My Samsung Galaxy Player 50 Preview

[lebellium]

I can't answer now as I only had a sample with a poor beta firmware in my hands. I'm waiting to make a review with a commercial version of the Galaxy Player 50

[Brycey23]

I guess I'll wait for your review then do you know anything about the M1 being released in the UK? cos i havent seen or heard anything

[lebellium]

I thought the M1 was sold in the UK but it is not on the Samsung UK website so
1) Either it has been released but is no longer sold
2) Or I'm dreaming and it has never been released in the UK (and won't ever be)

Anyway the M1 is like a stillborn product. The firmware support only lasted some months. It could have been a great great product with the hardware inside but Samsung made several mistakes in term of marketing, firmware and support.

[mrrtmrrt]

Unfortunately the Galaxy Player 50 doesn't pose much competition to the iPod Touch.

Spec-wise this Samsung PMP falls far short of the iPod Touch:

- smaller screen (3.2″ vs 3.5″ on the iPod Touch)
- lower res screen (400×240 vs 960×640 only 16% the number of pixels!)
- lower storage capacity (8 or 16GB built-in and 32Gb expansion extra but still less than the 64GB maximum of the iPod Touch)
- No 720P HD video recording
- No front camera for video conferencing
- It’s almost twice as fat – 11.1mm thick vs 7.2mm
- Poor battery life:
- 25hrs vs 40hrs for audio playback
- 5hrs vs 7hrs for video playback

In addition, the biggest audience for the iPod Touch is the games market but if you want games, then an Android device is not a good choice.

Here are the stats for numbers of big name game titles released by some of the largest mobile Game publishers:

* Gameloft – 136 games for iOS vs 12 games for Android
* Capcom Mobile – 27 games for iOS vs 4 games for Android
* EA – 74 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Ngmoco – 42 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Pangea – 24 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Popcap – 5 for iOS vs 0 for Android

And total number of games:
iOS = 38,000 vs Android = 13,000

Although Popcap and EA have said they will start porting some games to Android soon, this disparity is not likely to change much with iOS developers making 50x the income ($1 billion) compared to Android ($21 million) over a similar timeframe and with piracy ranging from 50-97% on Android.

In addition to the severely limited choice in cases available for Android devices like the Samsung, only iPod Touch users can choose from thousands of different HiFi systems, clock radios, home automation interfaces, insulin pumps(!), car hands-free kits, FM transmitters, GPS amplifiers, 70% of cars with steering wheel control integration, etc etc etc all of which have iPod/iPhone docks and are designed to work with iOS devices.

With all of these disadvantages, this Samsung PMP is only about $30 cheaper than the iPod Touch.

All things considered, the Galaxy Player 50 doesn’t really hold a candle to the iPod Touch.

-Mart

[invertedskull]

Looks good! When my Cowon S9 dies I want to replace it with an Android device (one reason is so I can scrobble to my last.fm account). However, I must have gapless. Does anyone know if this will have gapless?

[YPP3Fanatic]

Why does Samsung always do a half *ssed job when it comes to designing PMPs that have the potential to finally bury apple once and for all?!

[Adub]

Where the Samsung trumps the touch is in audio no doubt.

The touch lacks any form of quality sound enhancements as well as a good music player software. The ios4 ipod software is extremely weak option wise and the touch/iphone(current models included) both sound rather anemic, and lacks in both volume and low end emphasis.

With Winamp being released and hopefully improving in time as well as an android Rockbox port being worked on right now, the android based pmps will have a lot more to offer than the touch where it really counts.

[mrrtmrrt]

Originally Posted by Adub

Where the Samsung trumps the touch is in audio ...
Android based pmps will have a lot more to offer than the touch where it really counts.

Interesting point of view. I would have thought the most important thing about big touch screen app-running PMPs would have been their video-playing, app-running features? If audio was the most important thing, why would you spend so much more money to get a big touch screen and app-capable OS?

Just out interest, what specific audio features do you want in your music players that the iPod is missing?

-Mart

-Mart

[Bonetwizt]

Originally Posted by mrrtmrrt

Unfortunately the Galaxy Player 50 doesn't pose much competition to the iPod Touch.

Spec-wise this Samsung PMP falls far short of the iPod Touch:

- smaller screen (3.2″ vs 3.5″ on the iPod Touch)
- lower res screen (400×240 vs 960×640 only 16% the number of pixels!)
- lower storage capacity (8 or 16GB built-in and 32Gb expansion extra but still less than the 64GB maximum of the iPod Touch)
- No 720P HD video recording
- No front camera for video conferencing
- It’s almost twice as fat – 11.1mm thick vs 7.2mm
- Poor battery life:
- 25hrs vs 40hrs for audio playback
- 5hrs vs 7hrs for video playback

You forgot the big positives.

Samsung has a history of superior sound quality.


And it's not a bleeping Ipod. For the first android device tot ry and compete against the ipod as an MP3 player, its epic for a starting point.

[Xinz]

Erm, why are front camera and 720p HD recording in this comparison of PMP?/?Another major advantage the galaxy player will have besides the eq + audio enhancements is FLASH.

[Booga-Booga]

Sooo does anyone know when this player is coming to the states?...

[lebellium]

It's coming early 2011 in France (instead of November 2010) and probably in September 2013 in the USA

[Booga-Booga]

Ugh. Ohkay thanks for the update! And nice review too btw.

[pgh1969pa]

Originally Posted by lebellium

and probably in September 2013 in the USA

Will never see the light of day in the US. Samsung has put all thier eggs in the tablet basket (Samsung Galaxy Tab) or mobile phone (Galaxy S). Furthermore, they perform precious little to promote products stateside. The Tab & Galaxy S will succeed or fail in the U.S. based upon what the mobile carriers do and will have absolutely nothing to do with thier promotional position. A strategy of just dropping the product on the shelf and seeing what happens will fail here in this crowded space just as it did with thier mp3 players. Thier mp3 players went from being in stores to a online only situation in just a few years. No promotion = no sales.

The galaxy tab is sweet though in one respect. The A2DP support with the Tab sounds superior to that of the P3. I just tried one with a Phillips SHB9000 headphone and it was quite impressive. The P3 never sounded this good with any bluetooth headphones. I will assume they are using better hardware and some of that better hardware is probably present in the Galaxy 50.

[SprayMyPerfume]

It's coming out in 2013? This player will be outdated by then I'm hoping for the yp-mb2 instead of this device. This device lacks more than the yp-mb2.

[Olley]

If the specs don't change, this product will also be still-born. Compare to what Archos just released. Spec for spec this sounds like the archos 32. A 3.2" screen with 400 x 240 rez. The 32 is on-saleing for $129/$119. You can buy one today. The $249 16gb 43 is harder to find, but is the best competitor for the new iPod Touch I've seen so far. That may be why they can't keep them in stock. Archos gen 8 players are also great media players, besides having the added benefit of Android 2.2/Wifi/Market/etc. .

[coffee_prince]

I may buy one as its on release 7th Jan in the UK, but very pricey IMO at £179.99 for the 16GB Model.

At that price point its hard not to compare it with the Touch similar priced PMP's

[NiK0nvs]

more stuped word's. we don't touch player but already killing it

[pgh1969pa]

Originally Posted by NiK0nvs

more stuped word's. we don't touch player but already killing it

Samsung probably has done more to kill it than a couple people on a website could ever do:

1) No worldwide release. They don't have enough fath in thier own product to put it into all major markets. This wait and see approach isn't aggressive, but timid. Good luck with that.

2) Missed the single busiest shopping time of the year for consumer electronics. Too late, too bad. Addition headwinds for sales.

3) I've never seen Samsung ever advertise anything on television. Not to say that they don't. Just never seen it. Apple markets its products aggressively in all mass media vehicles and the results show in their sales figures. Samsung just feels its enough to make it, stock it, and hope that they get lucky. That works just find for component manufacturing but not as well for consumer driven sales.

4) The "50" is a solid product but takes no leadership position in features or pricing.

We don't control any of these factors, we only decide want we will and will not buy. For some of us, we don't control that because Samsung has chosen not to sell here so

[NiK0nvs]

In Russia Samsung put up an advertisement in TV ang magazins. Apple is parasite.
"Samsung, вероятно, сделал больше, чтобы убить его, чем пара людей на веб-сайт мог сделать:" I think that we kill many products. Siple users kill more great products one's opinion, because they make lying resume. Sorry for my bad english