Samsung Galaxy S Takes on the iPhone, iPad and Now iPod touch
Apple has some competition from Samsung in an unlikely sector. Sure, the iPhone has managed to propel itself into second place globally in terms of smartphone marketshare but now Apple’s core business—music—might be under attack from the Galaxy S series of smart devices. Samsung already has like half a dozen Galaxy S series smartphones hitting or already in the market. It is going after Apple now in the tablet category by releasing the Samsung Galaxy S Tab tablet. What’s next? The Galaxy Player 50. It’s a Galaxy S series but without the cellular connectivity. What does that mean? It’s an iPod touch running Android.
Since Apple released the iPod touch series (which runs iOS just like the iPhone and iPad), no other competitor has managed to launch similar product that people actually want. Why would they? The iPhone might be locked into AT&T’s network in the US, but the iPod touch has no cellular radio and thus no carrier. Long story short? It’s an iPhone in your pocket in case you already have a cell phone you are happy with. One guess as to what the Samsung Galaxy Player 50 is? Yeah, the first in surely a salvo of shots at the iPod touch.
Check out the video of the Galaxy Player (or YP-G50 as it seems to be codenamed):
Like what you see? Finally, a real Android powered alternative for a smart MP3 player. While the device still does not have an official launch date (it is on pre-order in France), some general pricing specifics have come out: $199 for an 8 GB version and $249 for the 16 GB version. Of course, these are Euros converted into dollar amounts, but since this isn’t carrier subsidized, expect about the same pricing or even a little cheaper in the US.
The Samsung Galaxy S Tab tablet will be launching on November 1st so it stands reasonable that this model will come out at about the same time. Excited? Hoping for an alternative to iOS when it comes to multimedia devices that fit into your pocket? With web browsing via Wi-Fi, and pretty much all the features in a regular Galaxy S smartphone except a cellular radio, the Galaxy Player is certain to find a home somewhere.
Tell me your thoughts on this. Is there a market for an Android MP3 player that competes against the iPod touch? The iPod touch 4 just too good for Samsung to have a chance? That’s what the comment section is for so use it!
Tags: Samsung Galaxy S Player 50, MP3 player, Apple iPod touch, ios, android os
Spec-wise the Galaxy Player 50 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 quite 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.
With 80,000 apps made up of whatever anyone wishes to post including thousands of spam apps, “hello world” apps, a growing amount of malware and just plain poorly coded junk, the Android Market remains a desert in comparison to the curated App Store.
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. They have got to be joking?
All things considered, the Galaxy Player 50 doesn’t really hold a candle to the iPod Touch.
-Mart
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Yes, the Galaxy S Vibrant and the iPhone 4 are both incredibly sophisticated and powerful smartphones that are ideal companions for people who want complete control of their digital lives while on the go. I am also hesitating which one i should buy. On your analysis, i think i probably buy the Galaxy S as i hate the touch screen keyboards. but no matter which one i will buy, it is necessary to download a Aneesoft video converter.
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Samsung has been in the music/mp3 player business way before Apple did.
Herp derp.
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