Samsng unveils Galaxy Player 50 Android handheld + 3 other media players

This week Archos launched a new line of Android-powered devices, including 3 handheld media players which undercut the iPod touch on price, ranging from $99 to $199. The Archos 28, Archos 32, and Archos 43 can also handle a range of media formats not supported by Apple iDevices, including WMV, DivX, Xvid, and MKV.

Now Samsung has rolled out a new line of portable media players, including the Samsung Galaxy Player 50 which runs Google Android 2.1. The Galaxy Player 50 has a 3.2 inch display and can handle DivX, H.264 and other media formats.

Engadget got a chance to check out the Samsung Galaxy Player 50, and report that it has a multitouch display, and comes with either 8Gb or 16GB of storage space and supports 802.11b/g/n WiFi. It also has a 2MP camera. The thing that surprised me the most was that the demo unit appeared to have the Android Market and other Google apps including Google Maps Navigation and Gmail.

Those features are usually reserved for smartphones, and it’s not entirely clear what kind of deal Samsung must have struck to get them on the Galaxy Player 50. The Archos tablets, for instance, use the third party AppsLib market, which has about 5,000 apps available for download instead of the close to 100,000 apps available from the full Android Market.

On the other hand, it’s always possible that the finished product won’t actually ship with access to the Android Market… but Samsung isn’t the kind of company that usually teases us with features that will later be removed.

News Source: Liliputing