ultra

CPU Intel (800 MHz)

RAM 1024 MB

Chipset Intel 945GM Express

Screen 7" (1024×600)

Screen brightness, max/min
280–10 cd/m²

HDD 1.8", 60 GB

Graphics adapter
Intel GMA 950

External connectors
USB 2.0 (2), VGA-out, RJ-45

Networking capabilities
100 Mb LAN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HSDPA

Card reader SD

Battery
lithium-ion, 4000 mAh (7.4 V)

Battery life, read/maximum load mode~ 3.8/2.25 h

Weight 0.68 kg (with battery)

Dimensions (W×D×H)
225×125×26 mm

Pre-installed OS
Windows Vista Home Premium

Is provided Samsung representative office in Ukraine: tel. 8-800-502-0000

Nice design; excellent display and ergonomics; good equipment

Not the best OS for a mobile device

Successful development of the ideas contained in Q1, with every chance of becoming a leader in its market sector

The first representative of UMPC came into our Test laboratory about six months ago and even then aroused great interest, despite a number of shortcomings in ergonomics and short battery life. But, nevertheless, this was one of the few worthy offers for those who wanted to get a mobile PC of smaller dimensions than a subnotebook, but with a full-fledged “desktop” OS. As a result, UMPCs, although they did not become widespread, found their niche in the market. It is difficult to say how quickly interest in this class will grow in the future, but there is no doubt that they are still forming their own circle of adherents. Apparently, Samsung is also confident in this - otherwise it would hardly have begun to modernize its first UMPC Q1 so deeply, creating, in fact, a new device, united with its predecessor only by design features and layout.

The first thing you notice is the design, and here the Q1 Ultra is more than good. The body is made of black plastic, and the front panel has a glossy piano finish. It looks, of course, beautiful, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t last long - after an hour of intensive work there is no clean space left on it, so matte plastic from this point of view would be a more optimal solution. The body itself has become noticeably smaller in height - there are no longer such large fields around the display as before.

This is perhaps the most balanced UMPC in terms of size and ergonomics that we have seen. They also took a more practical approach to using the space on the sides of the display - now, in addition to the cursor control joystick, mouse button emulation keys and a block of programmable buttons, there is a split QWERTY keyboard, and a fingerprint scanner in the lower left corner. The set of interface ports has remained almost unchanged - on the top panel there is a headphone output, a USB port and an SD card reader (Samsung justifiably abandoned CF), on the right, under the cover, there is another USB, D-sub and an RJ port -45 (Ethernet). The connector for connecting the power supply was moved to the top part, and now the cord from

The power supply does not interfere with working with the device. On the left panel there are only a strap lock, a quick launch button for the AV Station Now multimedia shell and a sliding power switch combined with a key to lock all buttons. In addition, the new product has two built-in cameras - one on the front panel above the screen, for video conferencing, and another on the back side for operational shooting. Under the battery there is a slot for a SIM card; the Q1 Ultra supports the promising HSDPA (3G) communication protocol.

Despite the fact that it is impossible to work with the Q1 Ultra with one hand (as with a PDA), using the new product is nevertheless convenient - all controls are at hand. The only drawback is that the mouse emulation buttons are too shifted downwards. Since they are needed quite often, they clearly should have been placed above the ring block of programmable buttons. But even this practically does not spoil the impression of the new product - the ergonomics still deserve an “A”.

Regarding the miniature QWERTY keyboard, we can say

only that for occasional text input (passwords, Web addresses, etc.) it is quite suitable. If you get used to it, you can even type small text messages on it in IM clients. But it is still not suitable for more - unfortunately, it lacks some frequently used symbols, there is no Win key and a number of function keys, which does not allow the use of familiar keyboard shortcuts. In addition, there are two on-screen keyboards - the usual Tablet PC Input Panel and the so-called DialKeys, which are two sectors of a circle at the corners of the display. The latter is most convenient when entering with your fingers, but, unfortunately, this method has a negative impact on the display - it instantly gets dirty in the corners. The optimal operating mode is a stylus plus an external keyboard if you need to enter large amounts of text.

The main highlight of the Q1 Ultra is its display. The matrix is ​​simply magnificent: good viewing angles, excellent performance and color rendition, a huge range of brightness adjustment (from 10 to 280 cd/m²), allowing you to work normally even in bright sunlight. And most importantly, it is practically devoid of the main drawback of all touchscreen panels - the characteristic coating that makes the image blurry. This is very useful - the resolution of the 7-inch display is 1024x600 pixels, which is more than enough for normal work with almost all user applications and multimedia software. Perhaps the screen will be the main element that attracts the attention of buyers to the Q1 Ultra - it’s too good, and for this category of devices, screen quality is the most important component.

The device configuration has also been completely revised. First of all, we have not been able to find out which processor is installed in the Q1 Ultra - we only know that it is a new, not yet announced CPU from Intel, released, apparently, specifically for the UMPC market. Despite the low frequency of 800 MHz by modern standards, it works more than satisfactorily, and 1 GB of RAM will be quite enough for everyday tasks.

The bottleneck of the entire system is the 1.8-inch Toshiba MK6008GAH hard drive, which, despite the impressive capacity of 60 GB, works quite slowly. Undoubtedly, it would be interesting to look at an option with an SSD drive, but, as experience with Q1 has shown, this is not a cheap pleasure at all - the price does not rise in proportion to the increase in the performance of the disk subsystem.

By and large, the main complaint about our Q1 Ultra configuration is the pre-installed Windows Vista Home Premium. Of course, the manufacturer must keep up with the times, but it was possible to achieve normal response time from the system only by completely disabling all graphic effects and removing most of the software from startup. Installing such a resource-intensive OS on a UMPC is clearly premature - a regular Windows XP Tablet PC Edition would look much better here. However, if you are not in a hurry, you can activate Aero and enjoy the beauty of the newfangled interface. Just be prepared for the fact that when you launch several applications, switching between them will be quite long and the system will become extremely “thoughtful.”

As for battery life, the situation has clearly improved compared to Q1: 2 hours 15 minutes at maximum load and almost 4 hours in reading mode at a comfortable display brightness of 100 cd/m² - a very decent result. This, of course, is not 8 hours, like the best representatives of the ultraportable PC class, but considering the parameters of the battery installed in the Q1 Ultra, it is still very good. If Samsung remembers to include a more capacious additional battery in the list of accessories, there will be no problems with autonomy during the working day.

Unfortunately, there is no information yet about the packaging, which is very important: will a keyboard and carrying case be supplied with the device, like for Q1, what software will it be, etc. We will be able to talk more about this only when it goes to retail The first copies will arrive. But even despite this, our impressions of the Q1 Ultra are only positive. We didn't find a single serious flaw, except for the not entirely suitable operating system. Considering the lack of information on price and configuration, we will allow ourselves only preliminary conclusions for now - the Q1 Ultra may become the best UMPC to date, and how much popularity it will gain depends not on its characteristics, which are more than good, but on the marketing policy manufacturer. More precisely, it will be possible to say very soon - according to announcements, retail sales should start in May.

UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) is a compact computer that you can always carry with you. It's larger than traditional PDAs, but the UMPC allows you to run most traditional software if you're willing to put up with a small display, an often cut-down keyboard, and, importantly, reduced performance.

The Q1 Ultra is compact, although a little thick, but the finish is very nice, just the way Samsung has accustomed us to. The black design of the case is typical for this manufacturer.

At first glance, the UMPC Q1 Ultra is similar to the previous model thanks to the built-in keyboard. It is divided into two parts on both sides of the screen, and the mouse is replaced by a mini-joystick on one side and two keys on the other. This way, you can use the computer using both hands. But the keys are still very small and located too close to each other. We had difficulty typing without errors, although we could type SMS without any problems even on the smallest mobile phones. However, it will probably be easier to type after a little practice. And let's not forget that the keyboard is not the only way to enter text. The UMPC has a touch screen, like a PDA, so you can use both the on-screen keyboard and handwriting input. In the latter case, it is enough to write text on the screen with a pen, like a regular pen on paper. Convenient and fast, however, only English is normally recognized.

Since there is no touchpad, you will have to use either a touch screen or a mini-joystick. After a little training, you can master the latter, or you can just press the pen on the desired place on the screen.

The Q1 Ultra uses a processor from the ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) line, which allows for maximum battery life. Of course, you should not expect high performance, but the UMPC does not heat up very well.

This section will be very brief. As a UMPC should, the set of interfaces on the Q1 Ultra is kept to a minimum. At the top there is a headphone jack, a USB port and an SD card reader. If you lift the plastic cover on the right, you can find a second USB port, an RJ-45 (Ethernet) jack and a VGA output. A DVD drive is not included in the package.

There is a built-in webcam above the screen, and two microphones are located under the display. Samsung has cleverly provided the Q1 Ultra with a foldable leg so that the UMPC can be conveniently placed on a table. The pen is also hidden inside the body. Finally, there is a second 1.3MP sensor on the back for taking photos.

Small speakers are built in on both sides of the screen. It will hardly surprise you that they are only capable of producing high frequencies. However, they do not hurt the ears, unlike other computers, and the power is relatively high.

Characteristics

Specifications Samsung Q1 Ultra
	7", 1,024 x 600 pixels, SuperBright filter
CPU	Intel A110 (800 MHz)
Chipset	Intel 945GULX + ICH7X
Memory	1 GB DDR-2 667 MHz
Video card	Intel GMA 950, 128 MB
Hard disks	60 GB PATA, 4,200 rpm
Writer drive	No
Sound	Intel HDA
Wireless network	WiFi 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
"Card reader"	SD/MMC
Web camera	1.3 MP (rear), 0.3 MP (front)
Dimensions	227.5 x 123.9 x 22.9-23.9 mm
Weight	0.69 kg (with battery)
Claimed battery life	N/A
OS	Vista Home Premium Line
Price	From 1,000 euros in Europe (from 31,000 rubles in Russia)

With an 800 MHz processor, the UMPC Q1 Ultra is unlikely to be well suited for complex Excel calculations or movie transcoding. However, it is powerful enough to run Windows XP and everyday programs. And such a processor is not very “gluttonous”, which should have a good effect on power consumption and battery life.

The memory capacity is limited to 1 GB, which is not very much for working under Windows Vista. To be honest, 2GB seems like a smarter choice to us.

The video card is also very limited in performance. However, if you buy a Q1 Ultra, you are unlikely to play Crysis on a UMPC. On the other hand, you can always connect an external monitor and enjoy resolutions of up to 1,280 x 1,024 pixels.

The hard drive has a capacity of 60 GB, which is also quite enough. However, if you look at the latest iPod players with 80 or 160 GB hard drives, 60 GB still seems not enough.

Tests

Testing methodology

To be more objective in our assessments, we conduct PCMark 2005 and 3DMark 2006 tests on laptops and UMPCs. The first allows us to find out the overall performance index, and the second allows us to evaluate the power of the graphics chip. It should be noted that we use the PCMark test to evaluate the processor, memory and hard drive. PCMark has a graphics test, but we decided to evaluate graphics through 3DMark, and we take two measurements in it. First we set the resolution to 1,024 x 768 pixels, which is undoubtedly lower than the resolution of laptops and UMPCs, but the same resolution allows you to compare laptops with each other. Then we run the same test at the native screen resolution.

Finally, we measure battery life by charging the battery to maximum, then looping a DivX movie until it runs out.

• " Acer 2920 laptop: ultra-portable model at a good price ";
• " Sony TZ21 laptop: 11 inches and record battery life ".

First, we ran tests on the PCMark package.

Comparing the Q1 Ultra with ultraportable laptops like the MSI PR200 or Acer 2920 hardly makes sense. But we get a good idea of ​​UMPC performance. Not surprisingly, the final score in PCMark is very low. It's unlikely that the Q1 Ultra will be comfortable performing complex calculations in Excel or editing photos in Photoshop.

The processing power of the processor is clearly not enough. This is especially noticeable compared to Sony's TZ21, which also did not shine in terms of performance.

With 1GB of memory, the Q1 Ultra is barely enough for Windows Vista. If the system starts to slow down, you will have to close some applications.

The hard drive is not only small, but also slow. However, it is quite suitable for everyday tasks, since you are unlikely to do video editing on the UMPC.

We conducted tests with the WinRAR archiver, which allowed us to evaluate the performance of the processor, memory and hard drive during compression operations.

Again, the results are quite consistent with what we saw in PCMark. Due to its slow processor and sluggish hard drive, the Q1 Ultra is poorly suited for demanding applications. However, for e-mail, working in Word or for multimedia applications, the UMPC will be quite sufficient.

We ran tests at the Q1 Ultra's native resolution, and the results were pretty dismal.

The Q1 Ultra is undoubtedly great for modern games like Crysis at maximum quality settings. But jokes aside. The integrated graphics card is sufficient to display the desktop and, when connecting an external display, to output resolutions of up to 1,280 x 1,024 pixels. It’s better to forget about games and 3D applications.

The strengths of the Q1 Ultra are its small size and lightness. You can take this UMPC with you everywhere. And in a backpack or bag you can completely forget about the Q1 Ultra.

Battery life when watching a DivX movie, minutes.

Battery life is relatively low. You can barely watch a full-length movie. However, in office applications the battery life will be quite sufficient; here you will get tired of the tiny size of the display much faster.

UMPC Q1 Ultra is a good option for those users who find ultraportable laptops too large. However, although the Q1 Ultra is more functional than a PDA, it is noticeably inferior in performance to the ultraportable laptop models that we tested earlier. Indeed, for the same price it is more reasonable to choose the same laptop 2920 from Acer, which is more bulky, but also noticeably more productive. Overall, the Q1 Ultra is aimed at extremely mobile users who don't need high performance.

Advantages.

• Truly a "pocket" computer.

Flaws.

• Low performance;
• small and slow hard drive.