The Samsung R1 has yet to see light of store shelf in the US and will be dropping in the EU within a matter of days. The R1 is similar to the rest of the Samsung family but adds video out and some unique DJ features as seen in the screen shots below. We will have a review when released in the US but in the mean time many thanks go out to our Samsung moderator lebellium for putting this photo preview together for us. Lots of photos below. Enjoy.

Samsung earlier this week unveiled its latest PMP offering, the YP-M1, at the 2009 IFA in Berlin. The M1 is being touted by some as Samsung's answer to the Zune HD, mainly because it's sporting Nvidia's powerful new Tegra chipset under the hood.

The YP-M1 features a 3.3-inch 480x272 AMOLED touchscreen, 720P playback and will be available in 8,16 and 32GB flavors. It also features a micro-SD slot, bluetooth support, and built-in stereo speakers. Noticeably absent is WiFi support. Without WiFi, the M1 may have a tough time going up against the Zune HD.

The YP-M1 should be available in the UK later this month. No word yet on whether or not the M1 will make an appearance in the States. In the meantime check out the video demo below.

The Nvidia Tegra is the hot chip to hit the PMP and MP3 player scene. 50 Tegra devices are in the product pipes- from PMPs, mobile phones, media pads, and set top boxes. (If you are interested in the Tegra, there is a great video interview on Hexus discussing this.) So far only two have been publicly announced: the Zune HD and the Samsung M1. The M1 seems to be another worthy competitor and from the looks of the UI demos, it looks more like a successor to the P3- call it a Tegra enabled P3.

The M1 has been released in Korea with Europe to follow next month. No word on a US release, but my guess would be that we might have to wait or it may not be release due to the inclusion of DMB. Continue below for several videos of the M1.

[GenMP3 | LJdG | M1 Forums]

The Samsung R1 will look familiar to P3 owners- it shares the same structure with some added features. The one big difference is the R1’s UI is in landscape mode compare to the P3 and it looks a bit more comfortable. The screen resolution is slightly smaller than the P3 at 400x240 (2.6”) but the main difference is the video out function for up to 5 hours of playback. Like the P3 the R1 will have be able to playback most codecs you throw at it without transcoding.

The R1 should appear sometime in September. Priced only in Euros for now but USD will likely correspond- €150/€200/€280 for 8GB/16GB/32GB.

[Le Journal du Geek | GenMP3]

Just a few weeks ago the Samsun M1 was leaked in our forums with little detail. But some of those details are starting to emerge on Samsung’s Korean site. On the site we get more of a clear image of the device along with a few more specs such as a 3.3” AMOLED screen and NVIDIA chip. The site however only mentions the non-us version infused with DMB- a digital broadcasting technology not available in the US. We will have to keep our fingers crossed for a US appearance.

It’s exciting to see this next wave of PMP and MP3 players take advantage of this new generation of powerful graphics chips. The M1 and the Creative Zii will be some great alternatives to the Zune HD for those who want a more open approach to their media players.

[Samsung Korea via dapreview]

One of our forum members dug up some of the Bluetooth certification papers on the M1. A few days later in that same thread a leaker posted a photo of this mysterious player. From the papers we know that it will have Bluetooth and a 3.3” screen. From the photos it looks like it could be a phone with a speaker at the top and perhaps what appears to be a mic in the form of a small slot at the bottom.

The papers do say it is a “Samsung MP3 Player” but it could be possible that it has extended features such some sort of VoIP application. It may also be possible that it will act like a full on phone connected to your existing phone though Bluetooth. That would be the natural progression from the P3 family since it does some really cool stuff like allowing you to dial your phone and talk from the P3.

One of our moderators is in the know about this player, but keeping us in the dark bound by those pesky legal agreements, says "But there is another interesting feature, secret for the moment ;)" "...something really interesting, the first time on a recent Samsung mp3 player"

[Samsung Forum]

They guys at Journal Du Geek have been beta testing the Samsung R1 for a bit and have posted a few photos of it comparing it to that Cowon S9. As you can see it’s quite a bit smaller than the S9 and in turn smaller (3.4” x 1.8” x .35”) than the Samsung P3 but seems to have a lot of the same features including the same UI.

The 2.6” screen comes in 400x240 pixels and will playback all the same video formats at the P3 natively without conversion: Xvid, divx, H.264, and WMV. On the audio side all the good formats are supported: WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC, and FLAC. Bluetooth will also be a feature like the P3. The firmware is still a bit rough, so once that gets ironed out we will see an official announcement soon. The 32GB version will be priced at 270 Euros- so perhaps we will see it here in the states for around $300.

[Journal Du Geek | x2]

Here is a look at two differ cases from I-Nique: the Tuff-Luv leather case and a standard silicon case. The first leather case is made of genuine leather that is nice and soft to the touch. All of the necessary ports and buttons are exposed and are easily accessible so you don’t ever have to remove the case in order to charge it or operate any of buttons. The top buttons are covered when the flap is down, but I found it pretty easy to individually press each of the top three buttons while the flap was closed.

We have lately been taking a look at many of the new Noreve cases for some of the recent MP3 players. For those unfamiliar, Noreve makes high end leather cases for many electronic gadgets. The selection is quite extensive covering nearly all of the MP3 players featured on this site. Additionally, the product line extends to gaming devices, cameras, and even some netbooks.

The cases get pricey and fall in at the high end of the scale, but from the several Noreve cases I personally own, I feel that the price is warranted. The absence of brand price inflation is subsisted for good materials and quality craftsmanship.

Browsing around the forums I see a few people purchasing screen protectors for their MP3 players that have glass screens. Some might say better safe than sorry but these screens are much more durable than one would think. Below I put a few of these glass screen players though some rather harsh scratch tests, well beyond what the vast majority of users might experience.

Samsung’s last blockbuster was the P2. It was a hot topic in our forum and a player that we put on our Top 5 Players of 2008 list. With that, you can imagine the P3 is a highly anticipated device for current P2 fans and possibly some other-brand owners looking to trade up to a very solid feature set.

For many of the P2 owners, the question is whether the changes made to the P3 make it worth upgrading. The P3 is a substantial improvement on features, build quality, UI, touch, and video playback and is very worthy of the incremental name. I might even call it a “P3.2”

We have been holding out here for quite a while for the P3. The rest of the world (even Canada!) has seen the light of this player but finally the US will see it in May. (Press Release) It will retail for $150(8GB), $200(16GB), and $300(32GB), slightly cheaper than what the S9 is currently selling for.

In addition to the P3 the small flash player the U5 as well as the Q2 will arrive stateside sometime in April. The U5 will sell for a mere $40 for a 2GB and the Q2 will retail for $100/$130 in 8GB and 16GB respectively.

The P3 has been one of my main players for the last few months and has gone though some significantly better firmware updates. With the recent update it has become one of my favorites, even edging out the Cowon S9 by a small margin. Stay tuned for a proper in-depth ABI review of the P3 and in the mean time you can check out some user opinions in the P3 forum.

The US has yet to see the light of the P3 though it has been out for a few months in Korea and is available now in the UK. So we are in a way lucky that we will see a more feature filled and more refined P3. Journal Du Geek is reporting on the change log with the biggest news is native video playback of up to 800x600 resolutions natively. In addition on the video end they have added SMI format support and a mosaic video browser (video) similar to the S9. With this and added DNSe setting for movies.

There are some other small things like a drawing notepad similar to Paint, a Dictionary (only Korean at the moment), and also a new mirror album art now playing screen which does look very cool. More importantly they have increased the performance by 30%. Touch responsiveness was lacking in early versions I used at CES and it improved in the retail version, so this will bring it up to par with the best of the touch screen players.

My initial impressions of the P3 have been very good; however I previously questioned whether it could go head to head with the Cowon S9 since it lacked native video support. But with this soon to come update they will without a doubt be direct competitors. The touch player battle is heating up. Stay tuned to out P3 forum for its release sometime in early March

Samsung's U3 was a decent sized fail and the U4 more or less came and went without anyone noticing. Samsung hasn't given up on stick players, and is back with the U5 - also called DoReMi.

The specs are basically the same as any other stick player out there; 4 line OLED screen, integrated USB plug, 18 hours of battery life and an FM radio. It will come it 2, 4 and 8GB capacities, but no pricing or release date is known at this point.

[ P2 Club via GenerationMP3]

The P2 is pretty hot, hot enough for us to name it as one of the top MP3 players of 2008. Sure enough there is a lot of excitement for the P3. This news all comes at very interesting times when several of the manufactures are jumping into this thin touch screen fray- the Cowon S9 (some cool abi photos) has been recently released and Sony will likely be showing off their touch based player.

This thread in the P3 forums is a nice news roundup of the latest P3 details with lots of links to HD video of the UI and official Korean landing pages for the P3. The only prices we know are the Korean pricing but they look like they will be in line with the Cowon S9. Expect to see the P3 at CES with the official release sometime in mid January.