Samsung Galaxy 4.0 and 5.0 finally get an official release date
I honestly didn’t think these two would ever get an official release date. It’s been 6 months since I first posted the promo video you see above, and in that time the Galaxy Players have made quick appearances on pre-order lists before disappearing completely again. When the thing appeared on Woot.com on sellout for $170 a couple of weeks ago, I thought for sure that this one had skipped our part of the world completely. Luckily, that’s not the case, and both the 4-inch and 5-inch Galaxy Player will be released in the US on October 16, a month after it was on sale(!).
The Galaxy Player series is basically the iPod touch of Samsung Android phones. Both have 480 x 800 resolution screens, but with different physical sizes. Both have a 1Ghz single core CPU, dual cameras, Bluetooth, Wifi, microSD, and run Android 2.3 Gingerbread. While the 4.0 is certainly the more portable of the two, the extra screen real estate on the 5.0 brings it closer to what we can comfortably call a tablet. 5 inches of Android means it will take on the Dell Streak and also at least say hi to all those people who are looking at 7-inch tablets for their portability, even though the resolution can be a dealbreaker when we’re starting to see 7-inchers that have 2.5 times the resolution of these, i.e. 1280 x 800. Starting at $229/$269 though, the price might be what makes these catch on. The iPod touch has certainly done well for itself despite the iPhone, and these two come pretty close in terms of price and features.
[Anandtech]
