Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

Big Four Carriers To Get Samsung’s Galaxy Tab

New York – Samsung will launch
its Galaxy Tab mobile tablet through the four largest U.S. wireless carriers in
the next few weeks as part of a bid to become “a major player” in a market
expected to grow 45 percent annually in the U.S. during the next five years, said
Samsung Telecommunications America president Dale Sohn.

During a press conference here
Thursday evening Samsung also announced the immediate availability of its movie
and TV-show download service optimized for the Tab and the company’s Galaxy S
smartphones. The service, called the Samsung Media Hub, features new movie
releases and library titles for purchase and rent as well as TV shows for
purchase, including episodes that air the previous day, said Gavin Kim, content,
services and enterprise mobility VP. The content can be downloaded via Wi-Fi over
the 3G-equippped Tabs, he said.

Content is available from MTV
Networks, NBC, Paramount, Universal Studios and Warner, with more studios to
come, Kim said.

Content will be viewable as it
downloads, and purchased content will be viewable on up to five Galaxy devices
registered to the same account, Kim said.

As for the Galaxy Tab, the
company said a Wi-Fi only version is due “in the near future” to join the 3G/Wi-Fi
versions to come through AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint. Pricing
wasn’t announced for the carrier versions, which double as cellphones for voice
calling through a built-in speakerphone function and via a Bluetooth headset.
There is no hard dialing keypad or hard QWERTY keyboard.

All versions feature wide 7-inch WSVGA
1,024 by 600-pixel enhanced-TFT multitouch display, 1GHz processor, video chat, and the latest
Android 2.2 OS, which enables viewing of Web video and Web-based games in the
Flash 10.1 format.

All will “set the standard for
the mobile tablet market,” said chief strategy officer Omar Khan, without mentioning
Apple’s iPad by name. He called the Tab “one of the most heavily researched
products in our history.” The extensive consumer research yielded a compact size
that allows for one-handed operation, two-thumb typing on a virtual keyboard in
landscape mode, and ability to fit inside a sport-jacket pocket and the back
pocket of jeans, given its 7-inch screen size and thickness of 0.47 inches.

At 13 ounces, Khan continued, the
Tab is half the weight of “portable 10-inch tablets.” It also delivers long
battery life through a 4,000mAh battery that delivers seven hours of continuous
video playback.

Other features include built-in
GPS to support such Google services as Google Maps Navigation turn-by-turn
driving instructions with traffic updates. Samsung, in fact, sees the device
doubling as a portable navigation device (PND) in the car and launched a $99.99
docking station that mounts to a windshield or car dashboard and rotates freely
between landscape and portrait modes.

The Tab will come preloaded with
native applications developed by Samsung for such functions as media playback,
email and calendar, but Google Mobile services, including turn-by-turn
navigation, will also be available.  In
addition, the device will download apps from the Android Marketplace, and
although those apps were written mainly for small-screen smartphones, many will
open in full screen, the company said. Non-scalable Android applications will
be framed and centered on the Galaxy Tab screen.

The device will also feature a
Document Viewer & Editor app to open and make changes to any Word, Excel,
Powerpoint or PDF document.

The device will be equipped with
the Samsung Readers Hub, which taps into the Kobo, PressDisplay and Zinio
download sites to access books, magazines and newspapers via Wi-Fi and
cellular.

Other
features include HD video playback and Wi-Fi 802.11n for sharing content
wirelessly with DLNA-certified TVs and PCs.It provides mobile hot spot capability for up to five Wi-Fi devices.

 A back-facing 3-megapixel camera with flash
captures DVD-quality video, said Khan. A front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera is
available for videochats.

 Besides the car dock, Samsung will also make a
$49.99 desktop dock that uses the MicroUSB wall adapter that comes with the
Tab. The dock also lets users view movies and digital pictures as well as
listen to music through connected speakers. The dock’s HDMI output lets users
view stored HD content on connected HDTVs enabled with 1080p resolution.

A $99.99 keyboard dock comes with
full-size keyboard and doubles as a charger. It comes with stereo audio output
jack for connecting a stereo system.

Featured

Close