Now here is the first tablet that I’m actually excited about. The upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab will run Android 2.2 (Froyo) and will ship with Flash Player 10.1. I recently switched to the Samsung Galaxy as my everyday phone and absolutely love it. The screen is gorgeous and I’m assuming this tablet will have one just as nice. Check out the commercial for the tablet below. This looks like it will ship relatively soon too.
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Lee Brimelow is a Game Developer Evangelist at Adobe based in the Bay Area.
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I hope it’s cheaper than first predictions , I would definitely be keen to get it if it’s at the right price (Not 700 Euro!)
I’m also been using a Galaxy S as my phone and loving it
It looks to be a very good tablet. My only concern is pricing. I’ve seen pricing rumors from cheap ($200-$400), to crazy like starting at $900. If its price competitive w/ the iPad, I’ll definitely look at getting one to go along w/ the iPad.
Pretty sexy!
Interesting to see a 7″ form factor trying to compete in the phone arena. I personally think tablets are the biggest win in the home and at work, but we’ll see.
Any information about AIR? The price will be effective on market share, but gives hope. Seems better than HP’s slate with Windows 7 as it will probably suffer because of performance issues.
You know, I’m not so sure about the tablet craze…
I know they are great for certain specific purposes, but after spending some time with an iPad, I think the tablet concept is flawed and waaay over hyped. (Shocking, I know!)
1. We spent all these years reducing the crap we carry. But now we’re supposed to lug around a relatively giant device that really doesn’t do anything new?
2. While great for consuming content, especially in bed/travel/potty, they are very poor input devices. Typing on an iPad is literally painful. I don’t see other devices really solving this… do you?
In my eyes, there is nothing significant a tablet offers over a good smart phone. Tablets are actually moving us in the wrong direction… or am I crazy?
@Mehmet since it is running Froyo it should run AIR no problem.
@Joe no you’re not crazy at all. The main reason I am looking forward to a tablet is for travel, particularly on planes. That is the one situation where having a tablet is great.
I prefere the iPad, this has orrible touch-screen, and flash will dead in a few years, when all the browsers will support html5.
@Joe
I don’t think you’re crazy, but I disagree with you on several points. First, I think typing on the iPad is great. Second, my iPad has allowed me to not carry my computer everywhere, so it’s not just another device to be lugging around. With just my iPhone, I would always take my MBP along just to be able to reply to lengthy e-mails, because typing on the iPhone is slow.
Furthermore, the browsing experience on tablets (my experience being with the iPad) is just something else. Again, it replaces my laptop more than it does the iPhone, allowing me not to carry my laptop around.
And of course, as you noted yourself, the tablets are also awesome for just sitting in the couch and reading/surfing. Finally, I also use it as a huge, awesome remote for my computer/projector (HTPC-to-be) set up at home.
So while it’s true that tablets aren’t doing anything new, let me re-use an analogy I used with a friend on Twitter the other day; I could sleep on my couch, but I have a bed anyway because it’s more comfortable. And I could game on my Mac, but I bought a PS3 anyway, because I think it does a better job.
Nice job getting flash running!
To the tablet it self … well tbh I have to get hands on to see if it really works, I mean if you look at phones all the NOKIA N90 etc are horrible vs iPhone …
… anything above $499 will be a fail …
I wonder what the screen resolution would be.
Flash support is well and good, but when I was testing the Galaxy Tab at the IFA show where it launched in Berlin, I couldn’t get Adobe’s Flash mobile site to work (which I mentioned in my hands-on test write-up: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20015576-264.html).
The error message was “We’re sorry, but your device does not support Adobe Flash Player software,” then it advised me to visit the site with a PC. Was this an issue with the Tab I was trying or the site?
@Joe Hakooz says, “there is nothing significant a tablet offers over a good smart phone.” I disagree. There’s no substitute for screen real estate when it comes to displaying text, photos, videos, or whatever combination. It’s just easier to read as a user. I see that as pretty significant, and arguably games are in a different class on a tablet, too. Whether that’s significant enough a difference is up to you. For me, it’s not, at least not yet, but plenty of iPad owners apparently find the idea appealing. I certainly don’t see tablets as “moving us in the wrong direction”: there’s no danger smartphones will fall by the wayside in the industry.
@Simon and @JohnO Samsung didn’t announce prices, but expect a range, because the Tab will be sold only through mobile phone carriers. Expect the usual low initial price with a two-year contract, for example. There’s no Wi-Fi-only version of the Tab; they’re all 3G-capable.
Nice!! Perfect tab but price too high !
absolutely agree with your point of view; the galaxy tab seems to be (apart from the price tage) a really promising device.
if you are looking for a larger tablet you also should take a look at the notion ink adam (has the same resolution as the galaxy tab read: app’s designed for this device would look good on the adam too).
maybe you want to feature it too
http://www.notionink.in/
tek care!
It looks amazing, will it run command line integrations too ?
Apparently the screen will not be the same as the Galaxy. While Galaxy uses AMOLED, the Tab will be just TFT.
I’m undecided about the tablet craze. I’ve had the company Ipad at home for about a week and it was a mixed experience. Basically everything I did with it I could do with my laptop just as fine or better. Only two things stood out for me, and those were that a. it doesn’t become as horribly hot as the laptop over time, and b. the “instant on” of the Ipad, which is great if you just want to look something up and are not in the mood for five minutes of bootscreen.
I wish they made laptops that came on instantly without sucking dry your battery in moments.
@Joe. I also have a healthy skepticism about the tablet form factor. That is until I sat around a table with my wife and another couple passing around a “pad” from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and had a shared interactive internet information game experience thing. I don’t even know what to call it, but there we were for hours looking up stuff on the internet together, playing games, talking. There was some novelty to the experience, but it felt radically different than being huddled around a laptop.
I guess that Samsumg Galaxy will be amazing, if the performance with rotations and transitions be really the shown in this ad, i’ll be very happy to buy one.
No superamoled but lcd for the tab.
Why is it that every company wants us to have a netbook, a tablet and a phone? Why do we need to carry so many devices around? Is it me, or aren’t these devices just a bridge between the netbook and the phone? They aren’t really solving a problem, in fact they create new ones – where is my tablet? Where is my phone? Ok, now I am ready to leave.
@Stephen they must not have had Flash running on the device that you tested. Based on the information on the Samsung site, it will ship with Flash 10.1.
The thing has keyboard dock and vehicle dock accessories! Sweet!
The video doesn’t work for me so I can’t see if Flash on this device is any good or not. I’m not sure why I should care about Flash when it’s much easier for me to watch video without it. Like these ones for example:
http://videos-cdn.mozilla.net/serv/firefox4beta/AudioAPI.webm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmuNApHFec&html5=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM1epdLyhpA&html5=1
Do you have plans to put a WebM version up?
I really like the Galaxy Tab but I’m afraid it’s going to be a failure. I’m not sure what the full marketing strategy is, but based on this commercial alone they haven’t done enough to separate it from the ipad. More needs to be done to show the average consumer (who doesn’t even know what Flash is) why the Tab is better/different.
About to go pick up the Verizon Fascinate – can’t wait to start working with it. The TFT spec on the Galaxy tablet is a little disappointing – but still looks like a great piece of hardware and the idea of more android tablets is exciting, TVs and appliances is good news for developers. It is also interesting to see how people want to turn things into a “flash is dying” discussion as well. What is that all about? Thought this was a cool link to check for all of the Flash versus HTML5 comments http://www.caniuse.com/ . I for one think Flash has been a huge boon for the industry and look forward to it’s continued contributions.
Man when can we find these and how much $$$?
Greets, Lee.
Could u please fix the video link (its broken currently)
….and will ship with Flash Player 10.1
The salesman on the IFA said, that the tab have no installed flash app by default. Only flash support is default. This is also on the german samsung hp.
In my opinion the tab is only for people with some knowledge about android, so they can modify the tab after her wishes. Normal users will buy the IPad.
best regards, Jojo
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Also Thursday, Apple also said it will lift restrictions imposed earlier this year on using third-party development tools that “translate” code written for another platform. That means developers who work in Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash or Oracle Corp.’s Java language can convert their programs into iPhone apps without rewriting them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/09/apple-app-review-guidelin_n_710345.html
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That’s great news! Now will Adobe add the native iPhone publishing feature back into Flash?
- Tom
@TomR
Flash CS5 shipped with the ability to publish .ipa for iPhone. But Adobe made it clear that they were abandoning this effort due to the old app store restrictions. We will see if Adobe resumes efforts or not.
@TomR & @Craig Anthony
so we will have Air for Android and Windows mobiles, plus ipa for iOs !
Air apps run fantastic on my Nexus One !
Has anybody tested Flash ipa on iPhone4 ?
I’m sure Adobe is happy and will reconsider its desicion… hope so.
yes they are resuming their works on it! I hope Lee will be back to his too. Please follow the link below:
http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/09/great-news-for-developers.html
Just to put these number in perspective, Apple sells 8M iPhones a quarter. If Samsung really manages to sell 10M Galaxy S by the end of the year, it’ll sell around 30% as many Androids as Apple sells iPhones. Now, apple might increase the iPhone sales rate, but we need to remember that the Galaxy only came out in the second quarter.
Very impressive achievement for Samsung.
I’ve been using the iPad recently as a controller for my computer. In the field of music production it’s actually really handy to be able to control the record, pause, goto and volumes from a silenced booth (far away from the computer). It’s also kinda cool live using it to control the backing tracks while still keeping at the stage; but I understand it’s a very niche use. For other daily aspects, I gotta agree it seems more of a novelty.
CAN THE GALAXY TAB READ TO ME LIKE THE KINDLE.
IT WOULD BE NICE TO READ A BOOK WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED.
OR BE ON THE ROAD BEHIND THE WHEEL.
(WITH YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD COURSE)
I NEVER SAW AN APP FOR THE iPAD THAT DOES THAT
Any news regarding the price?
What does the most likely price interval for this 10.1 tablet seem to be at the current time?