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As Samsung looks to refresh its product lineup in 2013, you best believe we’ll be getting a new series of Galaxy Tabs. Now, one of the first insider reports on what we can expect has surfaced. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, which is currently being developed under the Santos codename, will launch with 7 and 10.1-inch options. In total, there are currently four different Galaxy Tab 3 models, which account for 3G-enabled and WiFi-only versions of each size class.
In addition to the new Galaxy Tab slates, Samsung is developing yet another tablet under the codename Roma. It’s unclear how Samsung plans to brand the device (it could be a Galaxy Tab, but might not), but known specs and a model number of GT-P8200 suggest it could be closely related to the Samsung-made Nexus 10. The mystery tab gets a 5MP camera and will ship with 16GB or 32GB of internal storage.
All models are expected to launch during the first half of the year and will be available in a white deco, at the very least. The timing makes the devices excellent candidates for a Mobile World Congress unveiling.
[via SamMobile]
i thought Galaxy Tab line was gonna get axed since Galaxy Note 8.0 and 10.1 is clearly the better of the two lines. could the Galaxy Tab line their answer to the $200 7 inch and $400-500 10 inch Nexus?
I think last year the Tab was supposed to be the budget option and the Note the high-end, but I don’t think they did enough to differentiate the two.
Samsung has already taught me not to buy their tablets due to very slow to roll out updates. I’ll stick to the Nexus line with my tablets.
Especially with WiFi-only tablets, more open, standard, more vanilla UI’s are going to be more and more expected. More people have more access to more parts of the system and find and suggest fixes that much faster.
If Samsung releases these new tablets without promising a change of heart on these principles, then they are still playing by the old rules. Nexus tablets, and ASUS and acer tablets as well are much more where the market is going. Stable, quickly upgradeable tablets that stay useful for longer.
Cell phones will continue to lag in this changing dynamic as the cellcos still exercise more control there. This is also a reason to keep our phones simple and offload as much work as possible onto companion 7″ tablets and the like. A smallish weather-proof phone that has working GPS and camera and WiFi tethering can be kept lean with experimental apps going on to more configurable tablets that can also have better backups made.
One problem I can see already is that if Samsung releases WiFi and cell-connected versions of the same tablet, they may be pressured by cellcos to lock down the bootloader and OS of even the non-cell varieties because a hack on one can be so easily ported to the other, cell version. If Samsung can navigate around this, they need to make that clear as well.
I’m not holding my breath for either of the above.
Samsung did pretty good getting out Jellybean updates for the Galaxy S III. They just have so many different models to update, it likely makes it difficult for them to concentrate on one particular model at a time. Samsung will, of course, concentrate on the models that sold the most, such as the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, before they concentrate on a lower volume tablet or phone.
My Galaxy Note 1 is ICS, but the ROM is only half-baked (crashes on average twice a day and I try to keep it lean with most apps going onto my Nexus 7), and I think recently Samsung did put out a Jellybean ROM for it as well. I have no illusions it will be any better, though.
For all that Samsung does big and fast, the software side of the company really sux. Kies is about as bad as desktop software gets. The more open they can make their tablets, the less we will have to reply on their competence and be able to fix things ourselves.
Oh brother, the geeks around the world have been hoping for such market change since the inception of Android. Not gonna happen! Majority of consumers will still be giving no rats ass about updates, as long as custom interface satisfies their needs and provides stable experience. Being a tech savvy, hard-core Android fan for years, who flashed and tried insane number of ROMs, I’ve been sticking with factory ROMs for a year and a half now, on Moto RAZR, and Galaxy Note 10.1. I only root them to get a few useful tweaks from Android, and that’s it.
Two letters: CM
I have run CM 10 on my GS3 and loved it, but when it went to 10.1, it hasn’t quite been polished enough for me to be happy with. I’m currently running LiquidSmooth JB and absolutely love it. I’m currently on 1 Day 7 hours of battery usage with light to moderate usage (1 1/2 hours of calls, 1 hour screen on time) with 37% left.