Hands-on with Samsung's Galaxy Player 4

We got some hands-just in time with Samung's long-in-the-making Galaxy Player 4 and Galaxy Player 5 this evening. The Galaxy Player devices both run Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread and can be considered Samsung's answer to Apple's iPod touch.

Both Player devices are absolutely plastic, and neither has a terribly expensive feel when you hold it. The back covers are glossy plastic, which is very good at collecting fingerprints. It would have been nice if Samsung included the textured battery covers that have shown up on its recent smartphones.

As one might expect, the Galaxy Player 4 is the smaller of the two, with its 4-inch, Super Clear LCD display. It is in essence a Samsung Vibrant 4G smartphone without the phone, as it features a 1GHz, single-core processor and Samsung's TouchWiz interface on top. Performance was acceptable in the short time I handled the Player 4, and Samsung's TouchWiz interface did not seem to overpower the processor. The version of TouchWiz found on each Player is the older, definitely less attractive version than found on Samsung's newer Galaxy S II smartphone. The Super Clear LCD did look good even though, in spite of it not being a Super AMOLED Plus screen that Samsung is so famous for.

The Galaxy Player devices are obvious competitors to Apple's iPod touch, even though they could as well serve as good Wi-Fi-only VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phones. The access to the Android Market opens up endless possibilities when it comes to apps, and the Player's low cost of entry could be very attractive to some buyers.