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Cellphones Handhelds

Samsung's Galaxy Tab Android Tablet Now Official 210

Posted by timothy from the looks-delicious dept.
itwbennett writes "Samsung held a media event Thursday introducing the Galaxy Tab, and making official what we've already known for weeks, says blogger Peter Smith. 'We still don't have a price or a concrete ship date (though definitely this fall; Samsung says it'll be available for the holiday season),' says Smith. 'It'll ship with Android 2.2 (Froyo), runs Flash, has a 1Ghz Hummingbird CPU, 16GB of memory, a 7" LCD (1204 x 600 ) screen and weighs about 13 ounces. They're claiming a 7-hour battery life. Two cameras: a front-facing 1.3 megapixel, and a back-facing 3 megapixel. It has an HDMI port and will also share media to DLNA devices on the same network.'" Engadget adds some video footage.
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Samsung's Galaxy Tab Android Tablet Now Official More

Samsung's Galaxy Tab Android Tablet Now Official

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  • Price (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Crucial missing information in the summary:
    Amazon UK is reporting an MSRP of 799.99, and Amazon US has a listing for $835.18. Unless is bad info, this thing is DOA.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GordonBX ( 1059078 )
      Agreed. The one thing that gets forgotten in the hullabaloo about the iPad is that when it was announced, the prices were significantly cheaper than many people had been expecting, and that this caught a lot of the 'me-too' manufacturers off guard. If the Galaxy is more expensive than an equivalent spec iPad, then not only does it lose out to the 'buy the cheapest' crowd, it also gives Apple ammunition to say: "see: we aren't expensive". TBH though, because of the app-store lock-in, Apple ought to be ab

      • Re:Price (Score:4, Interesting)

        by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @07:50AM (#33609872) Journal

        TBH though, because of the app-store lock-in, Apple ought to be able to virtually give-away iPads and still make lots of money, so I can see this battle going on for a good while yet.

        Yeah, the specs are interesting, but we need the price to judge whether we might want one or not. That said, I quoted the part of your post I did because buried in the article is a more interesting little nugget: Samsung are throwing in an iTunes competitor through which you can buy and watch TV shows, movies, etc. Now taking on iTunes is a lot more interesting to some of us than taking on the iPad. If the sodding thing has a decent catalogue, decent quality and will let you buffer the movie unlike that bloody LoveFilm site, then it might have got my interest.

        • Re:Price (Score:5, Informative)

          by jkoke ( 1112287 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @08:04AM (#33609972) Homepage

          No buffering, according to this article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20100917/tc_pcworld/samsunggalaxytabfaq [yahoo.com]

          "All content from the Media Hub is offered as downloads over Wi-Fi. There will be no online streaming through the Samsung Media Hub."

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by h4rm0ny ( 722443 )
            I hope you get a nice +6 Informative for that post. The article you linked to is far more useful than the one in TFS. I particularly liked this bit:

            All content from the Media Hub is offered as downloads over Wi-Fi. There will be no online streaming through the Samsung Media Hub.

            You will be able to share rented or purchased Media Hub content between five Samsung devices under one account. At launch, Samsung Media Hub will work on select Samsung smartphones and the Galaxy Tab. There are future plans to mak

    • Re:Price (Score:5, Informative)

      by jcupitt65 ( 68879 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @07:11AM (#33609512)

      Do you mean this?

      http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-7-Inch-UMPC-with-Touchscreen/dp/B001TZVW8E [amazon.com] 1 new from $835.18

      That's not the same product, that's a winxp thing with a hard drive.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dk90406 ( 797452 )
        All price indications I have seen show that it is going to be very expensive without a contract. In the Euro 800+ range. That is twice as much as I am willing to pay for a device that may be fun or cool, but I don't basically need.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

        This is the type of tablet that existed for a few years now and never took off because a finger/stylus is not a mouse?

        Now, I am expecting a lot from Android, but it is just about ready for smartphones. Do anyone really thinks it is going to play well with a 7" tablet? I mean, it is going to be much better than Windows, for sure, but it is going to be anywhere as useable as an iPad?

        In my view, a bigger screen means different usage. And different usage mean different UI.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by b0bby ( 201198 )

          I take that to mean that here in the US it should be about $700; my rule of thumb is that prices in pounds will translate to almost the same price in dollars. And double checking my theory, I see that the 4th Gen ipod touch, which I just bought for $230, is 219 pounds...

          $700 is too much, IMHO.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by TechOgre ( 587151 )
      With a much smaller screen (7" vs 9.7") it had better be much cheaper, like half the price of the ipad.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Ah, but it's a cell phone, so you'll be able to get it for cheap. With a multi-thousand dollar cell phone contract and locked down, of course.

  • Awesome (Score:2, Funny)

    by cappp ( 1822388 )
    So now I can honestly tell the ladies I regularly have 7'' in hand

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      So now I can honestly tell the ladies I regularly have 7'' in hand

      Hang out at the YMCA and you can make this true without buying a tablet

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Thanshin ( 1188877 )

      So now I can honestly tell the ladies I regularly have 7'' in hand

      7" is below average range's top.

      The joke size starts officially at 22cm (8"?). It's all in the copy of "BE A MAN!" manual that was given to you upon reaching puberty.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cappp ( 1822388 )
        Ahh but thats part of the meta-joke isn't it - thinking you're making a hilarious funny based on using this outlandishly huge size...which really isn't.

        This is exactly why I sucked as class clown.

  • Unlike The IPad... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MogNuts ( 97512 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @07:06AM (#33609466)

    Hey, unlike the IPad, a tablet that is actually useful!

    I'm looking forward to using that Android app that puts anything on screen (everything, not just video) and pipes it out the HDMI to another device, like an HDTV. I could see this being a truly useful device.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Thanshin ( 1188877 )

      I'm looking forward to using that Android app that puts anything on screen (everything, not just video) and pipes it out the HDMI to another device, like an HDTV. I could see this being a truly useful device.

      Doesn't the Archos 5IT do that by default? Plug the charger thingie, plug the video cable to tv and... I think that's all.

      (disclaimer: It might be a false memory for having watched movies with it. I can't test now.)

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Jeppe Salvesen ( 101622 )

      methinks you suffer from an acute lack of imagination and inspiration if you can't do something useful with your iPad. That said, I have a Galaxy S (which shares a lot with the Galaxy Tab) and it's a nice little piece of hardware with a few flaws:

      • Not as responsive as the specs indicate - I eventually rooted my Galaxy S in order to reduce the lagging to a tolerable level.
      • GPS falls out after some uptime. This is supposedly fixed in the Froyo update.

      That said, the Android platform is coming along nicely and I

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by samkass ( 174571 )

      I'm looking forward to using that Android app that puts anything on screen (everything, not just video) and pipes it out the HDMI to another device, like an HDTV. I could see this being a truly useful device.

      I'm curious as to what you'd use that functionality for besides movies, photo slide shows, and Keynote (PowerPoint) presentations like you can do on the iPad. Any developer can add video-out on the iPad for those with the connector cables, and besides the listed apps some games support it. But overall

  • Eh (Score:2)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 )

    I mean, it looks awesome, but the screen resolution is a bit disappointing. Then again it is a 7 incher, so...

  • Android? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by anerki ( 169995 )

    I wonder what this will do to the development of Chrome OS, as now Android is also a tablet operating system, what will the market be for Chrome OS? I hope they're not shooting for desktop applications ...

    Also, no WiFi as of yet (and as far as I can tell no release date set either). I wonder what this will do to battery life, and well, everything else. Surfing on 3G is acceptable on my phone when I'm stuck in traffic, at home I tend never to use my phone because of the slow connection.

    • It won't do anything because Android isn't a tablet OS; it was always meant for the phone. Chrome OS is what Google will be pushing for netbooks and tablets, though we haven't heard much about what's going on there...

      • i think GP meant, if enough people buy/make android tablets, will there still be a point to launching chromeOS?

        if this thing is succesfull, and other manufacturers pick up on it, ChromeOS might be DOA (hell, google might even kill it off themselves before launch if they think the in-fighting between android and chromeOS isnt worth it)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by I'm Not There (1956) ( 1823304 )
      Do you still remember the term "netbook"? That's a good use for Chrome OS. Though it will be nice if we could see Android and Chrome OS for different tablet devices. After all, "tablet" is going to be meaning something like "computer," and having different OSes for different tablets isn't that bad.

      Also, Google itself have admitted that Android currently isn't the OS for tablets [businessinsider.com]. They say version 3.0 will be their "tablet-friendly" Android. Maybe that's why Motorola says it won't enter tablet market until [wsj.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by yelvington ( 8169 )

      The 3G model includes wifi. It was demonstrated last night at the rollout with a live video call using Qik.

      The wifi-ONLY model is said to be coming, but the date is not revealed, nor is the price. What I wonder about is how it will relate to the 3G model, as advance speculation has been that the carriers will subsidize its price heavily. The wifi-only version could wind up with a list cost significantly higher than the 3G+wifi version.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      I think Google should just kill Chrome OS. Port the web application framework into Android and junk the rest. Chrome OS is never going to fly and it's just sending mixed messages to developers and consumers about Google's intentions. This dithering is already affecting Android - many forthcoming tablet devices won't be able to meet the CTS / CDD compliance tests and therefore won't be able to ship the standard marketplace app. I certainly wouldn't want to buy a tablet unless it did. Maybe Android 3.0 will r

  • ARG (Score:2)

    by iONiUM ( 530420 )

    So I've been following this tablet for a while and I wish they'd post more information. First it was "they're bringing it", and now it's "official", and yet they still don't have any information I want. Exact specs, what the hardware is, price, where are they releasing it (which countries), where will I be able to buy it (is it just from carriers?).

    It's annoying that companies do this. I can see pictures of it, but that doesn't really help me.

    • Collected specifications (Score:5, Informative)

      by yelvington ( 8169 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @08:19AM (#33610078) Homepage

      Exact specs, what the hardware is, price, where are they releasing it (which countries), where will I be able to buy it (is it just from carriers?).

      You can't even find a Galaxy Tab page on Samsung's website -- they link to one, but it's 404.

      However, specs collected from the announcement, press releases and coverage:
      Android 2.2 (Froyo)
      Flash 10.1 (Web video looked good and smooth)
      1Ghz Hummingbird CPU (Samsung, ARM Cortex A8)
      PowerVR SGX 540 video
      512 MB RAM
      Internal storage unclear; some reports say 16 GB or 32GB
      microSD card slot, supporting 32GB additional storage
      7" TFT LCD screen, 1024 x 600 resolution
      Capacitive touchscreen
      Quad-band GSM/EDGE, triple-band HSUPA/HSDPA, voice and data connectivity
      Dual SIM cards (not sure why?)
      802.11 b/g/n wifi
      Bluetooth 3.0
      13 ounces
      7 hour battery life under continuous movie playback
      Front facing 1.3 megapixel camera for video calling
      Back facing 3 megapixel autofocusing camera for HD video and still photography with flash
      HDMI video output port
      USB (will trickle charge, but not rapid charge)
      Proprietary 30-pin connector for charging and connectivity to dock
      3.5 audio jack; internal stereo speakers
      Accelerometer, magnetometer, proximity sensor
      Full external keyboard, optional
      Automotive dash mount for GPS functionality with Google Maps enhanced for the 7-inch display; presumably this suggests it has a GPS chip, although I have not found anything that says so
      Will share media to DLNA devices on the same network; should interop with MythTV and XMBC
      Will be offered by AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile; pricing and dates to be announced by the carriers
      E-reader software (Kindle, PressDisplay, Zinio, etc.)
      Thinkfree Office software
      Media Hub (cloud-based purchase and rental of video and audio programming) with sharing across your compatible Samsung devices

      Interestingly, "legacy" Android apps designed for smaller screens are shown at a correct size, framed rather than stretched. A bunch of apps optimized for the 7-inch display were shown.

  • Now I just need somebody to create an LCARS looking interface for it and I can control my imaginary Galaxy class starship.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 )

      Now I just need somebody to create an LCARS looking interface for it and I can control my imaginary Galaxy class starship.

      Uh... I hope you know that all Galaxy class starships are "imaginary", right?

      Look, I know this is harsh, but they're just not real. Not like the Constitution Class from the Documentary Series.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skogs ( 628589 )

        uses new interface to control MY imaginary galaxy class ship to completely destroy YOUR constitution class ship.

  • I have been poking around with android for a bit now...
    I've been wondering how the UI will scale to different resolutions. The desktop itself looks fine. I have tried "big screen" and "small screen" phones and have it installed on my netbook. All look nice.

    However, scaling an application to different sizes will be odd. You can't just say "I want my window to be 640x480". Well, technically you can (using scrolling layout and absolute positioning) , but it would look even shittier than badly designed normal w

  • What are its dimensions? (Score:5, Funny)

    by nmoog ( 701216 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @07:30AM (#33609640) Homepage Journal
    7" LCD is convenient - but I'd have to know how many sheets-of-glass thick it is before I'd consider buying one.

  • Price (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Andy Smith ( 55346 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @07:33AM (#33609666)

    UK retailers are already pricing this thing at £600+ which gives Apple a nice big helping hand to maintain market dominance. No way people are going to pay nearly double the price of an iPad for a tablet that isn't as good. And I say that as an Android fanboi who can't stand Apple.

    • It's not nearly double - the cheapest UK price [apple.com] for an iPad is 429 for the wi-fi only and 529 for the 3G version. Since Samsung are releasing their 3G version first, the price difference is really about 70 pounds as far as I can tell.
    • Samsung simply don't get it, do they? Unlike Hyundai/Kia, another Korean corp which really does get it, big time.

      I know that the screen is very expensive, and that the technology is impressive (much more so than the iPad, given it fits just as much in a smaller space.) But if Samsung want to get big market share, they absolutely have to get it into the hands of developers, and this means initially selling it as a loss leader. My view is that, like Nokia with the N900, the marketing drones are unhappy about

  • memory: ram or storage? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Vectormatic ( 1759674 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @07:37AM (#33609708)

    minor off topic nitpick, but it pisses me off when people use "memory" ambigously meaning either storage or RAM

    in this case i can sort of deduce that this thing has 16gb of storage, but how much working RAM does it have? not entirely unimportant for a computing device, especially when you get into tablet territory (the ipad/iphone already suck at multitasking, or hell, even multi-tab browsing because of low memory)

    • minor off topic nitpick, but it pisses me off when people use "memory" ambigously meaning either storage or RAM

      Ditto. Although nowadays, when talking about SSDs, it's just confusing rather than incorrect.

    • oldthinker unbellyfeel iSpecs!

      Yes, it's merely annoying from someone who isn't tech literate... but it's inexcusable coming from an IT publication. Even if they're just parroting a press release, surely an editor who knew the difference between storage and memory would have spotted it? Maybe IT World and /. use the same recruitment agency...

  • Samsung Galaxy S (Score:4, Interesting)

    by chrb ( 1083577 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @07:45AM (#33609812)

    So what's going on with the Galaxy S? Reports on the web are that the actual GPS hardware does not work, and the "fix" is to use wifi/celltower geolocation. How could this issue have made it past testing and 1 million unit sales before it was noticed?

    On the plus side, the Galaxy S appears to be completely open source. The source code release from Samsung appears to include drivers for all hardware, including the PowerVR GPU.

  • Such an Odd Product (Score:3, Insightful)

    by whisper_jeff ( 680366 ) on Friday September 17, 2010 @07:46AM (#33609834)
    Too small to compete with an iPad, too big to compete with the iPhone. And, let's be honest - they're trying to compete with Apple's offerings here. I just don't get their vision of this product. Seriously. It's too big to casually put in your pocket and carry around easily and it's too small to be a "put in your bag" computing device when there are other options with bigger screens available. It might do well - time will tell - but I suspect the screen size puts it in an awkward position that very few customers want.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Superken7 ( 893292 )

      Why? The iPad fails precisely at size and weight. I think a 7'' or 8'' tablet could be much more usable.

      If you have ever used an ipad you'll know what I mean: Its impossible to type with both hands while holding it in a natural position, as you would with a phone. You'll have to either put it on a flat surface (which doesn't make much sense because a laptop would be a far better option) or you can hold it in one hand/arm and type with your other hand. And unless you are holding it in your arm or on your leg

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        I suppose they might sell some to people who don't want to have a phone AND a tablet, and don't mind walking around with a giant phone.

        For everyone else, if you want to type standing up you use your phone. If you want a bigger screen you use your tablet.

      • Its impossible to type with both hands while holding it in a natural position, as you would with a phone.

        Yeah. And a phone is impossible to type with both hands while holding it in a natural position, as you would a tablet.

        Oh. Wait. A tablet is not a phone and a phone is not a tablet so why would you hold one as if it were the other?

        I own an iPad. And an iPhone. I hold them differently because they are different devices. Attempting to judge one as if it was the other is foolish. They are not the same thing.

        The point I was making about the Samsung Galaxy is it appears to be attempting to be both while f

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MistrBlank ( 1183469 )

        It fails for you, your opinion is not shared with everyone. At it's current size, I'm quite happy with the iPad, anything smaller and I would have been wondering why I didn't just wait for the iPhone4 or latest iPod touch. I don't have the weight issue you describe, maybe people having problems are a defect of the user's physique.

        I suspect once we see market recognition of the iPad, the next model will cut out much of the around screen excess real estate and a slightly smaller screen with the same resolu

    • Not to mention shit like a rear facing camera(the front one makes sense for video conferencing and whatnot). It's all the power of a cellphone camera thats bigger than most commercial SLRs(at least in terms of area)! It's the worst of both worlds! And of course, adds cost to the device. I really don't think Samsung knew where they were going with this one and used the old, "lets throw every hardware feature on this thing under the sun to beat Apple!" approach which has been tried many times before, and
    • There are already a few 7" tablets out there. The SmartQ R7 [smartdevices.com.cn] is the same size, and boots Ubuntu, Wince, or Android, but it has an older processor and lower other specs. They do compare favourably on price though - about £100, which puts them in the 'quite annoyed if I lose or break it' category (the cheapest iPad is about four times the price). I'm more tempted by their 5" version though - it's small enough to fit in a coat pocket, but powerful enough to be useful.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bm_luethke ( 253362 )

      for the same reason Apple is working on a 7" one (at least according to rumor sources that have historically been very accurate) - for many people the 10" is too big (I happen to be one of them).

      It's too big to easily carry around in an airport - I'm never going to find a coat, cargo pants, or even most small carry bags that it will slip into (one may find a bag for it, but if so then nothing else is going into it unless you get a fairly large bag). It's bigger than what I want to sit by me at the house jus

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by samkass ( 174571 )

      No one seems to be able to explain why the upcoming Android tablets will be better than an iPad without using the word "open" or listing hardware technical specifications. That's kind of a sure sign of mass-market failure, in my book, although I suspect these devices will do well with a sub-set of the population. I kind of see them as SanDisk was to the iPod... always hanging in there in 2nd place for people who read speclists but never breaking out into mass-market adoption.

      My parents don't shop for the

  • Telephony (Score:4, Informative)

    by zoward ( 188110 ) <email.me.at.zoward.at.gmail.com> on Friday September 17, 2010 @08:25AM (#33610146) Homepage

    According to Engadget they removed the telephony app from the US version of this (it's still in the European version):

    http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/16/samsung-galaxy-tab-loses-voice-capabilities-in-the-us/ [engadget.com]

    That's pretty much a dealkiller for me, and gives Samsung an uphill climb if they expect to compete with the iPad, which has a good low end price, an OS designed for a tablet, and an established ecosystem.

  • It boggles my mind that no company can figure out how to make a good Android tablet. Even if you just copied the specs of the iPad line-by-line, including the price, you'd be ahead of every company so far. I'm not sure who the target market is for the Dell Streak -- that has massive failure written all over it. And now the Galaxy S, while better, still has major shortcomings such as cost, lack of a WiFi-only model, and did I mention cost? The only conclusion is that Apple is majorly subisidizing the cos

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 )
      Because even Google admits that the latest Android (Froyo 2.2) was not really designed for tablets. It was designed for mobile phones. That's why the Dell Streak and the Tab use an older version 1.6.

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