Samsung spring cleans its MP3 player

Samsung has resprayed its nearly-there-but-not-quite YP-Z5 MP3 player. This new revision comes in a fleshy pink colour clearly designed to attract the same crowd that leapt at the pink Motorola Razr V3 mobile phone. The overhaul includes the addition of a built-in FM radio, but is otherwise entirely cosmetic.

But while Motorola's choice of electric pink brought to mind hot rods glinting in the Daytona sun, Samsung's hue evokes the memory of pigs, their skin sodden in the rains of Yorkshire.

The original Z5 met a mixed reception. Acclaimed in a Crave podcast as "the best MP3 player that's not an iPod", we still struggled with the Z5's fiddly touch-pad control. Often you'd skip past menu options you wanted to select on this player, and adding a radio hasn't fixed this fatal flaw -- it's like putting lipstick on a corpse. And much as we love pink stuff, Samsung may need more than a new colour scheme to take on Big White. -CS