Samsung Galaxy View Officially Announced Today
After three months of leaks of everything from specs to images, the 18.4-inch Android tablet Samsung Galaxy View was finally officially announced today too:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0167OR4V0/
The Samsung Galaxy View is basically a TV tablet, or “optimized for media consumption” with “a video-centric interface in mind” as Samsung calls it in their own words.
It makes sense of course. Average consumer tablets are used most of all to watch video on, so Samsung built a video centric tablet, but nobody except Sharp dares to call these kind of devices a TV tablet.
This video centric media optimized TV tablet has a feature called Family Square. This is an app that lets users share content, and set screensavers, but is only available with other Samsung Android 5.0 devices, and even then it may not always be compatible says Samsung depending on the region or service provider. You can read all about the features in the Samsung Galaxy View user manual (PDF).
Samsung Galaxy View specifications range from Android 5.1, to a 18.4-inch (actually 18.58-inch) screen with Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution with touch, a 1.6 GHz octa-core Samsung Exynos 7580 processor, a Mali-T720 graphics processor (GPU), 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage with 128GB microSD card support, a 2.1MP front camera, two 4 watt speakers, dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, and a 8 hour battery life from a 5700 mAh battery.
Sensors include both GPS and Glonass, so you can go mobile with it too. Color options are black or white.
It has some weight to it too, weighing in at 2650 grams. The thickness is 11.9 mm, but this is to a large extent due to the built-in kickstand on the bottom, and the kickhandle that fold out on the top. Both of which are practical features. This tablet doesn't really need to be light anyway, so the weight and thickness doesn't matter so much.
Optional 4G LTE will be offered by wireless carriers in the US soon, carrying the model number SM-T677, while the Wi-Fi only model carries the model number SM-T670.
The price for the Samsung Galaxy View begins at $599 for the Wi-Fi model, and it will be launched on November 6.
Since the 18.4-inch Galaxy View has a built-in battery, it is mobile and portable which makes it definable as a tablet. But other companies are mixed in their definition of devices this large, with Asus calling their 18.4-inch Asus Transformer AIO (All In One), while Dell calls their Dell XPS 18
I think that the Samsung Galaxy View could easily be adapted by gamers too and not just people watching video, since gamers tend to love large displays. So we'll have to wait and see how people will adapt to the new Galaxy View.
Apart from Sharp recently announcing a similar but smaller tablet, the 17.3-inch HP Slate 17 was the last really large Android tablet / AIO to be launched. It was released in October 2014 also with a FHD screen.
– Jim Miller
