Samsung announces Galaxy Tab 8.9, thinner Galaxy Tab 10.1

Surprise, surprise! Samsung announced not one, but two tablets during their CTIA event. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 was joined by a reworked version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Both tablets run Android 3.0 Honeycomb with TouchWiz 4.0 user interface.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 has a 8.9" screen (no surprise here) of WXGA resolution. It measures 230.9 x 157.8 x 8.6mm(!) and weighs just 470g with a 6000mAh battery. The rest of the features are very much like the ones on its bigger brother.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been revised - how Samsung managed to do it so quick we can't tell but the Tab 10.1 now measures 256.6 x 172.9 x 8.6 mm. It used to be 10.9mm thick and a bit lighter - now both the Tab 10.1 and Tab 8.9 are thinner and lighter than the iPad 2. You can check how those three compare in our blog.

The reworked Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is thinner than the iPad

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 uses a PLS display, which should offer even better image quality than IPS displays. The battery on the 10.1 is 6800mAh.

Both tablets feature 1GHz dual-core CPUs. On the software side they run Android Honeycomb with some new TouchWiz 4.0 modifications. Flash Player 10.2 and Quickoffice HD editor come preinstalled.

The Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Tab 10.1 feature 3MP autofocus primary cameras with 720p video recording and 2MP front-facing cameras. Wi-Fi a/b/g/n (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and Bluetooth handle local wireless connectivity (v2.1 for Tab 8.9 and v3.0 for Tab 10.1).

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 looks pretty much the same

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be available on 8 June for $499 (16GB version) or $599 (32GB version). The old, thicker version of the Tab 10.1 is still on course to hitting Vodafone stores outside the US so it hasn't been canceled. We are yet to learn more about the availability of the two devices, but we can confirm that the thicker version won't be coming to the US.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 specs also mention a 64GB version, but there's no pricing information for that one yet.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 should launch early this summer for $469 (16GB version) or $569 (32GB). You can always get a microSD card to expand the memory, so getting the bigger version isn't necessary.

Those prices are for Wi-Fi only versions of the tablets - there will be versions with mobile Internet too (quad-band GPRS/EDGE and quad-band 3G with 21Mbps HSPA+).

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