We already know what Samsung’s Galaxy Player (or Galaxy Wi-fi 5.0) was all about after the company introduced it early last month; like the iPod touch, or the “iPhone without the phone”, the Galaxy Player is basically a Galaxy S but without the phone bits. Samsung never gave a definite release date so we still have no idea when this device is going to start shipping, and they didn’t announce a price—at least not officially. That bit of info just got revealed though: a listing for the 5-inch player’s 8GB version just got spotted when it turned up at Best Buy’s mobile app with a $270 price tag.
It doesn’t have the same catchy ring to it as “it’s like an iPhone but without the phone,” but Samsung has finally started shipping the Galaxy S Wi-Fi. Previously known as the Samsung Galaxy Player, it’s basically what the iPod touch is to the iPhone: it’s a compact multimedia device that comes with (almost) the same spec as Samsung’s Galaxy S phones, but without the phone or 3G/4G connection.
A leaked image of the next-gen iPod nano doesn’t really show much, but it does say a lot. We don’t know the specs and we don’t know all the features, but here’s a couple of things we can get from this rather blurry shot of a nano’s empty shell: it looks like they’re going to keep the tiny touchscreen form factor, and, unless that hole in the corner’s a clever new way to fit some kind of lanyard, it looks like the 7th-gen nano’s going to rock a camera again.
See, here’s our beef with a touchscreen player: it’s hard to control it when it’s in your pocket. Ditto for cold weather when you have to use gloves. Or times when you just can’t be bothered to look at the player just to skip a track, like when you’re working out. Or driving. Or when the police officer tells you to turn down the music because he caught you fiddling with your nano while driving. And the iPod classic still has more than enough space to store every song we’ve ever heard, which makes it perfect for us because we never work out or wear gloves. Anyway, Apple just put out a firmware update for the new iPod nano to fix that (the hard-to-control part, not the storage thing).
So here’s what Samsung already has out there: they’ve released the Android-powered Galaxy S to duke it out with the iPhone (and a bunch of other premium Android-powered smartphones), and the Android-powered Galaxy Tab to cover the iPad. So what’s up next? An Android-powered PMP to match up with the iPod touch, naturally. And here’s what they’re planning to come out with for that purpose: the YP-GB1, which is, more or less, the Galaxy S without the ‘phone’ part.
