Samsung’s latest entry-level Android tablets are coming to America. The Galaxy Tab 3 tablets with 7, 8, and 10 inch displays should be available July 7th with starting prices of $199, $299, and $399, respectively.
Pre-orders open June 25th.
The company also offers a range of higher-priced tablets as part of the Galaxy Note line. Those models feature support for a digital pen so you can write or draw on the screen, and generally the Note series tablets and phones also have faster processors than the Galaxy Tab lineup.
Samsung has been busy unveiling the new Galaxy Tab models over the past few months, so there aren’t a lot of surprises in today’s announcement. But Samsung is promising to offer a $10 voucher you can use to buy apps or content from the Google Play Store with every tablet.
Here’s a recap of the latest Galaxy Tab models.
- 7 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display
- 1.2 GHz Samsung Exynos dual core processor
- Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
- 1GB of RAM
- 8GB to 16GB of storage + microSD card slot
- 1.3MP front camera, 3MP rear camera
- 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS
- 7.4″ x 4.4″ x0.4″
- 11 ounces
- $199 starting price
- 8 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display
- 1.5 GHz Samsung Exynos dual-core CPU
- Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
- 1.5 GB RAM
- 16GB to 32GB of storage + microSD card slots
- 1.3MP front camera, 5MP rear camera
- 802.11/a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS
- 8.3″ x 4.9″ x 0.29″
- 11 ounces
- $299 starting price
- 10.1 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display
- 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Z2560 Clover Trail+ dual-core processor
- Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
- 1GB of RAM
- 16GB to 32GB of storage + microSD card slot
- 1.3Mp front camera, 3MP rear camera
- 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS
- 9.6″ x 6.9″ x 0.3″
- 1.1 pounds
- $399 starting price
Like most of Samsung’s other Android devices, each tablet also includes an IR blaster which lets you use the tablet as a universal remote control for your TV.
Buyers also get 50GB of free storage space at Dropbox for 2 years and a free 3-month subscription to online video service Hulu Plus.
Is it the Exynos 5 Dual (Samsung Exynos dual core processor) ??
Do these also include the IR blaster that was part of many models in the Tab 2 product line?
At least the larger 10.1″ model does include a built-in IR blaster, as well as Samsung’s WatchON TV recommendation service…
And the 10.1″ model has the Z2560 x86 CPU. How are they running Android on that? And could it run Linux or Windows?
The present 32nm ATOM SoCs will only run either Android (Medfield and Clover Trail+) or Windows 8 (Clover Trail Z2760)… Google officially support Android on x86 and so the latest version will be available…
Between Google’s official support and Intel implementing a binary translation layer… roughly over 90% of Android apps will work… Thanks mostly to the fact that most Android apps are hardware agnostic anyway…
However, the remaining need to be either re-optimized or made to work with x86… These are mainly native apps that require access to drivers, etc… Such as video games, etc.
So there are some apps that require the developers to support x86… but Google has already provided the tools to make it equally easy for developers to support either or both ARM and x86, and support has improved since this all started a little over a year ago.
You can check out reviews of the Motorola Razr i for one of the first Medfield Smart Phones and then compare that to reviews on more recent products like the Lenovo K900 to see how much both support has improved and performance…
Interesting lineup and at interesting price points.
I’m thinking that the cheap tablet makers are either going to have to start including Bluetooth and GPS with better screens for the money or crash the price even lower if they have any hope of competing.
Throw in the fact that Samsung stuff is sold through retailers that don’t make you jump through hoops to get returns or exchanges and it become a no-brainer.