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Using The Galaxy Player 3.6 As A Bluetooth Handset

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Samsung packed a lot of extra little features into their new Galaxy Players in an attempt to make them ultra versatile. Some of these features are quirky, but I can see being useful — such as the ability to use the Player as a viewfinder for a point-and-shoot camera. Others are interesting, but I’m not sure they’re practical.

That’s where the Bluetooth handset feature falls, in my view. Samsung gave the Player 3.6 and Player 4.2 the ability to connect with phones via Bluetooth and answer calls, similar to an earbud.

(Related: How To Use The Galaxy Player as a Phone)

The company offered up several scenarios where this might be useful. Say your phone is charging but a call comes in that you want to take. Use the Galaxy Player, instead. Or if you’re a kid with a crappy flip phone, you can answer calls with this, instead, and pretend like you have a smartphone.

(Read: Galaxy Player 3.6 Review)

 

I’m not entirely sold on either of these, but I decided to test the functionality.

Galaxy Player 3.6 as Bluetooth handset

Set Up

Pairing the Galaxy Player to a smartphone is just as easy as pairing a Bluetooth headset. Simply turn on Bluetooth on both devices, make the Player discoverable, and scan with the phone. Once the devices recognized each other and paired, the Player showed up as connected to phone audio.

Pairing

When I received a call on my smartphone, the Galaxy Player rang as well. The screen looks just like the incoming call screen on a Galaxy S phone and I had to option to answer or decline.

When initiating a call from the phone, the Galaxy Player will automatically activate, just like a Bluetooth headset.

Galaxy Player Connected As Phone Audio

Audio Quality and Performance

Using the Galaxy Player to take a call feels just like a phone thanks to the placement of the speaker/earpiece and mic.

Audio came through clear and strong when the Player and smartphone were close together. I didn’t experience any noticeable drop in call quality in any of the three phones I tested.

However, the two devices do need to be close to each other. I moved between 15 and 20 feet away from the smartphone with the Player and the quality on both ends degraded into spotty, scratchy audio. For the best results both devices need to be in the same room for the most part.

It’s worth noting here that this process only works if the smartphone in question has Bluetooth 3.0. This version of the wireless connection uses less power, so theoretically it won’t be a tax on either battery to leave the connection active. I had the Player paired with a Galaxy Note for about half a day and didn’t see a major increase in battery drain.

Limitations

Owners can’t use the Galaxy Player to initiate phone calls. It will only activate when a call comes in or you dial from your phone.

There’s no number pad in the call app, so you can’t use it when navigating a phone tree. This is frustrating for me since I screen calls with Google Voice, so I need a access to the keys.

Conclusion

As I said, this idea is interesting, though I don’t know how many real world scenarios there are for it. I’m actually interested in hearing whether you, dear readers, think you’d use this functionality.

It’s easy enough to set up and use and calls sound pretty good. So, if you had a Galaxy Player, would you use it as a Bluetooth handset?

(Read: Galaxy Player 3.6 Review)

15 Comments

15 Comments

  1. Darthmarth550

    04/24/2012 at 10:21 pm

    you can actually make calls by adding people to you contacts then dialing them. Works for me, but a dialing app would be a lot more useful

    • ram mohan

      06/18/2012 at 3:05 pm

      when i click on a contact phone number it says dialing on the player but the phone does not dial out or do anything. When I hang up on he player side the cell phone lights up. Do I have aback level version of blue tooth on my phone?

  2. Hellobaka297

    04/24/2012 at 10:34 pm

    is it possible to do this same thing but with the galaxy 5.0?

  3. Brandon

    05/17/2012 at 2:15 pm

    I own a player and did not know it could do this. I have been in a debate about whether or not to get a smart phone. The majority of the time I am on a wifi network. I have used the player as an ip phone on my companies phone system and it works great for that as well as for managing my calendar and all of the other things that a smartphone can do. It would be very nice to answer calls on only one device. The ideal situation would be if wireless companies would allow people to use a smartphone without being required to purchase a data package. I know most people will say “what’s the point of having a smart phone then?” but I don’t care to have instant access to everything all of the time. I would rather save $40.00 per month and download things on WIFI. Once in a while it would be nice to have access elsewhere but I will survive and there are a lot of places with wifi hotspots now.

    • Brandon

      05/17/2012 at 2:21 pm

      I forgot to mention that now knowing that the player can be used like a bluetooth headset I will probably pair it with my company cell phone ($20 per month voice package) and just use the player as if it were a smartphone. I can answer all calls on it as if it were a smart phone.

  4. Swan

    06/11/2012 at 5:12 am

    I’m having trouble using my 5.0 as a Bluetooth device it pairs but wont connect. If someone could please help me with this issue thank-you.

  5. DarthMarth550

    06/16/2012 at 10:55 pm

    @ Swan
    this is strictly on 3.6 and 4.2
    5.0 and 4.0 dont have this feature, so you are pretty much stuck with your phone. See if you can get a mobile WiFi spot if you really want. Then you can use the player to make WiFi calls.

    To sum it up, it won’t work. Galaxy player 3.6 are the only players with this feature. Sorry.

    • Swan

      06/19/2012 at 9:06 am

      Well damn that sucks……lol thanks anyway

  6. John

    07/21/2012 at 8:48 pm

    why wouldn’t the galaxy player 4.0 work? It has a blue tooth capability. Is there something else you need besides that to connect with a phone?

  7. Marcellus

    07/26/2012 at 12:51 pm

    I have the 3.6 and when someone calls me it just says private number

    • Jeff

      03/09/2013 at 5:47 pm

      Yeah, Mine just says private number, and there’s no answer button. Just disconnect and device connected.

  8. M. Rad.

    10/23/2012 at 12:57 pm

    Another use-case is situations where in-building cell signal is poor. You can leave your cellphone charging on the windowsill where the cell signal is strong and roam about with this gadget in your pocket. (There are bluetooth-enabled cordless phones and even analog phone adapters for this situation, but if you already have a Galaxy Player, may as well use it.)

  9. Tanner Richardson

    03/18/2013 at 2:28 pm

    I pretend mine is a smart phone all the time

  10. sulyono

    08/04/2014 at 11:20 am

    Where i can order it?

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