An Android smartphone without the phone, the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 ($199.99 list) is the same price as the Apple iPod Touch ($199, 5 stars), but doesn’t quite measure up. It’s good enough, though, for people who want to run Android apps without investing in a smartphone and a data plan. 

Physical Design and NetworkingLooking a lot like a midrange Android smartphone, the Galaxy Player 4.2 is constructed from black and chrome plastic, with a physical Home button beneath the 4.2-inch, 800-by-480 IPS LCD screen. It’s slim at 2.6 by 4.89 by .35 inches (HWD) and light at 4 ounces, but it doesn’t have the premium feel of the iPod touch.

There’s a 2-megapixel camera around back and a VGA camera on the front. The power and headphone jacks are on the bottom panel, and the MicroSD card slot is under the removable plastic back, next to the removable battery. The player comes with unremarkable earbuds and a power adapter.

The Galaxy Player 4.2 connects to the Internet using Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, albeit only at 2.4 (not 5) GHz. The player also integrates GPS, which is of questionable value, as pretty much everywhere you’d need GPS, you won’t have an Internet connection. There’s Bluetooth too, and the player can act as a Bluetooth headset for another phone. 

PerformancePerformance is adequate but uninspiring. The Galaxy Player 4.2 is basically a 2010-era Galaxy S phone, with a single-core 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor running Android 2.3. (Don’t expect an Android 4.0 update.) Benchmarks are roughly on par with lower-midrange smartphones like the LG Optimus M+ ($129, 3.5 stars), LG Optimus Elite ($29.99, 3 stars), and Samsung Exhibit II ($199.99, 3.5 stars). It’s what you’d expect at this price.

The Player comes with all the standard Android apps, so you can browse the Web, check your email, chat online, and such. The Home screen comes set up with attractive clock and weather widgets, but of course, this being Android, you can toss those out and replace them with others if you’d like.

Samsung bundles some really ambitious games with the Galaxy Player 4.2, though: need for Speed Hot Pursuit and FIFA 12. both are console-quality titles that require massive extra downloads (290MB and 1.6GB respectively) and both run adequately, but not perfectly smoothly. I’d stick more with casual games on this device.

Smart View is another interesting pre-loaded app; it turns the Galaxy Player 4.2 into a smart remote control for a Samsung TV. I tested it with a Samsung UN46ES8000F ($2,999.99, 3.5 stars). The app configured automatically, and let me pick apps from the HDTV’s Smart Hub. But the main, virtual remote is a series of scrolling screens, and it took quite a few flicks to get to the feature I was looking for sometimes. If you’re looking for a fancy remote for your TV, a Samsung tablet like the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) ($249, 4 stars) would be a better bet because of its greater real estate.

Otherwise, the Google Play market is here, and the Galaxy Player 4.2 is compatible with the 400,000 apps there.

Multimedia, Storage and Battery LifeThe Galaxy Player comes with about 6.5GB of storage, but did you see how big those game downloads are? a memory card is practically a must here; it’s a good thing that our 64GB SanDisk card worked fine.

True to its name, the Galaxy Player can handle a range of music and video formats including MP3, AAC, MPEG4, H.264, DivX, Xvid, and WMV. It handles files up to 720p HD, but not 1080p HD video. There’s an FM radio onboard, which works when headphones are plugged in. Sound quality is very good, with no hiss, and the music player comes with an equalizer option offering various scenarios for different types of music.

It’s hard to get your video onto a TV, though. The Galaxy Player didn’t support our MHL HDMI adapter, and attempts to stream video over Samsung’s AllShare DLNA app ended in endless buffering.

The 2-megapixel camera offers no surprises, capturing moderately sharp photos in daylight, and somewhat blurry ones in low light. The images aren’t noisy, but two megapixels is behind the times. The VGA front camera, on the other hand, is hideously noisy. The main camera records smooth-enough 640-by-480 video at 25 frames per second indoors and out.

We got 6 hours, 57 minutes of solid video playback with the screen set to maximum brightness. That’s longer than the competing iPod touch, and promises a solid day’s worth of use.

ConclusionsIf you want to run 400,000 Android apps and don’t want to invest in a smartphone, the Galaxy Player 4.2 is among your better bets. It’s less expensive and more capable than the older Galaxy Player 4.0 and the Sony NQZ-Z1000 ($249, 3 stars), and has a decent screen resolution unlike the Galaxy Player 3.6 ($149, 3 stars). We’d give this handheld a higher rating if it wasn’t running last year’s version of Android on two-year-old hardware, but even so, it performs well.

The Apple iPod touch is a better device overall: the same price, but slimmer, with a higher-quality display, better video recording, even more apps, and a stronger track record for software updates. It’s not so much better to outweigh the platform question, though. maybe you hate iTunes with a burning passion. maybe you need a lot of storage (a Galaxy Player with 64GB card bought from Amazon costs $263; a 64GB iPod touch is $399.) while the iPod touch is still our Editors’ choice MP3 player, the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 is a top pick for Android partisans who don’t want an Android phone.

More MP3 Player Reviews:•   Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2•   Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6•   Sony Walkman Mobile Entertainment Player (NWZ-Z1000)•   Motorola MotoActv•   Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0•  more

Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2