When we originally evaluated Samsung’s YP-MT… series of MP3 players, we were quite impressed by what the company had to offer. Although we weren’t necessarily surprised, but glad to see another recommendable series of portable audio players for the budget conscious and the rugged athletes in the market. Today we have Samsung’s YP-MT6Z in our lab, which is the exact same player in all regards except onboard storage, which has been upped to 1GB.

To recap our recommendation and an overview of the features, here’s the conclusion from our in-depth review of the series: "Performance wise, the battery life proved to be a little over 40 hours, which is still exceptionally well. We suspect Samsung failed to meet its advertised 42 hours because of our on-going testing. We had to keep the backlight on for quite sometime while fiddling around with various features and testing each and every aspect of the player. We are certain that MT6V can actually deliver near 42 hours when given the chance. The transfer speeds were wonderful and we did not experience any lag while transferring the files back and forth. The joystick was delightful to use with generally a pleasant experience with the MT6V portable audio player.

As far as the audio quality is concerned, it didn’t disappoint us either. Just like the polished FM tuner quality, the Rock, Metallica, Hard Rock, Hip Hop and Classical genres were all impressive to hear with all notes, pitch and strings being precise with little to no exaggeration. The audio was static free, even with the FM tuner, majority of the time. The only time we did experience static was if the track was encoded at low bit-rates and we tried to listen to it at full volume. The volume levels were just as refined with the most elevated volume setting sounding decent. Notching down the setting by a few degrees would yield thoroughly rich and vivid sound.

There’s nothing to complain about with the physical attributes of the player. The only thing we wish would’ve done differently is if Samsung had made it a bit more rugged. As it currently appears, the player isn’t as solid build as we would like. It’s not fragile either, but if you were to drop it on a hard wood floor you can expect to see scratches on it and maybe the buttons may fall of. However, it would be fine if you dropped it on a carpeted floor. Regrettably, Samsung doesn’t include a solid case to protect the player from hard-hitting drops, but the company does include a plastic cover, which would absorb the impact and prevent it from getting scratches, but unfortunately it doesn’t bring out prettiness of the player. As you can tell, the plastic cover is a must have but don’t expect to show off the player to your friends with that cover on.

Other than that, the MT6V is small enough to comfortably fit in your hand and almost invisible. The multipurpose joystick with backlighting and battery saving features are great as well. The average price for this particular player is around $89.99, making it quite affordable. In fact, it even beats our previously evaluated Rio Sport Forge by more than few marks.

If you are in the market for a solid MP3 player, Samsung has introduced a fine offering that should be at the top of your list of affordable, yet superbly performing portable audio players."

The YP-MT6Z is reasonably priced around $130.00, thereby making it a definite player of choice. If you are interested in reading a more in-depth analysis of the MT6 series, we recommend you check out our review from last month.