Samsung Galaxy Player 50 Android PMP

Screen too small, price too big

If manually adjusting the sound is just too much like hard work there is also an option to let the system change the sound profile based on a track's 'genre' ID3 tag.

The screen's good - but is 240 x 400 just too darned low res these days?

The 2Mp camera is another less-than-impressive feature. With no auto-focus or flash, the end results are poor by modern smartphone standards. The highest resolution you can shoot video at is 320 x 240 which even my old HTC Hero can better.

You also get a GPS pick-up, though the Galaxy Player's usefulness as a satnav is restricted by the absence of the cellular data that Google Maps navigation depends upon to work.

Samsung reckons a full charge of the Galaxy's 1000mAh battery will be good for five hours of video playback and 30 of audio. I got four hours ten minutes of video, and 28-and-a-half of audio on a loop test - reasonable enough.

Verdict

The iPod Touch has one obvious advantage over the iPhone: price. But if you can pick up a good Android smartphone like the Orange San Francisco with its 3.5in, 480 x 800 screen for £100, why buy a Galaxy Player 50 with a smaller screen and no phone for £50 more? Either the screen needs to be bigger, or the price smaller. As it stands, excellent sound quality and very good earphones are not enough to redeem it. ®

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