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Samsung Set To Introduce Android-Based iPod Touch Competitor

Posted by Soulskill on from the touch-and-go dept.

blixtech writes "Virtually unchallenged in the portable media player market, Apple's iPod Touch is set to receive a pretty strong competitor at CES 2011. Samsung has just announced they will showcase an Android-powered PMP called the Galaxy Player, featuring almost the same hardware as the Galaxy S smartphone."

16 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Virtually unchallenged? by bfree · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What's so different about this Samsung compared to the range of Archos Android devices like the 43it (I don't care about Android myself so at a guess there are plenty of other devices out there)? Is the "virtually unchallenged" moniker in any way warranted?

    --

    Never underestimate the dark side of the Source

    1. Re:Virtually unchallenged? by Trev311 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Archos devices have several limitations that put them at a clear disadvantage compared to the iPod Touch. First of all, they do not have access to the Android Market. Sure there are other, smaller, markets and I'm sure those are great, but most people are going to want to run the same Android "Apps" on a PMP and a Phone. Much like the iOS devices. Archos also chose to go with a resistive screen instead of capacitive screen that makes a fairly big difference in usage. Go to a BestBuy and play with the an Archos, if they have one set up near you, and then an iPod Touch and you should see the difference.

      So yes the moniker is warranted because there hasn't been something that can stand up to the iPod Touch and seem even somewhat impressive. Hopefully this will bring some competition to the market.

    2. Re:Virtually unchallenged? by samkass · · Score: 4, Informative

      What's so different about this Samsung compared to the range of Archos Android devices...

      The Archos uses resistive touch screen with much lower resolution. It doesn't connect to the Android Marketplace for apps. They're not built in any quantity so are always "Out of Stock" (go ahead... I dare you to try to actually buy a 43it). And for that it's basically the same price as the iPod Touch. It's hard to say they're a competitor when almost no one can actually buy one.

      Samsung, though, is a household name associated with quality products, and more to the point they operate their own screen and chip fabs so can actually make the things in quantity. I could see an iPod Touch competitor from them actually being real.

      --
      E pluribus unum
    3. Re:Virtually unchallenged? by will_die · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you only want a music player then why are you looking ios or android device? Go get a Cowon player they generally have the best audio and don't have those other capabilities.

    4. Re:Virtually unchallenged? by DrXym · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The reason Archos devices don't have Android marketplace is because they fail the compatible device document and therefore do not qualify to ship it. Why don't they qualify? Because they (sensibly) omit a bunch of crap mandated in the CDD which a PMP has no good reason for needing - compass, gps, camera etc. The CDD as it exists makes sense for phones, it makes no sense for other kinds of devices.

      The only way Samsung can stay compliant with the CDD is if a) Google change the CDD in Android 3.0 to specify a range of device profiles (a way overdue change) or b) Samsung bloat the price of their device by packing it with superfluous features.

      a) is obviously the most preferable option. The CDD really should be specifying basic and extended profiles for tablets, media players, ereaders etc. Expecting tablets to be glorified giant phones is just going to stymie the Android tablet market and confuse everyone.

    5. Re:Virtually unchallenged? by mattcsn · · Score: 4, Informative

      Take a look at Sansa's Clip+. It's compact, cheap, weighs almost nothing, has great battery life, has a microsdhc card slot, works as a standard USB mass storage device, has genuine physical buttons, plays ogg and flac in addition to mp3 and wma, and has sound quality easily as good as your Zen.

  2. Year of the Android by Dzimas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My LG Optimus One cost $200 (without contract), runs Android 2.2 and makes phone calls. I think the PMP market is going to be tough to crack, because manufacturers will have to price their handhelds extremely aggressively to make them appealing in a world that is about to be flooded with some fairly impressive Android phones in the iPod Touch price range. Still, it's a sure sign that 2011 will be the Year of The Android.

    1. Re:Year of the Android by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      At least in the US, the main reason to suspect that Android based PMP/non-phone devices have a chance is factoring in cellular costs:

      The cell modem hardware isn't free; but the overwhelming majority of phone hardware is picked up, mildly subsidized, as the hook to get somebody onto a contract(or at least our month-to-month plan, rather than somebody else's).

      There is a good sized market that doesn't really want to pay $80 a month for two years; but has frequent wifi access(most homes, many businesses and places of public congregation, many schools and most college campuses). Loads of kids who have occasional bursts of spending money(their own or holiday/relative); but basically no steady month-to-month income to maintain a full data plan. Plenty of students whose, again, aren't made of money; but whose entire campus is blanketed with wifi.

      Were the US cellular market more accessible and dynamic, with doing things like "getting a spartan voice only plan for a bells and whistles smartphone" easy, rather than possible but obscure, it would be much harder to make the case for something that includes everything but the cell modem: the option to drop in a SIM at some point and do some calling would likely be worth the cost. As it is, though, while that isn't actually impossible in the US, it is so far from being the default that it is fairly rarely considered. Thus, selling a pure "PMP", at a price point available because you ditched that extra radio(and either slimmed the device or added more battery...), has a potential to be reasonably attractive.

      I know that I would strongly consider one: My home has wifi, my workplace has wifi, if I need wifi on the go there are always coffee shops and snack places willing to oblige me for as long as it takes to nurse my cup of coffee(particularly if, unlike That Laptop Guy, I'm just using something indistinguishable from a phone, and not taking up a multi-person table doing it). I don't make that many phone calls or texts, so I have a dirt-cheap prepaid plan. Now, in an ideal world, I'd carry one less device and(as noted above) use my prepaid SIM in a full phone. That isn't supported, so I suck it up and carry a $20 Motorola dumbphone when I need it. I have virtually no need, and no desire to pay for, particularly on a long term contract, cellular data when I'm within wifi range during virtually all the times that I would want internet access...

  3. Galaxy, huh? by n_djinn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Call me a troll, but I can hardly wait for a $700 iPod touch competitor.

    --
    I do not play in the middle of the road
  4. Re:The usual $50.00 question... by yincrash · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Galaxy S phones are ridiculously easy to get root access. It's just a manual software update using the normal update mechanism. Samsung doesn't do the things that Motorola and HTC have been putting in their phones to try and prevent rooting. I suspect that the Galaxy Player would be the same.

  5. Re:About Time by Richy_T · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The scroll wheel was nice. Being able to locate the music you wanted to listen to quickly definitely made for a better experience. Touch screens have since made that much less important.

  6. Re:About Time by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They made it 'idiot proof' (translation: 'Easy to use') and they coupled it with a library of music that is also 'easy to use'. The 'best features' of the other MP3 players were trying to compensate for their lack of a good/popular legit source of music.

    The reason you don't understand is that you're neglecting iTunes.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  7. A WiFi Skype Phone by flyingfsck · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nice, I would buy a handful of these to use as WiFi Skype phones.

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  8. Re:About Time by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't understand why the iPod ever got to the top. It was never the best player, never had the best features and the audio quality was never particularly great. Not that any iPod owner would know seeing as most of them seem to use the included ear buds.

    As far as I can tell the only thing they did right was make it idiot proof with the lack of software to put music on and a huge marketing campaign.

    Easy. Timing and It Just Works(tm).

    First is because the whole "portable digital music" thing was in its infancy and just awaiting its exponential growth. Apple got there are the right time.

    Second because they had a player that had the right formfactor, ample storage, and a usable UI. The iPod was the size of a deck of cards with 5GB of storage. Players that size had a whopping 128MB of storage! Expandable with 64MB expansion cards that cost an arm and a leg. And the scroll wheel was one of those "why didn't I think of that?" ways of navigating huge quantities of music. The competitor in storage would be the Creative Nomad, which had the bulk of a really old portable CD player, with a pile of heft. Creative included two sets of batteries because the battery life was fairly atrocious - a couple of hours-ish per set.

    Then you had Firewire. Filling 6GB of Nomad storage at USB 1.1 speeds took forever. Filling 5GB of space at Firewire speed took an hour or less.

    Finally, you have iTunes. In one app you can do your ripping, library management, and syncing.

    And Apple had it in such a combination that when the whole digital music revolution took off around 2003-2004, Apple was right there with product in the store. (The iPod, which was the best selling MP3 player since it came out, only sold its 1 millionth unit 3 years later).

    Next, Apple came out with the iTunes music store. Suddenly, a way to legally acquire music easily. Now Joe Q. Public had a stupid-simple way to rip their existing CD collection, to buy music, to manage their music, and to copy their music to their portable player.

    And yes, it also helped that all the user had to do was plug the thing in and it would automatically sync and update and everything. Suddenly even tech newbies (e.g., your parents) could manage their iPods themselves and their music collections. And the marketing campaign helped spread the idea that MP3s weren't just a geek thing. Which meant the 99.9% of the non-geek population could suddenly have entire music libraries in their pocket.

    And when the non-geek population started getting into this, music stores and DRM-free were the result because they cared. Otherwise who would bother serving the 0.1% geek market?

  9. Re:Always the best by Osgeld · · Score: 3, Insightful

    hammering your amp's low power input to save "wear" on the part thats been designed to actually do work

    Brilliant

  10. Re:Always the best by russotto · · Score: 4, Informative

    hammering your amp's low power input to save "wear" on the part thats been designed to actually do work

    ROTFL. It makes sense to keep the input signal at the maximum non-distorting power level, because that's typically going to result in the highest SNR for the system as a whole. "Wear" isn't involved at all. It makes sense to do as much amplification as possible close to the source, which in this case is the iPod's DAC.