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Samsung Shows Off Galaxy Tab, Android Allegiance
cgriffin21 writes "Samsung is making no bones about it: Google Android is its future. And with the revealing of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the company is showing that it's all in when it comes to Android. At the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Samsung finally pulled the curtain off the long-rumored and teased Galaxy Tab, the electronics maker's touch-screen tablet and answer to the Apple iPad."
29 cookies, really CRN.COM, is that completely required?
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The Galaxy looks pretty sweet...but I'm excited about the plethora of tablets that will be hitting the market soon. Having choice is a good thing, and it will be nice to not have choice limited to a locked-down "appliance".
Living With a Nerd
Linky.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Why bother? They link to a guardian article from whence all the real information comes anyway. No pricing, no hardware specs, really no useful information beyond a commitment to Android.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No, seriously, I mean it. I don't want to be locked in, in some app-shop.
Should it run Ubuntu's Maverick, I'll go for one, sure.
Should it be a locked-up version, I'll skip it.
Maybe we should try a poll, so that Samsung can still liberate the hardware?
Take a look at the images here and tell me that's not some kind of proprietary, non-standard connector.
The most notes I could find on it were:
"Connectivity
30 pin connector"
What the fsck, Samsung? Why couldn't you just have used the industry standard microUSB plug?
Ugghhh...
coding is life
I'm disgusted with Samsung Android support having been on the phone with them three times today! I have a Samsung Galaxy S Android phone, it's pretty new having been released in July, but it has Android 2.1 on it. My company runs exchange on non-standard TCP ports, so I need to be able to specify the port when connecting exchange. This is not possible in Android 2.1. There is a public patch for 2.2 to allow this - but Samsung have not released 2.2 for their phone. While web rumours say "September" - none of their support team were able to tell me when, or make a beta or any sort of patch which would solve the base problem (lack of proper MS Exchange support!) in their product. We are buying 8 new smartphones for new hires - looks like we'll have to use iPhones (which we recently moved away from because of battery issues). Samsung can't even move their leading smartphone to the 2.2 platform - god help anyone trying to get support on this pad... JK
which include the first Android device from Samsung, the Galaxy S.
My Samsung Moment and the Intercept would beg to differ. The writer didn't do much research on Samsung's product offerings.
Some Samsung android phones are famous for their closed source addons by Samsung, is this also the case? What level of incompatibility, if any, could we expect from a developer point of view?
After looking over the specs, I was impressed that it offered 1080p. Looking over them a second time, I noticed the screen resolution is only 1024x600. Why claim to support 1080p if you can't display it without scaling it down to a lesser resolution?
A couple of reviews of Flash running on Android 2.2 have come out. I submitted this story awhile ago to the editors but for some reason (anti-Apple bias?) they chose not to run it.
"shockingly bad" http://newteevee.com/2010/08/31/video-flash-on-android-is-startlingly-bad/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+OmMalik+(GigaOM)
"Weak Android player proves Steve Jobs right": http://blog.laptopmag.com/mobile-flash-fail-weak-android-player-proves-jobs-right
From the reviews:
"Adobe needs to have a better answer to whether or not Flash is still relevant in a world where other technologies have rapidly started displacing it. Based on my early experience with Flash Player 10.1 for mobile, it could soon join the floppy drive in the tech graveyard, something else Steve Jobs helped kill."
and
"While in theory Flash video might be a competitive advantage for Android users, in practice it’s difficult to imagine anyone actually trying to watch non-optimized web video on an Android handset, all of which makes one believe that maybe Steve Jobs was right to eschew Flash in lieu of HTML5 on the iPhone and iPad."
So is it better to have a sucky experience or none at all?
Create an open source ebook system and expand the Android marketplace to make it dead simple for authors to skip the middle man and sell directly to Android users.
the price is not, it is 700 Euros which is more expensive than the iPad 9 inch version and it only has seven inches screensize.
I just wonder how many of those Samsung wants to sell here with their pay more get less politics...
That story states that it has a 1024x600 screen, yet 1080p HD video playback. It has no video output port, according to the description.
False advertising or bad fact checking when writing the description?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Exactly what kind of connector do they have plugged into the bottom of that thing? I thought we had gotten past this... my last 3 phones have all had charging and data connectivity of USB. Please don't tell me that a flagship product (other than Apple of course) is going away from industry standards yet again.
This is the first device I have seen where I've gone, wow, this has real business potential.
We can port our Flex (Flash) based applications to this using Air or through the web (with the settings set in the browser to only run plugins on demand). The resolution is also very good.
I'm quite excited by this.
Why claim to support 1080p if you can't display it without scaling it down to a lesser resolution?
Because you already have 1080p videos on your PC or camcorder and don't want to spend a lot of time transcoding them to "retina display" size before putting them on your phone. Or because you can buy an HDMI dock and connect its output to your 1080p LCD HDTV.
To quote from:
http://www.infosyncworld.com/reviews/internet-tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab/11309.html
"In design, its light build provides portability, with its svelte dimensions making it easy to grip and use."
If they can't even design a press release, how do they expect to create a tablet with as much attention to detail as Apple does with the iPad.
Lots of tech specs on the hardware, but probably a big fail on the software environment.
But, I might consider it if it came with wheels so I could 'Skate and Surf".
So is it better to have a sucky experience
That depends. Does Homestar Runner play in HTML5? Does Weebl and Bob? Do the animations on Albino Blacksheep, JibJab, or Newgrounds? These are vector animations, which would be ten times bigger if transcoded to VP8 or H.264. Perhaps we can see more use of HTML5 should Synfig or KToon become more popular, but right now, animators know Adobe Flash.
Obviously the screen isn't magically going to mutate into a 1080p monster when you play back 1080p material, but just being able to watch that material without needing to reencode it first is already a massive bonus.
Remember life before Rockplayer? Even DivX/XviD had to be reencoded so that you could watch it on Android...
Most likely its downscaling, it says Full HD (1080p) Video Player.. so it seems to be technically referring to the software's ability to play 1080p, not the LCD screen. Pretty misleading.
No, it's called bad reading comprehension. It just downscales it to the screen.
All Galaxy S phones so far have DLNA built in. So HD video output is now wireless.
7" is too big. It isn't really portable as in throwing it in your pocket or using a belt clip.
7" is too small. It really won't hold a full page PDF/Comic.
If I was on the go I would prefer pocketable 5" (Dell streak size).
For at home or a transportable (requiring a bag) I would actually prefer 10+ and about 1200x800 resolution for looking full screen at PDFs/Comics.
An attempt to fill both niches meets none of them very well.
I wouldn't mind if they'd said full 720p on a 600-line screen, but it's 1080p. That's almost double the resolution the screen is physically capable of.
That's some serious stat-padding.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
> Samsung is making no bones about it: Google Android is its future
So much the future, that they've gone to the trouble of developing their own mobile platform, Bada: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bada_(operating_system). If that's what a corporation does when Android is their future, I'd be intrigued to know what they do when it isn't!
Galaxy S phones can connect to a TV using an HDMI or composite adapter.
Is it out of the realm of possibility for the tablet to have the same connection options?
"Lame" - Galaxar
What's so difficult to grasp? It plays back HD video. It never says it displays that video in HD.
Neither, you simply can't read.
Its 600 lines PER EYE. Since most people have two eyes I think we can all agree that 1200>1080.
I, for one, welcome our new...ah, skip it.
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Apparently, the way to go for money-making, currently, is to provide Aldiko with your material in epub format, and they build a sort-of statically-linked app for each book. Of course they'd still have to leverage the License Server. (And please, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not completely clear on the details, especially considering that the licensing server was cracked already.)
Reply to That ||
It's Samsung. I love their electronics but they're dicks about connectors. Between my wife and I we've owned 3 Samsung phones over the last four years (one was a "free" phone later upgraded). ALL THREE had different power/usb connectors.
Michael Dell running naked across the screen revealing his dongle /shudder
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
That story states that it has a 1024x600 screen, yet 1080p HD video playback. It has no video output port, according to the description.
From what I have seen from the (unofficial) list of accessories, there is an HDMI out adapter for the connector on the device. I'm assuming that this means 1080p capabilities for the video out.
Because the development kit of the imitation is free. I can upload my own applications without the need to jailbroken it beforehand.
For only $99/year you can do the same with an iPad. And for that price you get a ton of development resources, including video from every WWDC (Apple developer conference) from last year, along with supported early access to new builds.
For someone already buying something that's going to be an extra device in addition to a computer, I just can't see getting too worked up over a $99/year fee to develop.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Talk about cheap...
Check your premises.
Two words and a number: Toshiba Folio 100
http://phandroid.com/2010/09/02/toshiba-folio-100-goes-official-399-euros-in-q4/
More or less the same specs for half the price, and a decent sized screen (399)... Now that I could get on board with.
http://carrypad.com/2010/09/02/galaxy-tab-first-thoughts/
Chippy is usually accurate:
Price? 799 Euro.
WOW!
That's a huge amount of money. Now who's buying?
No retina display. Less space than an iPad. Lame.
It plays 1080p videos at 1024x600 resolution. Yes, the way they say it is confusing, but they aren't 'false advertising'.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
It does have HDMI out. There is an HDMI dock for it.
You are correct that the screen doesn't have enough pixels to do justice to 1080p. However, I disagree that this is misleading.
They are saying that you can play 1080p video on the thing. As in, there is enough horsepower there to decode the 1080p video, then downsample it to fit on the screen. If you have 1080p video files, you can play them on the thing without needing to transcode them first. This will be particularly interesting if you can stream them off your media server. I don't really want to store all my movies multiple times in multiple transcoded formats; do you?
What would make that significantly more interesting would be if they had an HDMI port, so that you could play 1080p video to an external device such as a giant flatscreen TV. The Galaxy Tab doesn't seem to have one, but I'll bet other Android tablets will have one.
The latest generation of netbooks come with HDMI ports, by the way. I'm somewhat drooling over the Acer Aspire AS1551-5448. (What a catchy name! Don't you get thrilled by all the 1's, 5's, and 4's?) This is an 11.6" screen netbook with a dual-core processor, a graphics accelerator, and a (just barely) full-sized keyboard.
http://www.netbooknews.com/3780/acer-aspire-1551-amd-athlon-powered-by-ii-neo-k625/
I'm torn. Part of me wants to buy the Acer netbook, and part of me wants to hold out for a smartbook with a Tegra 2 processor and a Pixel Qi screen, for crazy long battery life.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
They didn't say it has a 1080p capable screen, they said it supported 1080p video playback. My WD TV has no screen and it also supports 1080p video playback. The iPhone 4 supports 720p video playback, but the screen still has a smaller resolution. I don't really get how this is supposed to be misleading since the video playback capabilities have nothing to do with the resolution of the screen.
When people look at the video playback capabilities of a device they usually talk about what combinations of formats and resolutions it can play, not what it can display. If you look at the specs of devices video playback and display specs are usually listed in different sections. With the display you'll have resolution, screen diameter and aspect ratio; with the video support you'll have codecs, containers as well as profile, level and bitrate restrictions listed.
If I have a 1080p video and a device that supports playback of 1080p videos even if the screen resolution is lower than that I'm still better of than if I have a device that doesn't support 1080p videos because I don't need to convert my file to another format or lower resolution before I'm able to watch it.
If the "30 pin dock connector" is a PDMI port, then the Galaxy Tab does have HDMI, and there is a real use for the 1080p playback.
Aha! According to Engadget, the 30-pin dock connector does include HDMI.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/02/samsung-galaxy-tab-preview/
So I'd say the ability to play 1080p video is a valid thing to brag about.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Thank you so much for that link, that other one to that original article site was so sketchy. Who the hell puts asterisks in a filename?
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Like you said, it can PLAY a 1080p video. That doesn't mean the SCREEN is 1080p.