Samsung officially announced its new flagship Galaxy Tab S lineup at its 'Tab Into Colour' event on Thursday in New York City, at the Madison Square Garden theatre. The new Samsung Galaxy Tab S range is available with either 8.4-inch or 10.5-inch displays.
The Tab S series is being positioned as a high-end tablet, rivalling Apple's iPad Air, and focuses on promising consumers with colour-rich display capabilities for entertainment purposes.
JK Shin, CEO and President of IT & Mobile Division, Samsung Electronics, said in a press release that the company has become aware of that consumers are increasingly using their tablets for viewing media content. This is the reason why Samsung has made the quality of the display a critical feature of the Galaxy Tab S range.
"With the launch of the Galaxy Tab S, Samsung is setting the industry bar higher for the entire mobile industry. It will provide consumers with a visual and entertainment experience that brings colours to life, beautifully packaged in a sleek and ultra-portable mobile device," said Shin.
The Tab S series features a high-resolution SuperAMOLED display with 2560x1600 resolution, matching up to Apple's retina display. Furthermore it can deliver more than 90 per cent of Adobe RGB colour coverage along with a 100,000:1 contrast ratio which will provide more realistic and vivid images.
At the event, Samsung also announced HD quality for Netflix and YouTube apps, and said that its screen technology will consume less power than LCD displays found in most tablets whilst providing deeper contrast. The screen will also perform better in sunlight with less reflectivity and is also equipped with an adaptive display which will adjust gamma, saturation and sharpness based upon the application, the colour temperature of the viewing environment and ambient lighting.
Both Galaxy Tab S models have a thin 6.6mm profile, thinner than the iPad Air, and weigh in at only 465g for the 10.5-inch version and 294g for the 8.4-incher. The device's Ultra-Power Saving Mode will eke out the juice supplied whilst the fingerprint scanning technology from the Galaxy S5 flagship smartphone is also featured on the tablets.
Another type of media content Samsung is focusing on is magazines. The company has introduced its own magazine service called 'Papergarden', which will allow users to view popular magazines including titles from Samsung's new partners Condé Nast, Marvel Comics and National Geographic in true-to-life colour. Other entertainment content includes a new football app called Kick and Kindle for Samsung for your Amazon book library.
Users will also be able to pair their Galaxy Tab S with their smartphone by using SideSync, allowing the tablet to mirror the smartphone's screen and letting users take calls on the tablet via its speakers and microphone. The multi-window function seen on the company's Galaxy Note products is also featured here.
Samsung is offering white and bronze in both size variants and offers optional accessories including covers and a Bluetooth keyboard. The device is priced at $499 for the 10.5-inch version and $300 for the 8.4-inch in the US. Samsung says that shipments will start in selected markets from July.
Below is a list of product specs for both the Galaxy Tab S versions:
- Processor: Exynos 5 Octa (1.9 GHz QuadCore ＋ 1.3 GHz Quadcore) or Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.3 GHz Quadcore
- Display: 2560x1600 (WQXGA) Super AMOLED (yes, its the same pixel res on the different screen sizes)
- OS: Android KitKat 4.4
- Camera: 8MP w/ Flash LED + 2.1MP Full HD
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac MIMO, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, IrLED
- Network: LTE: 800/ 900/ 1800/ 2600+850/ 2100, 3G: 850/ 900/ 1900/ 2100, 2G: 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900
- Memory: 3GB (RAM) + 16/32GB internal memory, microSD up to 128GB
- Battery: 4,900mAh (8.4-inch) 7,900mAh (10.5-inch)
