Samsung UNPACKs a Big, but Small Tablet
Unveiling it today at the CTIA today, Samsung showed the world their newest Tablet to enter the foray of the ever growing list of Honeycomb flavoured goodness.
What will separate this tablet from the rest of the pack is that it will contain not only the first ‘customized’ UI [TouchWiz UX] but will be the thinnest (8.6mm – compare that to Xoom which is 12.9mm and the iPad 2 at 8.8mm).
Unfortunately I was working on a project at work during their unveiling so I didn’t quite catch what the enhancements were that TouchWiz will bring to the Honeycomb, but it’s a nice start to seeing how versatile Android will make the tablet market.
For a full list of details and specifications check out: http://www.samsungmobilepress.com/press/view.asp?SEQ=36
My hopes that there will be a WiFi only version of these tablets – as I’m not sure they are worth not only shelling out the $600 and up prices for them and then on top of it bleed some more money to a wireless provider that I already pay for data services. I thought that was the point of being able to use the Android 2.2 feature of tethering for devices. That’s what I’d plan on doing. However, Rogers did recently announce their ‘pay per device’ (http://redboard.rogers.com/2024/rogers-data-share-plans-makes-it-easy-to-share-data-across-multiple-devices/).
UPDATE – there’s a wifi only version with pricing:
- Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi-only 16GB: $499, available June 8th
- Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi-only 32GB: $599, available June 8th
- Galaxy Tab 8.9 WiFi-only 16GB: $469, available “early summer”
- Galaxy Tab 8.9 WiFi-only 32GB: $569, available “early summer”
Still, I can’t wait until these devices start making their ways into stores. I know with the selection out there I won’t be willing to party ways with my money until I can get one hands-on.
