More Tablets Arriving From T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 10/10/2011

New York - New tablets are arriving for the fourth-quarter selling season from T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular.

The Huawei-made T-Mobile SpringBoard features 4G HSPA+ operation in U.S. and foreign networks.

T-Mobile's latest two tablets - the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Huawei-made 7-inch T-Mobile SpringBoard with Google - will bring the carrier's selection of tablets with both Android Honeycomb OS and 14.4Mbps HSPA+ 4G cellular technology to three. They'll join the LG-made 4G-equipped 8.9-inch T-Mobile G Slate with Google and replace two Android tablets that did not use the tablet-optimized Honeycomb version of Android. Those two tablets are the 3G-equipped 7-inch Galaxy Tab and 4G-equipped 7-inch Dell Streak with 4G, which had been priced at $199 and $99, respectively, on the carrier's website before they went out of stock.

With the T-Mobile launches, the carrier will offer a 4G tablet in each of three sizes: 7, 8.9 and 10.1 inches. Only the G Slate, however, offers 3D video capture and display.

The new T-Mobile models will be available in time for holiday sales at prices that weren't announced.

For its part, U.S. Cellular expanded its tablet selection, and in another tablet launch, Motorola Solutions unveiled an Android tablet intended for vertical markets, joining a tablet from Motorola Mobility for consumer and enterprise users.

At T-Mobile, the two new 4G Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) tablets include the Huawei-made 7-inch SpringBoard, intended to be one of the carrier's most affordable tablets. The other tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, is the subject of an Apple lawsuit alleging that Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones and Galaxy Tabs knock off the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad.

Compared to the current 32GB G Slate, the two new T-Mobile tablets add a mobile hot spot, tethering to a laptop, T-Mobile TV streaming service, mobile Wi-Fi hot spot and HSPA+ operation in more bands. The current G Slate operates in 4G HSPA+ mode in the T-Mobile 1.7/2.1GHz AWS band and in the foreign 2.1GHz band, while the SpringBoard adds HSPA+ operation in the U.S. 1,900MHz band, and the Tab 10.1 adds HSPA+ capability in the U.S. 850MHz and 1,900MHz bands.

The SpringBoard features Qualcomm 1.2GHz dual-core mobile processor, 16GB of built-in memory, SD card slot accommodating up to 32GB of expandable memory, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with 720p video capture, HDMI output, 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, Blockbuster on Demand, Netflix, and T-Mobile TV service. Other applications and services include Blio eReader, MobileLife Family Organizer powered by Cozi, Slacker Radio and TeleNav GPS Navigator, a navigation and local-search application that provides turn-by-turn voice and on-screen driving directions.

The SpringBoard also features 217-ppi display, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, and stereo Bluetooth 2.1, according to the carrier's website and spec sheets provided to TWICE.

T-Mobile hasn't said whether it would offer the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, the successor to the original 7-inch tab that T-Mobile had offered. Compared with the original 7-inch Tab, the new Tab 7.0 Plus steps up processing power to a dual-core 1.2GHz processor from a single-core 1GHz processor, and it adds Honeycomb 3.2 tablet OS in lieu of the Android 2.2 (Froyo) smartphone OS.

T-Mobile, however, is adding the 16GB version of Samsung's 4G-capable Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is already available in 16GB and 32GB 4G LTE versions from Verizon. It's thinner than the iPad 2 at 0.33 inches.

Other features of T-Mobile's Galaxy Tab 10.1 include dual-core 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, 3-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front camera, stereo Bluetooth 3.0, 1080p video capture, Samsung's Media Hub for downloaded movies and TV shows for rent or purchase.

At U.S. Cellular, the carrier added to its tablet selection with the 7-inch HTC Flyer, which operates on slower CDMA 1x EV-DO cellular-data technology and uses the Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread) operating system.

It retails for $399.99 (after a $100 mail-in rebate in carrier stores) with purchase of a 5GB data plan. The price goes to $599.99 after $100 mail-in rebate and purchase of a 200MB data plan.

The Flyer features 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor, 32 GB of internal memory, microSD card slot supporting 32GB cards, 5- megapixel rear-facing camera, 1.3-megapixel front camera, and optional HTC Scribe pen to highlight text, make notes, and sign documents on the screen.

The U.S. Cellular Flyer also features Amazon storefront app to shop Amazon.com for Kindle e-books. HTC Watch service enables downloads of movies and TV shows.