It was only a matter of time before Samsung put out a speakerless version of the innovative YP-K5 MP3 player. The YP-K3 delivers the goods in an even sexier–if ever-so-slightly bigger–body than the iPod Nano. But it’s priced for the masses at $119 for 2GB and $169 for 4GB, undercutting the iPod’s tag. Samsung says an 8GB model will be out by summer, which makes sense given the company’s good footing in the flash memory market.

Out of the box–which is nearly identical to that of the full-size iPod, interestingly–the K3 is simply stunning. Its glossy front is trimmed with chrome, giving it a sleek and stylish look. When you turn the player on using the side-mounted power/hold switch, the touch-sensitive controls light up, reminiscent of Philips’ GoGear line of players. The controls consist of four directional arrows, as well as Select, Menu, and Back keys. Like the K5, the YP-K3 takes some design cues from the LG Chocolate phone, right down to the availability of black, red, and green versions–sorry, no white. The red version in particular is truly gorgeous, and the backlit controls give it a very jukebox-like appearance.

The Samsung YP-K3 looks nice, if not very familiar. More than any similar competitor, it mimics the iPod nano, with a glossy slab front, chrome accents on the side, and the headphone and proprietary USB port on the bottom. The glossy front hides touch sensitive controls, and we usually aren’t fans of these controls, but on the YP-K3, they worked fine. Still, hardware controls always feel more sensitive and responsive to us, and the touch buttons couldn’t speed up the process of scrolling a long list of song titles.

The interface is standard Samsung fare – menu icons made up of tiny dots that morph from one to the other. The screen itself is disappointing, a 1.8-inch OLED display. Colors seemed a bit washed while viewing JPEGs, and even the visualizer was unexciting. Navigating the menus is very easy, and with few features or customization options, there is little to expect from this simple player’s interface.

But it is the music playback and general track handling that really matter. There’s a couple of settings you can apply to tracks alongside the ‘normal’ sound output; vocal, bass boost, 3G sound and concert hall. They didn’t seem to make a huge difference to music playback, but we found the general quality was pretty good through the supplied in-ear headphones.

We’d have liked a customisable setting or two on the equaliser, but then we’d also have liked support for more music formats, the ability to display album art and the ability to record audio. We aren’t concerned about the lack of video playback, but some people might be.