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Samsung tweaks its Galaxy S smartphone
KOREAN MANUFACTURING GIANT Samsung has announced a variant of its popular Galaxy S smartphone for those who like their devices contract free.
Samsung took the unusual step of launching the innovatively titled Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 Smart Player device at Mobile World Congress (MWC), but it seems no one, including Samsung PR, picked up on the handset as the press release was issued a day after MWC ended. Samsung says the Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 Smart Player is being pitched as a contract free device that has extensive video and audio playback capabilities.
From the outside it is hard to see what, if anything Samsung has changed on the Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 Smart Player from the original Galaxy S. The latest version still has the same 4-inch 800x480 resolution 'Super Clear' LCD screen, a 1GHz processor and runs Android 2.2. Its main claim to fame is being able to play MPEG4, H264, DivX, XviD and WMV videos as well as MP3, WMA9, Ogg, Flac and AAC audio files out of the box.
Samsung claims there's enough processing power in the 1GHz chip to play back HD 720p video at 30 FPS.
Surprisingly for a technology press release, Samsung specifically states that Brits will be the first to get their hands on the Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 Smart Player, sometime in the first half of 2011, not that anyone will want one.
The biggest problem for the Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 Smart Player is Samsung's decision to launch the Galaxy S II at MWC. Undoutedly one of the best phones at the show, compared to a Galaxy S there's no question that the Galaxy S II is the one to have.
Samsung has made the Galaxy S II more visually appealing with an absolutely gorgeous screen and a significantly thinner profile. Then there's the dual core 1GHz chip that promises to not only power games and Flash videos with ease but also save battery life by running both cores at lower utilisation and, therefore, power draw.
To compound matters, Samsung told The INQUIRER at MWC that the Galaxy S II should be out by April, meaning that by the time the Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 Smart Player comes out, there might be relatively little interest in buying the older but upgraded handset, unless Samsung prices it below £200 without contract.
There's no doubt Samsung's Galaxy S is still a formidable smartphone, however it's unlikely the firm's latest tweak to its masterpiece will result in a boost in sales. Luckily for Samsung, the loss of upgraded Galaxy S sales should be offset by purchases of its newer Galaxy S II. µ
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Goodby Samsung !
Hello Acer !
As others have mentioned this is a music/video player and not a phone and is set to be priced to compete with the ipod.
The key differences compared to the galaxy s are
1) No 3G radio wifi only
2) 3.2mp rear camera instead of 5mp
3) LCD screen instead of AMOLED
Can I connect this via bluetooth as a handfree adapter and use it as my main phone?
Hilarious! A supposedly "tech" website writes an "article" based on a press release but forgot to read it. The galaxy S variant is not a phone but an Mp3 player!
Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 Smart Player is not a phone! It's an iPod Touch competitor.
Everytime I see or have seen anything in terms of comment or review, I see lots of praise. This is not matched in the real world, with in particular Samsung Galaxy S lag being so annoying as to antagonise near its entire userbase, and only fixed in 3rd party hacks.
Stop praising the thing. Samsung don't support their devices very well, because they demand the networks pay for Android upgrade work (aka 2.1 to 2.2).
Samsung need a severe kicking, and a proper turnaround in terms of how they view support and Android versioning. At this time HTC crap all over Samsung in terms of helping getting users on new versions of Android.
I'm not buying anything from Samsung again unless they fix it, and I'm going to ignore the inq if it keeps praising this steaming pile of crap.