Get your own smartphone-syncing MP3 player without buying a Galaxy S III
So yeah I'm sort of at war with the Galaxy S III right now. It's not that I don't like the thing, it's just that the entire internet seems to be going crazy for features that they only think are new because Samsung was the first one to market them properly. Take the S Pebble accessory. There you have a screen-less 4GB MP3 player whose only selling point is its ability to sync with the S III to provide active users a way to bring their Samsung-bought music with them without bringing the 4.8-inch phone. Sounds nice, and no one has released a smartphone-syncing MP3 player before, right?
Wrong. Everyone has. Well, almost. Many Android devices have USB host (aka USB OTG) support either directly through a full sized USB port or more likely through an adapter. This allows you to connect flash drives and such to your phone, and since a lot of MP3 players act as flash drives on computers…2+2 suddenly equals 4.
Samsung hasn't announced prices for the S Pebble yet, but let's just take a look at what you can get if you don't need it to be an official feature. $40 on Amazon gets you a player that is more or less the same size and weight as the S Pebble, but has a color screen, audiobook and podcast sections (which you can actually manage from your phone, perhaps paired with BeyondPod), microSDHC slot, stopwatch, FM radio, and voice recorder. Compare that to the S Pebble's music playback and no screen. I'd be willing to bet the S Pebble will cost you more than $40 too.
So once again, the S III isn't as exclusive as people think it is. It's not a bad device by any means, but I just want people to have all the information before believing every word of Samsung's marketing department.
