Galaxy Tab 10.1 is up and Running on Camera with Stock Honeycomb – Video

Samsung surprised everybody at CTIA last month when they announced the slimmed down version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Everybody was excited to test them out at Samsung’s booth after the announcement, but the new 10.1 and 8.9 models were only mockups that could not turn on. Today Tinhte.vn got their hands on a working Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The video is under five minutes and half of it consists of a hardware tour. It is exciting to finally see Honeycomb up and running on this gorgeous piece of hardware though. What is even more exciting is that there is no sign of lag, as we have seen before.

Check out the video below. FYI, it is in Vietnamese.

Source – Engadget

Mar 29, 2011

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in News | 0 Comments

Samsung Hires Actors for Samsung Mobile Unpacked Episode at CTIA?

Last week at CTIA when Samsung announced the new Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 8.9, Samsung had a video testimony of three people about what they thought about the Galaxy Tab. One used the original 7 inch, the next a 10.1 Tab, and finally the last used the brand new 8.9. All of them had nothing but good things to say about the tablets, which is not that surprising, but how they conveyed the message seemed phony.

Blogger, Harry McCracken, did a little research on the real people giving these testimonies:

I was curious to learn more about them. So I Googled around and couldn’t find any references to a travel-writing Joan Hess (one with, as she said, a following on Twitter) or a real-estate CEO Joseph Kolinski.

I did notice, however, that freelance travel writer Joan Hess bears a striking resemblance to New York actress Joan Hess:

And that real estate CEO Joseph Kolinski could be New York actor Joseph Kolinksi’s twin brother:

Filmmaker Karl Shefelman, on the other hand, looks a lot like… filmmaker Karl Shefelman. Who works for a New York production company. One that’s done work for Samsung.

So it looks like Samsung did hire actors and give them a script instead of actually getting candid remarks of the Tabs. Not too big of a deal in my opinion though.

Do you care that Samsung hired actors and portrayed them as real people endorsing the product?

Source – Tech Dirt

Mar 28, 2011

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in News | 0 Comments

Original Galaxy Tab 10.1 is still coming, called Galaxy Tab 10.1V

Galaxy Tab 10.1V(odafone)

When Samsung announced the first Galaxy Tab 10.1 back at MWC, a lot of us fell in love with the design and specs of the slate. Last week at CTIA, Samsung announced a refresh of the design of the 10.1 before the original was even released! Do not fear though, because the original will still see the light of day.

It has been renamed Galaxy Tab 10.1V. The V in the name stands for Vodafone. They were very proud of the fact that they would be the first to have the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and now they are going to have the exclusive rights to the Galaxy Tab 10.1V. So if you live in the UK (and possibly other areas) you will be able to get the Galaxy Tab 10.1V without having to import it.

Everybody else in the world will have to go through the trouble have importing it or buying it from an auction on eBay. The price will skyrocket and you will feel sad. That is why I am sticking with the newer version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Also United Kingdom residents, it is unknown if Samsung plans to release the newer model or just the original. My guess is that they will sell the newer one once they run out of the 10.1V’s stock.

Which of they two 10.1 inch Tabs do you prefer?

Mar 23, 2011

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in News | 5 Comments

Explanation and Examination of TouchWiz UX aka TouchWiz 4.0

TouchWiz UX was announced yesterday at CTIA with the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and redesigned Galaxy Tab 10.1. I know a lot of you are worried about how this will affect you and your decision to buy the second generation models of the Galaxy Tab. Well let’s dive right in!

In the past, Samsung has completely reskinned and reprogrammed how Android looks and works. That is not the case this time. The features do not dampen the already beautiful Android 3.0 Honeycomb experience.

Samsung’s first modification is called Live Panel. These panels are dynamic widgets that live on your homescreens. They allow you to further customize your homescreens and are constantly updated to give you the information you need. They include calendar, stocks, contacts, and more. An added bonus is that they can be resized with a simple longpress, just as you would in launchers such as Launcher Pro.

The next feature of the customized software is dubbed Mini Apps Tray. It puts simple functions in a tray on the bottom of the screen that appears in just a tap. You can open up the desired Mini App and it will pop up in a window that appears on top of the current app you are in. It can be moved around so that you can see the information in the app and use the simple function of the mini app at the same time. At first I thought this was pointless, but it has grown on me.

After extensive research and polling of tablet users and people in the market for one, Samsung found that the most common features desired were social features. So they included a Social Hub into the new TouchWiz UX. There are two tabs inside of te Social Hub application – Messages and Feeds. The messages tab is a unified inbox with all of your emails, instant messages, and social networking messages. The feed tab on the other hand delivers all of your social media status updates.

Reading and tablets almost go hand in hand. Even though I am not normally a book reader, it has been hard to keep away from reading ebooks on my original Galaxy Tab. Samsung realizes this and includes a Readers Hub built into the new tablets. The hub contains around 2 million books, 2 thousand newspapers in 49 languages, and 2.3 thousand magazines in 22 languages.

Entertainment is another key feature for tablet users, so a Music Hub and Media Hub were added. The Media Hub is only available in the United States, but the Music Hub is globally. You can download all your favorite music on the go with it. The Media Hub allows you to watch day-after-air tv shows and recently released movies.

Lastly, Samsung made many graphical changes. The preinstalled application icons are skinned as well as many of the applications themselves, which gives it a classic TouchWiz look. Other than that there are only minor changes, like different icons for the home, back, and application switcher. All of the other elements of stock Android shine through though and you will still get a very similar experience to stock, even if you do not wish to use some of the TouchWiz features.

What do you think of TouchWiz UX?

Mar 21, 2011

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in News | 2 Comments

Galaxy Tab 8.9 Info Leaked

Tomorrow Samsung is holding a big announcement at CTIA for their 8.9 inch slate, that they have not been so coy about. Pocket Now managed to get their hands on some photos of some of the specs and features of it.

This is not just a Galaxy Tab 10.1 in a slightly smaller fashion. Samsung has implemented a custom user interface to go on top of Android 3.0 Honeycomb. This is the first customization I have seen of the latest version of Android. All of the other tablets announced seem to have stock, which is very good too. Of course the new UI will have a slew of custom widgets and personalization.

It will have the same 1280 x 800 resolution as on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 on an 8.9 inch screen, which will increase the pixel density. If you do not know what that means, think of the Apple iPhone’s Retina display. The latest Tab will also feature a dual-core 1 GHz CPU, which is more than likely the NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor.

Not surprisingly the 8.9 inch Tab will have a very thin design. People thought that the iPad 2′s 8.8 mm thick tablet was thin and Samsung one up’d them! Coming in at 8.6 mm, it will surely look very sleek.