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Samsung's Galaxy Tab Android Tablet Now Official
itwbennett writes "Samsung held a media event Thursday introducing the Galaxy Tab, and making official what we've already known for weeks, says blogger Peter Smith. 'We still don't have a price or a concrete ship date (though definitely this fall; Samsung says it'll be available for the holiday season),' says Smith. 'It'll ship with Android 2.2 (Froyo), runs Flash, has a 1Ghz Hummingbird CPU, 16GB of memory, a 7" LCD (1204 x 600 ) screen and weighs about 13 ounces. They're claiming a 7-hour battery life. Two cameras: a front-facing 1.3 megapixel, and a back-facing 3 megapixel. It has an HDMI port and will also share media to DLNA devices on the same network.'" Engadget adds some video footage.
Crucial missing information in the summary:
Amazon UK is reporting an MSRP of 799.99, and Amazon US has a listing for $835.18. Unless is bad info, this thing is DOA.
Hey, unlike the IPad, a tablet that is actually useful!
I'm looking forward to using that Android app that puts anything on screen (everything, not just video) and pipes it out the HDMI to another device, like an HDTV. I could see this being a truly useful device.
Umm, there's definitely WiFi, no one in their right mind would release a tablet without it. There's however no WiFi only version, they all have a 3G antenna.
I wonder what this will do to the development of Chrome OS, as now Android is also a tablet operating system, what will the market be for Chrome OS? I hope they're not shooting for desktop applications ...
Also, no WiFi as of yet (and as far as I can tell no release date set either). I wonder what this will do to battery life, and well, everything else. Surfing on 3G is acceptable on my phone when I'm stuck in traffic, at home I tend never to use my phone because of the slow connection.
Life is great! (as told by Lady Susan)
I think it has to have 3G in order to qualify for the Android Marketplace.
So now I can honestly tell the ladies I regularly have 7'' in hand
Hang out at the YMCA and you can make this true without buying a tablet
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So now I can honestly tell the ladies I regularly have 7'' in hand
7" is below average range's top.
The joke size starts officially at 22cm (8"?). It's all in the copy of "BE A MAN!" manual that was given to you upon reaching puberty.
I think it has to have 3G in order to qualify for the Android Marketplace.
Here's a citation for this claim. It just goes to boost GordonBX's claim that Android makes Apple look cheap.
7" LCD is convenient - but I'd have to know how many sheets-of-glass thick it is before I'd consider buying one.
701 has a keyboard. I can't see myself coding on a tablet. Also the laptop gives you root access.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
UK retailers are already pricing this thing at £600+ which gives Apple a nice big helping hand to maintain market dominance. No way people are going to pay nearly double the price of an iPad for a tablet that isn't as good. And I say that as an Android fanboi who can't stand Apple.
minor off topic nitpick, but it pisses me off when people use "memory" ambigously meaning either storage or RAM
in this case i can sort of deduce that this thing has 16gb of storage, but how much working RAM does it have? not entirely unimportant for a computing device, especially when you get into tablet territory (the ipad/iphone already suck at multitasking, or hell, even multi-tab browsing because of low memory)
People, what a bunch of bastards
"but does it have USB?"
Through a dongle, apparently - and annoyingly.
"Can I install an operating system of my choosing?"
It has been rooted already, so in principle yes. Somebody would need to actually port the OS to the device of course.
"Does it run nmap and aircrack-ng? "
You can build and run console apps on a normal Android device - it's linux after all.
"Can I conveniently SSH into an 8 core SMP server with Maple and MATLAB when I need a little extra oomph?"
Just download an ssh client and off you go. No X forwarding though, as it doesn't run X.
"How usable is the onscreen keyboard?"
Tim Bray has been using one for a few days: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/09/10/Galaxy-Tab-in-my-Pocket
He really likes the keyboard. He also seems to find the battery life to be rather better than those quoted seven hours would imply.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Apple did have a huge advantage on price, they could order as many processors and as much RAM as they liked for the iPad knowing that if it didn't sell, they could just use them in the iPhone 4. No-one else has that kind of leverage on component prices, and no-one else has an established cash cow like the App Store. Android is playing catch-up on this, but I expect that Google will sort out the tablet issues soon and the Market will open up to WiFi tablets. It's mainly a matter of them realising that no-one wants to make or buy a tablet running ChromeOS.
So what's going on with the Galaxy S? Reports on the web are that the actual GPS hardware does not work, and the "fix" is to use wifi/celltower geolocation. How could this issue have made it past testing and 1 million unit sales before it was noticed?
On the plus side, the Galaxy S appears to be completely open source. The source code release from Samsung appears to include drivers for all hardware, including the PowerVR GPU.
Battery life is much more than 7 hours. I've been playing with one for several days now and the 7 hours is playing video/multimedia.
Too small to compete with an iPad, too big to compete with the iPhone. And, let's be honest - they're trying to compete with Apple's offerings here. I just don't get their vision of this product. Seriously. It's too big to casually put in your pocket and carry around easily and it's too small to be a "put in your bag" computing device when there are other options with bigger screens available. It might do well - time will tell - but I suspect the screen size puts it in an awkward position that very few customers want.
running any OS of your choosing might be difficult, seeing how this thing doesnt have an x86 cpu, like your eee
SSH shouldnt be an issue though, even my $99 android phone can ssh into whatever i can run SSHD on, there are plenty of apps for any platform (i actually used my ipod to shut down the fileserver at home before unplugging in a thunderstorm)
People, what a bunch of bastards
Uh... I hope you know that all Galaxy class starships are "imaginary", right?
Look, I know this is harsh, but they're just not real. Not like the Constitution Class from the Documentary Series.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I dunno, if it's true (and it seems to be) that you have to have a phone data plan to access the Android App Store, that's going to be a huge impact on the tablet/PDA market. The sales numbers on iPod Touch indicate that while tablet and phones are both more popular, there's a pretty big market for unconnected phone sized devices (PDAs essentially). That's two markets Android is essentially cutting itself out of by making people pay an unnecessary monthly fee. Google needs to change that pronto if they want to get into this market.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Exact specs, what the hardware is, price, where are they releasing it (which countries), where will I be able to buy it (is it just from carriers?).
You can't even find a Galaxy Tab page on Samsung's website -- they link to one, but it's 404.
However, specs collected from the announcement, press releases and coverage:
Android 2.2 (Froyo)
Flash 10.1 (Web video looked good and smooth)
1Ghz Hummingbird CPU (Samsung, ARM Cortex A8)
PowerVR SGX 540 video
512 MB RAM
Internal storage unclear; some reports say 16 GB or 32GB
microSD card slot, supporting 32GB additional storage
7" TFT LCD screen, 1024 x 600 resolution
Capacitive touchscreen
Quad-band GSM/EDGE, triple-band HSUPA/HSDPA, voice and data connectivity
Dual SIM cards (not sure why?)
802.11 b/g/n wifi
Bluetooth 3.0
13 ounces
7 hour battery life under continuous movie playback
Front facing 1.3 megapixel camera for video calling
Back facing 3 megapixel autofocusing camera for HD video and still photography with flash
HDMI video output port
USB (will trickle charge, but not rapid charge)
Proprietary 30-pin connector for charging and connectivity to dock
3.5 audio jack; internal stereo speakers
Accelerometer, magnetometer, proximity sensor
Full external keyboard, optional
Automotive dash mount for GPS functionality with Google Maps enhanced for the 7-inch display; presumably this suggests it has a GPS chip, although I have not found anything that says so
Will share media to DLNA devices on the same network; should interop with MythTV and XMBC
Will be offered by AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile; pricing and dates to be announced by the carriers
E-reader software (Kindle, PressDisplay, Zinio, etc.)
Thinkfree Office software
Media Hub (cloud-based purchase and rental of video and audio programming) with sharing across your compatible Samsung devices
Interestingly, "legacy" Android apps designed for smaller screens are shown at a correct size, framed rather than stretched. A bunch of apps optimized for the 7-inch display were shown.
Really? Because the last time I looked, the Linux version of OpenOffice.org used X11 and android didn't. You'd be able to run it on MeeGo, but not Android.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
According to Engadget they removed the telephony app from the US version of this (it's still in the European version):
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/16/samsung-galaxy-tab-loses-voice-capabilities-in-the-us/
That's pretty much a dealkiller for me, and gives Samsung an uphill climb if they expect to compete with the iPad, which has a good low end price, an OS designed for a tablet, and an established ecosystem.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
But if it has to have a 3G plan, does it have cell contract with it?
That, on top of the price, will make it very expensive compared to the iPad, especially the WiFi only version.
If Samsung is smart, they'll do something like what Apple did with their 3G plans - make them month to month, and a low & high data plan. If not, then this tablet is DOA.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
So you run an X app, which connects to the X server via UNIX domain sockets and shared memory. Then the X server exports its display via VNC. Then you run a VNC client, which connects to the VNC server via a TCP/IP socket on the loopback interface. The VNC client then communicates with the display server via the standard APIs. I guess that should just about work, but it's beyond hideous and will sap your battery.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Sorry, use of non standard punctuation convention that is less well known than I had thought.
Use of a question mark after a statement/fact that is clearly not a question indicates confusion and requests an explanation in light of that statement/fact.
It is a translation of the usage of a quizzical expression from face to face communication to text.
It's interesting point you bring up. All the iOS devices (except the iPod nano which hasn't disclosed the processor) use the A4. Some people were negative on the A4 as it wasn't a revolutionary processor, but I think Apple designed it for practicality. They designed one chip that, while does not contain any groundbreaking technology, can be used for tablets, mobile phones, and consumer devices like the AppleTV and iPod Touch. I do however disagree with you that no one else has leverage on component prices. This is a Samsung Galaxy. Samsung Electronics designs and makes processors (Apple even contracts them to make the A4) as well as RAM. If anyone has more of an advantage it would be Samsung.
Looking at it now, I think there was 2 reasons Apple designed the A4. The first one is stated above. Many chip manufacturers like Samsung design very generic chips to satisfy as much as the market as possible. Customization costs money and many mobile phone makers use the one that best suits their needs rather than customize it. It is rumored that Apple wasn't happy with the chip in the first iPhone. The problem was it was the chip that they specced out and ordered. Apple probably didn't have the expertise to really design the chip to what they wanted. Thus they bought PA Semi and later Intrinsity. If they were going to customize a chip, they might as well design the whole thing and not just modify an existing Samsung mobile phone chip design. Apple also wanted one that allowed them to use in as many devices as possible, not just for mobile phones. It's interesting to note that the Samsung chip "Hummingbird" was co-designed by Samsung and Intrinsity.
The second reason Apple designed the A4 was so that they were not too dependent on Samsung. Remember Samsung also makes mobile phones so they are both a supplier and competitor to Apple. Having been business relationships like this before (Microsoft, Adobe), Apple doesn't want to rely on one supplier. If something happens, Apple can simply take their design to another chip maker and have them make it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Because even Google admits that the latest Android (Froyo 2.2) was not really designed for tablets. It was designed for mobile phones. That's why the Dell Streak and the Tab use an older version 1.6.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Thank you for not posting what "LARP" meant and making waste 20 seconds of my life too.
For the benefit of future visitors,
LARP = Live Action Role-Playing.
Other than that, I agree with the rest of your rant.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost