The iPad pretty much has the tablet market all to itself at this point, since no serious competitor has yet been released. We’ve been teased to death with the first real competitor, a device from Samsung called the Galaxy Tab. It has been officially unveiled today, and it indeed looks like the first serious competition to the iPad. It runs Android, naturally.
Samsung is taking a different approach to the tablet concept than Apple. Due to its size and weight, it’s not particularly practical to use the iPad while literally on the go (you’ll have to sit down or whatever). The Tab is much lighter (only 380g) and smaller than the iPad, making it more portable.
It has a 7″ 1024~A—600 display, making it considerably smaller than the iPad. For the rest, the device is pretty much a scaled-up Galaxy S, with the same hardware innards; a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and a PowerVR GPU core. It has all the usual connectivity options (including 3G), and comes with both front and rear-facing cameras for video chat. It has an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer, and will be available as either a 16GB or 32GB version, expandable via an MicroSD slot.
As for software, it runs Android 2.2 with Samsung’s TouchWiz modifications, as well as a number of tablet-oriented applications, such as e-reader hubs and an improved music player. It also includes Flash 10.1, can do HD movies, and its battery can power 7 hours of movie watching. It has all the standard Google applications as well as access to the Android Market; early tests how applications scale quite well, with little to no problems.
“On the third party front, Samsung says that apps which were developed within Google’s UI guidelines should scale up correctly, but others might need to be reworked,” Engadget notes, “We’ll have to see for ourselves how well Joe the Plumber’s apps handle the new resolution, but we don’t have much reason to fear it so far – the few apps we saw that looked to be scaled up instead of 1024 x 600-specific looked and worked just fine.”
No official release date yet, but everything points to a release in the coming weeks rather than months. No information on pricing yet, either. While I’m personally still not sure tablets are really useful, this thing does appeal more to me than the iPad; I found Apple’s slice of magic to be very heavy and uncomfortable, and the UI remarkably arbitrary and tiring (the large screen means moving your hands around like crazy). The Tab’s smaller size should appeal to people with similar concerns.
I came across this guy’s rant in a slashdot comment that came out when Apple announced new iWhatevers.
http://pineight.com/mw/?title=Android_pod_touch
For price… I’m sure it’ll be over $300.
I skimmed the article (ctrl-f) and couldn’t find any mention of android market; probably won’t have it.
Is this because Market / gmail / youtube / maps is only for Google blessed devices? Has Google blessed any android device yet that is not a phone?
Oh well… at least this one isn’t stuck on a 1.X release.
idg sweden writes that samsung galaxy tab is going to cost 9000 SEK (1,242.45 USD) in sweden
tax on hardware is 25% in sweden.
Edited 2010-09-02 22:19 UTC
Ooops. Three times my 3000 kr netbook…
“…By virtue of running Android 2.2, it also includes all the Google apps like Navigation and Latitude, and can access software from the Android Marketplace.”
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/09/samsung-announces-galax…
it has the android market
As a new iPad owner, the purchase glow still hasn’t worn off for me, but I find mine quite useful. I use it at work and at home all the time, I ride the bus too and from work, so I use it then, too. The onscreen keyboard has taken about a week to get used to, and as a hundred word per minute touch typist, it does feel a little slow to me, but that’ll probably come with more practice. It’s certainly not meant to replace a full time computing device like a notebook or a desktop, but it’s still pretty cool.
I tend to agree. I don’t have one (yet) but I’ve used one a few times and I just think that the iPads appeal on convenience mostly.
I treat it a bit like a Mercedes netbook.
“I treat it a bit like a Mercedes netbook.”
you treat it like you just paid 20% for the car and 80% for the brand name? actually, given it’s (iPad) manufacturer, that’s about accurate.
So, are you saying that the iPad should be sold for $100??
Maybe $50 is appropriate, because it’s assembled on China by children.
I am very excited about this. While I love Android and I really can’t wait to see the HP WebOS tablet. (HP WebOS tablet, please don’t be vaporware)
this is not a AAA android tablet. the triple-a tablet(s) are the ones partnered with google for the android 3.0 release.
android 2.2 and earlier for these tablets is just a hack job. they’re working on their own.
The second generation Tab will be, but not this one. Samsung’s next tab will launch with 3.0.
I don’t know about that. I’m talking about the android 3.0 tablet(s) coming out this year.
The ipad seems a bit bulky to me, this looks like a better size.
I’d rather see the MeeGo interface though since it doesn’t look like a knock-off.
But whatever if they price it right it could definitely move some volume.
For me the big thing is weighing up getting this or a Kindle once it is made available internationally – I hope that we’ll see this made available internationally instead of the usual rip off programme by so many vendors where they refuse to sell to small countries like New Zealand
It seems the upcoming German MeeGo tablet “WeTab” is outselling iPad in preorders (in amazon.de):
http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/wetab-pre-orders-outpace-ipad-…
http://liliputing.com/2010/09/neofonie-wetab-now-runs-meego-linux.h…
Ze Germans will often go their own way when it comes to tech.
They had a majority Firefox share years before the EU declared that IE dominates because it is bundled with Windows. Ze Germans were buying Windows just as much as their neighbors which made this explanation sorely lacking.
Can someone explain how “Full HD video playback” can be achieved on a 1024×600 display?
If it can’t display 720P I wouldn’t call it HD video playback. There should be a lawsuit.
The resolution isn’t there.
With this logic someone could sell any tv as a HD tv because the cable box will downsample the HD signal.
Looks like it’s capable of displaying HD to an external display.
For all the complaints about apple there are a few things that they have got right. The biggest in my view is their strength against the carriers… what do you I mean? The answer is simple. On all the apple wireless products there is no bloatware, no carrier cruft, they don’t hold back updates waiting for some monkey to check that the bloatware works at a satisfactory level.. When I look over the fence at ALL of the competing mobile platforms they are all suffering from the same poor reputation with users for the simple fact that the carriers and handset manufacturers are contaminating the experience with either bad software that they install, holding back the software updates required to fix stuff… the list goes on and on and on.. Now we have the Galaxy tab and all I can see it offering is a bigger screen to install more bloatware… The carriers are going to love it.. 300 pieces of bloatware running on the same screen at the same time… intead of the usual 50 pieces. AWESOME!!!
Common Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Nokia.. Get a grip users don’t want the carrier to install software, hold back updates until it suits them.. we are not talking about phones here.. we are talking about SMART Phones.. they are more PC than phone.. </end rant>
Because we all know that PC OEMs provide users with clean vanilla OSs on their *tops, instead of a system packed with and bogged down by all kinds of bloat/spy/adware, right?
Well, I’d rather see this problem being solved by people buying handsets from the manufacturer or from carrier-agnostic stores, instead of buying “carrier-blessed” phones.
The advantages are many and obvious :
-No more bloatware
-Updates for everyone
-People have a better understanding of how much each device costs
-Carriers can’t use “but we reimburse the handset” as an excuse for forcing people to stay 1-2 years with them
-Carriers can’t use it as an excuse for their pricing either
Edited 2010-09-06 08:29 UTC
I completely lost any interest in this product as soon as I found that there’s no USB connection and it uses a proprietary dock…
So, no way I would buy or recommend it to anyone.