Samsung Galaxy Tab Official Announcement, Specs Confirmed
Samsung doesn't actually have much left to reveal about its Galaxy Tab after all the rumors and leaks, but the company officially unveiled the Android tablet today anyway.
"Samsung recognizes the tremendous growth potential in this newly created market and we believe that the Samsung Galaxy Tab brings a unique and open proposition to market. There is a new and emerging consumer demand that Samsung can satisfy since mobile is in our DNA," said JK Shin, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics, in a statement released by the company.
"The Samsung Galaxy Tab has been designed to enable consumers to maximize their online experience wherever that may be. Samsung believes this is only the beginning of its innovations as pioneers in smart media devices."
The announcement confirms the specs that have been leaked several times now: 7-inch touchscreen (1024 x 600 pixel resolution), Cortex A8 1GHz processor, an embedded graphics processor and 512MB of RAM. There is a rear-facing camera, 3 megapixels, and a front-facing camera, 1.3 megapixels. Also included: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G connectivity (optional).
The Samsung Galaxy Tab comes with 16GB or 32GB storage capacity, but both models have an SD card slot for memory expansion.
While the Galaxy Tab runs Android 2.2, Samsung has put its TouchWiz interface over the top of it. TouchWiz isn't very critically acclaimed on phones, so it's not likely to be much better on tablets. Samsung has divided the interface into a series of "hubs," which are based on interests of the user. There is the Readers Hub, Media Hub , Music Hub and Social Hub, with the accompanying apps for reading ebooks, listening to music and accessing social networks.
This Android tablet will have access to the 70,000+ Android apps in the Android Market, but much like Toshiba's tablet, Samsung wants to emphasize its own line of apps in the dedicated Samsung Apps marketplace. The Galaxy Tab will go on sale in Europe in the middle of this month, and in the U.S. later this year.
