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The tablet device that Samsung confirmed it will launch during the second half of the year will reportedly receive its formal introduction Aug. 11, according to multiple reports.
In an Aug. 2 report, the International Business Times, which expects Samsung to fully launch the tablet mid-August, additionally offered the happy news that – unlike Hewlett-Packard, with its reported PalmPad, Research In Motion, with the BlackPad and Lenovo with its announced LePad – Samsung won’t ape Apple’s “pad” moniker and will instead call the device the Galaxy Tab, in keeping with its successful new line of Galaxy S smartphones.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab will reportedly run “Froyo,” version 2.2 of Google’s Android operating system, and feature a 7-inch AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) touch-screen display, a 1.2GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor, 16GB of internal storage, a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash, as well as a front-facing VGA camera (for video conferencing) and, possibly, WiFi connectivity.
IBT additionally cited a South Korean newspaper that reported that 8- and 10-inch versions of the Samsung tablet will follow in November and December, respectively. Such options would give Samsung plenty of room to compete in ways that the Dell Streak, with its 5-inch display, has faced criticism for being not quite large enough for casual couch-surfing but not quite small enough to easily fit in a pocket.
Apple’s iPad – the industry standard to date – features a 9.7-inch display. IBT reports the BlackPad is likely to feature a 7- or 8.9-inch display, Motorola’s planned tablet will likely feature a 10-inch display and HP – whether it launches a Windows or WebOS tablet first – will bring a 8.9-inch display to market.
In May, ABI Research forecast sales of tablet devices to eventually slow the netbook market and to reach a total of 8 million units by year’s end. In July, it raised that figure to 11 million, basing the figure, analyst Jeff Orr wrote in a July 20 report, on both iPad sales and the tablets it expects will debut from Apple competitors during the fourth quarter, in time for holiday sales.
Among the few established facts in the tablet world, for now, are that Apple sold more than 1 million iPad tablets within the first month of the device’s April 3 launch and 3.27 million iPads during its quarter ending June 26.