While Samsung is busy pushing its Galaxy Tab Android tablet in the US and Europe, the company has teamed up with KDDI in Japan to offer a (somewhat) different device. The SMT-i9100 has almost the same specs as the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but it’s WiFi only and has a boxier looking design.
We’ve seen Samsung design different cases for multiple products that are essentially the same before. The company offers four different versions of the Samsung Galaxy S phone in the US, for instance — one for each major US wireless carrier. And they all look different, even though they all have the same basic specs.
Like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the KDDI SMT-i9100 has a 7 inch, 1024 x 600 capacitive multitouch display, 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth. This model has 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage and comes with a docking cradle. It runs Google Android 2.2 and the press release claims the tablet has a 2 hour battery — which seems either like a typo or like something might have been lost in Google Translation.
The tablet is due out in Japan in February.
via Engadget
The Galaxy Tab in its current form is ugly. This is better but still ugly. All of this is surprising given that Samsung tends to have cutting-edge and attractive industrial designs.
Many don’t consider the Galaxy Tab ugly, but one design fault is that it’s a bit too slippery to hold very well unless you got a good grip on it.