Galaxy Tab to Grow into Portfolio of Tablets
As expected, Samsung's Galaxy S Tab was officially announced at IFA 2010 in Berlin at its press event, but surprised the crowd with news on the next Android operating system version and its aim to follow up the Tab with an entire series of tablets.
In the follow-up question and answer session, Samsung confirmed that Honeycomb is indeed the name for the next version of Google's Android operating system, the system of choice for Samsung's future tablets .
"Next year, you will see a variety of different tablets from our company" JK Shin, president for Samsung mobile division, said. "There will be a Honeycomb tablet device. There will be an entire tablet device portfolio."
Samsung execs declined to reveal prices, saying the company's policy is to leave pricing up to the carriers.
"Our business model is to go through global telephone operators," DJ Lee, senior vice president for Samsung Mobile sales and marketing, said. "The final price setting, including the rate plan, will be finalized by the rate plan operators. We cannot give an exact number. We are working to keep a very attractive and competitive price to offer the end user." While Lee declined to mention carriers by name, he referred to Samsung's preference for "large carriers," which adds credence to the rumor the Tab will debut at Verizon Wireless in the U.S.
Confirmed specs for Samsung Galaxy S Tab
1,024x600 Wide Super VGA (WSVGA) resolution
Integrated sensors: gyroscope, accelerometer, light sensor, and geomagnetic sensor
Android 2.2 Froyo including complete Google apps Market, Flash 10.1, GPS (Preparations underway to make the device upgradable to Android 3.0, aka Gingerbread.)
Available with 16GB or 32GB of memory
ARM Cortex A8 1GHz applications processor
PowerVR SGX540 graphics processor
3.2 megapixel camera on the back with auto-focus and LED flash
Records video up to 720x480
1.3 megapixel video chat-compatible camera on the front
Battery life is rated at 7 hours of continuous video playback
Wi-Fi up to 802.11n,
2.5G (GSM/GPRS/EDGE)
3G (HSUPA 5.76Mbps, HSDPA 7.2Mbps)
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