Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in News | 5 Comments

Galaxy Tab 10.1 Redesign

Remember how Samsung seemed to freak like a teenager when the iPad 2 was announced because it was so thin? Well they got their act together fast and redesigned the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in what seems like no time. They managed to shave over 2 mm off bringing it down to the exact same size as the Galaxy Tab 8.9 at 8.6 mm thin.

The only tradeoff from the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a lower resolution rear facing camera. What was originally supposed to be 8 MP is down to 3 MP. With that video recording capabilities have decreased from 1080p at 24 fps to 720p at 30 fps.

Also, it will no longer run stock Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Do not be alarmed though because it does not appear to be as deeply integrated as past installations of TouchWiz have been in the past. Instead TouchWiz UX just adds custom widgets, live view panels, and a few other useful features while still giving it the look and feel of stock Honeycomb.

Samsung also announced an official price for the Wi-Fi version of the 10.1. The 16 GB version will be $499 and the 32 GB will be $599, which by no coincidence match the iPad’s price points. The only downfall of this new design is that it will be coming out June 8th instead of this month.

What do you think of the new design of the 10.1?

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in Featured, News | 0 Comments

Galaxy Tab 8.9 Officially Announced

You should not be surprised that Samsung announced the 8.9 inch Tab today if you have been reading our recent posts. The specs are outstanding, especially the dimensions. It is only 8.6 mm thin! Take that Apple with your fat 8.8 mm iPad. Samsung also claims that it will fit into a standard coat pocket, which is pretty interesting.

The sleek 8.9 inch tablet has a 6,000 mAh battery that powers the undisclosed 1 GHz dual-core processor. Its cameras are much more feasible than the 8 MP one found on the back of the original Galaxy Tab 10.1. Now it has a 3 megapixel rear camera with aufo focus and led flash and a two megapixel shooter up front.

Since they did not specifically say that the processor will be NVIDIA Tegra 2, I hypothesize that it is not. Hopefully it is a very similar chip to the one the iPad has, just like the Hummingbird processor/gpu in the original Galaxy Tab was very similar to the A4 chip in the original iPad. Benchmarks have proven that the A5 chip is at least twice, but up to five times, as fast as what NVIDIA has to offer.

The 8.9 will have a customized version of Honeycomb dubbed TouchWiz UX. It is not as deeply integrated as TouchWiz is on the original Galaxy Tab, which I like. It still looks like a clean Android 3.0 experience with some added widgets and features.

Finally price and availability. Samsung once again undercut Apple by making the 16 GB Wi-Fi version of the 8.9 $469. The 32 GB version will cost you only $100 more. Personally I think that 16 GB is enough, especially with a built in microSD slot. It will be available early this summer.

What do you think about the new Galaxy Tab 8.9?