Why Samsung Galaxy Player is better than iPod

I have been using my Galaxy Player 4.2 for a while now and definitely find it much better than iPod touch in many areas. In fact I did not find one area in which Galaxy would be equal or worse. I speak from experience of owning iPod touch for number of years. So here is why Galaxy Player is better.

Absence of iTunes! iTunes is a useless monstrosity which installs useless QuickTime and other Apple crap which makes your computer slow. I was told that on Mac iTunes work better. I do not have a Mac but on Windows iTunes is an abomination. Yet you must have it if you are going to backup your device and your content. With Galaxy you can just plug it in and use mass storage driver to access all of the content and apps. You can copy to and from the device just like you would with a flash drive.

With Google Play you can download apps from the store and save them on your PC. Later you can install these apps from SD card. There are also apps on the Android itself that would allow you to backup and restore your applications and data. With iPod and without iTunes you are toasted if Apple overwrites your app with non working version and you did not make a backup.

You can add Micro SD card to your player and expand its capacity cheaply. With iPod you can only go with what you originally purchased. I currently have 8GB card in the player making total memory to be 16GB. The card is used to store movies and larger games. If I run out of space, I can upgrade it easy. And it only cost me $6.

Larger screen is a big improvement over iPod. Although latest iPod has higher resolution screen than my Galaxy, the size of Galaxy screen is much larger. I can not see the individual pixels on ether device and both look similar. I compared this player with iPhone 4S and 5 and I have not found one person who could point out any difference. The Samsung phones with larger and higher resolution screens beat iPhone's screen to the punch.

Replaceable battery is a big thing for me. I replaced my iPod battery one time and it is not an easy task even for a DIY person like me. To replace battery in the Galaxy, you just open the back, replace battery and close the back. That is it. You can do it within 5 minutes.

There is NO good book reading application on iPod. Probably the best that I found was Megareader. But even this app does not render some epub files correctly. All other readers do not work well at all on the small screen. FBReader on Android is much better application and there are several just as good - Aldiko or Cool Reader for example.

Standard USB connector is a plus for me. Now I only need to take one charger for the phone and the player. I do not use a smart phone since I value the two weeks battery life that my regular phone provides. I had to carry a separate cable for iPod and a charger for the phone. Not anymore.

I do not have to convert videos to mp4 to play on the Galaxy. It plays pretty much any format that is popular with resolution up to 1080p. iPod only supports mp4 files and resolutions are limited.

The only thing where iPod is better than the Galaxy player is the amount of accessories available. But the Player is by far less popular that iPod. If you compare more popular Samsung smart phone against Apple iPhone the shortage of cases is not a problem at all.

In the end I am very happy with the Galaxy Player and I hope this post will help someone to choose a better device.

TPU Case for Galaxy 4.2

The Galaxy Player 4.2 cases are not as numerous as cases for iPod, to put it mildly. Finding a case for the player is a bit of a task. I purchased a black TPU case from eBay since nothing I wanted was available. I wanted to write a little description of this case so people looking for a case would have some point of reference.

I would like to get a soft silicon case, just like I have for iPod. The silicon case provides good protection for the device without adding too much of a bulk. Most importantly silicon case protects the device from breaking if it falls on a hard surface because of the relatively thick rubber around the device.

The TPU case is not the same quality as the silicon case that I have. It is not a bad quality case just not in the same league. The case is part shiny, part mate. Most of it is mate. The sides have nice roll-on texture providing for secure grip. The back has cut out for the camera, left side has a cut out for the strap and the bottom has two cut outs - headphones and USB connector. The cut outs are not 100% accurate. Some more accurate some less. The USB is the least accurate of all and the case prevents USB connector from fitting securely in to the hole. This is my biggest gripe with this case.

The case fits snugly over the device and does not add much to the dimensions. It protects device well from scratches and minor drops. The speaker grills are exposed and can be damaged so one needs to be careful when the device is in this case. The glass is mostly unprotected as the ridge in the front of the case is not very high.

The TPU case is easy to put on and take off but will not come off by itself. It is scratch resistant and looks good on the device. It is very inexpensive and provides good value for the money. I personally would prefer a different case but this is OK case to buy and I would recommend it in the absence of better alternatives.

Update after some use.

After using this case for a month or so, it stretched a little bit and now  it is easier to insert and remove the player. The case protected player well and the only inconvenience is that the include USB cable does not fit with the case on. I have to take out the bottom of the player from the case to securely insert the cable.

Samsung Galaxy 4.2 after a month of use

I am still very happy with my new Galaxy 4.2 player. It is much more pleasant to use than iPod touch and functionality is great.

The player is excellent as an alarm clock during travel. The speakers are very loud and unlike iPod it never locked up during the month while trying to sound alarm. I only wish to be able to select one of the World times as primary when traveling. When I move about the airports it would be useful.

The video playback is excellent and the battery seems to last a long time. I played over an hour of video and the player used only 5% of the battery. I know it is not linear but there is enough battery for a cross country trip on the plane.

Wifi seems to use battery more aggressively but it is not a problem for me since I do not browse web on this device. GrooveIP works really well and I could make calls without any problems. I had a problem with Cisco Webex calls but that is about it.

Book reading is great. The FBReader is way better app than anything on iPod. Combine this with bigger and more readable screen and you got a winner. Galaxy Note probably is a better reader but it is much bigger so portability looses.

For $5 I doubled the flash by installing 8GB card and now I have enough storage to keep more hours of video than I can watch on a single charge. I used class 4 Patriot flash and it works fine for streaming videos.

I also used camera to snap images of a document when copier was not available. This worked very well and images are readable and usable. For this exercise I used fluorescent light and was most concerned with images being readable. For this purpose device works very well. I am sure that the camera is far from the SLR quality but it meets my expectations.


Performance has not been any issue so far in any of my use cases. I am very happy with my purchase and would definitely recommend this player vs iPod touch. I finally removed the pile of junk that is iTunes from my computer.

Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 review

I wanted to dump my iPod Touch for a very long time. My main use for this player was reading books and listening to the NPR podcasts. I hate iTunes with passion and wanted to rid myself of Apple and iTunes.

I went ahead and bought Galaxy 4.2  after some research. After using it for about 2 weeks all I can say that it is infinitely better than the iPod at least from my point of view. It is better in all of the tasks for which I used my iPod.
The FBreader (ebook reader) is much better than Megareader I used on iPod. There is just no comparing the two. The screen of the Galaxy is larger, and has better viewing angles. The battery life is comparable and it probably can go for a week or so on one charge if reading for about an hour a day. Over all very good experience.
The music player is just as good the the Galaxy and the sound quality is better to my ears. There is also FM radio which works very well.
Included applications are very good and you can just use the device out of the box without any installing many additional applications. The simple task manager is included together with a few very popular games and synchronization apps. Also included chat, IM and navigation software. I have not even tried all of the apps that came with this device.
Galaxy handles various video formats but I only tried Divx and mp4 files so far. It also can decode high resolution videos which my iPod could not. It saves some transcoding time.
The device comes with the wall charger and uses micro-usb connector for charging and my cellphone charger does work. This saves me the trouble of having an extra charger when traveling.
I purchased a TPU case from eBay and a screen protector from Amazon and would highly recommend for anyone to do the same. The player body is plastic and would probably suffer if dropped on a hard surface. I would prefer a softer silicon case as I had for my iPod but unfortunately the selection of cases for this player is very limited. The screen protector is OK but somehow not as good as the one I had on iPod. It was a wet install and it came out a bit wrinkly at the end but this is in no way Galaxy's fault. So far the only issue I found with this device is that the third party accessories are not as numerous as for iPod.
The battery in this device is user replaceable so there is no frustration of replacing the battery like with iPod, also storage is expandable via MicroSD card. If you are watching movies or using a lot of large games this would definitely help. So far I have not tried this feature since I am mostly reading books on the Galaxy.
Some online reviews complained about device performance. I compared it to the Galaxy Nexus phone and there is a slight difference but it is not large. I have not noticed any problems or slowdowns. The user interface is smooth and applications start fast. The video and audio playback is perfect. The browser is very usable, just as good as on the Nexus and way better than on the iPhone 4S. It is just more usable because of the larger screen. Because of the slower single core CPU battery life is better on the Player than on the Galaxy Nexus phone. I am definitely willing to compromise performance for better battery life but other people may have a different opinion.
If you want to replace your iPod and like me do not want to get an Android phone that you have to charge every day, the Galaxy Player is an excellent device. I only had to install 2 applications to make it completely perfect for me - GrooVe IP and FBreader.