Gary Steel
SAMSUNG CALLED IT its unpacking event, and it meant herding a small bunch of media folk into a trendy downtown Auckland venue, where they enjoyed New York themed food to tie-in with the live telecast we were watching of the unveiling of the Galaxy Tab S from Madison Square Garden.
Highpoints of the Galaxy Tab S include:
- It’s a mere sliver of a thing at 6.6mm thin.
- Its super AMOLED screen is claimed as the first truly hi-res display.
- The screen size is bigger than certain other brands, at 16 x 10.
- The battery lasts for 11 hours.
- Includes access to publications with video and interactive content.
- Includes new Milk Music finder.
- Sidesync 3.0 allows the Tab S to take calls wirelessly, and forward files to phone.
- Top tier security.
- Latest Wi-Fi standard.
- Finger scanner which allows up to eight people to use it.
- Private Mode.
Of all the features, the most time was spent hyping up the super AMOLED screen. It was stressed that the benefits weren’t just to do with pixel count, but that each and every pixel was “alive”, with a better colour range, “infinitely deep contrast”, and true blacks.
The screen also features an adaptive display, with sensors adjusting the screen depending on the ambient light, so that it can even be used in bright sunshine.
A lot of time was also spent hyping Papergarden, the new digital magazine service with its interactive format. This includes publications from the Conde Nast stable, as well as Marvel entertainment, and National Geographic magazine. The Marvel deal alone gives users access to over 15,000 Marvel comics.
It’s a subscription system, but Samsung is attempting to reel in customers by offering over 30 offers on widgets, including a free three-month sub to Marvel content, and a 90-day free trial to Google Music. It’s unknown whether all this applies to our territory.
Milk Music is a new music finder, where listeners can then choose more, or less liked/popular songs with a slider.
Although there’s clearly been some clever thinking for this iteration of the Samsung Galaxy tablet, the presentation seemed to lack a bit of “wow” factor. Maybe that’s not the fault of the product, just that the market has become so saturated with tablets that it’s hard to get excited about them, no matter how good they may be.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S will be available at all the usual stores on 11 July.
10.5-inch, 32GB version – $849
10.5-inch, 16GB version – $749
8.5-inch, 16GB version – $599
