Samsung touchscreen P3 PMP gets new UI, widgets

I never quite warmed up to Samsung's P2 touchscreen media player, an iPod Touch competitor with a gorgeous screen, impressive Bluetooth capabilities, but a clunky UI. Now comes the P3, with a revamped interface, more memory, and best of all—widgets.

Set for release in the first half of this year (no pricing details yet), the 0.39-inch thick, aluminum-clad P3 comes with the same 3-inch, 16:9 touch display as its predecessor (good for movies from CinemaNow), along with an FM tuner, a photo viewer, and the (clever) ability to take calls from your phone via Bluetooth.

So far, not all that different—except for the P3's interface, which gets a welcome top-to-bottom revamp. Gone are the P2's ungainly, clunky swipable menus; in their place, we get an icon-driven UI that boasts a series of draggable (is that a word?) widgets.

The Samsung press release is somewhat sketchy on the UI details, but this Gizmodo video reveals several of the P3's widgets, including a world clock, photo album, a lightbulb that you tap to tweak the screen brightness, a notepad, and a sleep timer. Home screen getting too crowded? You can always add additional pages and swipe between them, à la the iPhone and the Android OS.

Also new for the P3: a 32GB version, along with the standard 16GB, 8GB, and 4GB models.

As I mentioned above, Samsung hasn't released pricing details for the P3 just yet. But given that the current 16GB P2 sells for $249 … well, that would make for a pretty attractive price point for the 32GB P3. Guess we'll have to wait and see.