It looks like Samsung’s going all-in this year on tablets. And by “all-in,” we don’t just mean putting out the 7-inch Galaxy Tab last year and a 10.1-incher next month. According to this report from Korea, they’ll also be putting out an 8.9-inch Android tablet as early as next month, in case you feel like going Goldilocks on the already available sizes and think that a 7-incher is too small and a 10.1-inch screen would be too heavy. Apart from the screen size, 3G connectivity and a mention that it could be released as early as March, the report didn’t mention any details. The word reportedly came from a company spokesman though, so there’s a good chance that we’ll be seeing three different-sized Android-based, Samsung-branded tablets before Apple even opens their shop doors on iPad 2 launch day.
As a product, it’s not really that old yet, but hey, if they want to do a price drop, we’re not complaining. Anyway, that’s pretty much it: Sprint slashed the price of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab down to $299 if you pick it up with a two year contract (off-contract price also drops to $499 from $599). Why? It could be any of a number of reasons. It could be because a lot of newer tablets—including a next-gen iPad—are lined up for the year, or it could be because it won’t be able to handle Android Honeycomb. Whatever the reason is, we don’t care. Again, it’s $299 for a perfectly good Android-running tablet, people. That’s a good enough reason for us to stop asking questions.
Evidently, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is doing pretty good. According to Samsung, they’ve already hit the 1 million mark and will be aiming for 1.5 million for the year. Not as good or well-received as the iPad who sold around twice that number in the same time, but that’s still pretty good, considering the number of Android-based tablets being released during the same time. That says a lot.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev was in South Korea recently to do business that presidents do. While he was there, he picked up a Samsung Galaxy Tab, went back to Russia, and tweeted a quick, three-sentence “review” about the tablet.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab has already been released on T-Mobile and Sprint will start shipping this weekend. It looks like that’s not the end of it though. According to a new leak, it’s also going to hit AT&T on November 21st for $50 more than everyone else. You can pick it up for $650 off-contract if you’re interested in not having to be tied down to a 2-year deal, and it’ll come with the same data plans used on the iPad that’ll get you 250MBs for $15 a month or $25 a month for 2GBs a month.
