MWC 2013 is quickly approaching and that means plenty of new announcements from big mobile device makers, Samsung included. While we still have about a month before these big reveals, that doesn’t stop rumors from circulating like crazy.

Now we have news that Samsung may be launching their next-gen range of Galaxy tab devices at MWC. The rumor comes from a South Korean publication and claims that a full HD 7-inch Tab is in the works with a quad-core processor and that there is also a 10.1-inch model in the works but there are no details as to what is under the hood at the moment.

As you can see, the details we have are pretty fuzzy right now. All we know for sure is that MWC is shaping up to be very exciting. What do you think, would you like to see a refresh of the Samsung Galaxy Tab line at MWC this year?

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Yeah, you could spend twenty bucks on an official accessory, but a little DIY hackery might be a little more fun. The idea behind the official accessory is that your Galaxy Tab 10.1 can gain a regular old USB port, letting you connect flash drives and the like. This hack is a little more adventurous, to be sure, but it’s cheaper than $20.

It’s not free, of course, since you’ll still need to pick up some parts. These include a dock connector from Kineteka, a couple of 10k ohm resistors, one donor USB extender cable, and some cable cleanup stuff like heat shrink and tape. You’ll need to do some chopping, splitting of wires, and soldering of resistors, so while it’s not the most complex of hacks, it’s not a plug and play affair either.

In any case, you can check out the full DIY tutorial on Careace.net, including a couple of pictures to help you along the way. All said, the parts will cost you about $10 plus your labor… I don’t know about you, but I think my time (and warranty) are worth the extra ten bucks. I’ll just buy the offiicial adapter, thanks.

The post Guide to DIY USB Host on Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The same guys thought they should extend their drop tests to other tablets as well and their most recent experiment involves the iPad, Motorola’s Xoom tablet and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The iPad was the first to be dropped from waist level and did not fare well at all. The tablet became unusable after the drop or, to quote one of the testers “the screen feels like it’s gonna start popping out, just fall apart.” Galaxy Tab was then dropped and “survived kind of” the shock with only minor cracks. Motorola Xoom was the last to undergo the test but became unusable just like the iPad. And the winner of the most-fragile-tablet title is the iPad.

In a nutshell, the test results are as follows: 3. Galaxy Tab; 2. Motorola Xoom; 1. iPad

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We’re not entirely sure why Samsung didn’t just do this right off the bat, perhaps they wanted some type of announcement to go out at CES, regardless, the Wi-Fi only Samsung Galaxy Tab has been announced. We don’t have a price, but we can assume it will be roughly $50 less than the $400 Sprint 3G Galaxy Tab. Still stuck on Android 2.2, packing 16GB of memory and that front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera Apple loves to hear about. Availability is expected in Q1 of 2011.

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iPad
Screen: 9.7-inch Multi-Touch display with IPS technology, LED backlit, 1024×768
Storage: 16GB, 32GB or 64GB flash
Camera: None
Processor: Apple A4 1GHz
OS: iOS
Ships: Within 24hrs
Price: $499 – $829 with 3G+WiFi

Apple’s iPad is no mystery. It’s app store is a massive gateway that makes it truly magical. Its super quick for checking the web, watching YouTube flicks, even playing finely tuned games that run with incredible speed. It doesn’t make the best “eReader” out there, simply because of the LED backlit display, but it was never intended to be one in the first place. If you spend over 50% of your tablet using time on eReading, the iPad may not be for you, but as a lightweight extension to the internet with a miriad of applications, it’s a real big winner.

Samsung Galaxy Tab
Screen: 7-inch Super TFT-LCD, 1024×600
Storage: 16GB internal, + 16GB micro SD
Camera: Front VGA, Rear 3.2 megapixel
Processor: Cortex A8 1.0GHz
OS: Android 2.2
Ships: September 2010
Price: Reported to be $200 and $300 on-contract, $1,000 without

Samsung is already very well known for their Android line of smartphone devices, it’s a natural extension for them to “enlarge” that product into the realms of tablet computing. And with the Galaxy Tab they have done just that. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab was officially announced at IFA last week, it comes in at only 7-inches, compared to 9.7-inches of the iPad. It has Android 2.2, the same 1Ghz processor the Galaxy S has, 16GB or 32GB units, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11n, quad-band 2.5G and tri-band 3G (HSUPA 5.76Mbps, HSDPA 7.2Mbps), front-facing VGA camera for video conferencing (Apple’s lack of a front-facing camera pissed off a lot of people at the time of launch) and rear 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and autofocus. Samsung is going to try things a little different with the Galaxy Tab, rumors report that it will be sold at the carrier level and for around $200 with a plan. Its expected to launch in Europe mid-September, with the rest of the world later in the year.

ViewSonic ViewPad 100
Screen: 10-inch LED backlit LCD, 1024×600
Storage: 16GB SSD, + 32GB micro SD
Camera: Front facing 1.3 megapixel
Processor: Intel Atom N455 1.66GHz
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium, Android 1.6
Ships: European release set for October 2010
Price: £549 (US$845)

ViewSonic’s Viewpad tablet is quite the contender, and the company didn’t put all their eggs in one basket either. The ViewPad 100 is one of those “hybrid” tablets, capable of booting multiple OSes. On one side you could be touting an OS not even designed for tablets “Windows 7 Home Premium,” and on the other, an OS not even designed for tablets “Android 1.6”. Which explains the dual USB ports, 1GB DDR3 memory and VGA output as you may be in Windows 7 more often than Android. Viewsonic wont have their own skin for the Android OS, this is a good thing, allowing Google’s UI to be as it was intended. The Intel Atom 1.66GHz processor should be blazing fast in Android 1.6 too, and perhaps remain to be the fastest Android tablet by the time it gets released.

ViewSonic ViewPad 7
Screen: 7-inch capacitive touch screen LCD, 800×480
Storage: 16GB SSD, + 32GB micro SD
Camera: Front facing 1.3 megapixel, 3 megapixel on back
Processor: 600MHz Qualcomm Snapdragon
OS: Android 2.2 Froyo (possible 3.0)
Ships: European release set for October 2010
Price: £350 (US$536)

Viewsonic also has the ViewPad 7 slated for release during the same launch window as the ViewPad 100, this will be purely an Android 2.2 Froyo device with 600MHz ARM processor. Not as quick as the Intel, but could have difficulties with Android 2.2 and possibly Gingerbread 3.0. Unlike it’s Wi-Fi only brother, the ViewPad 7 will have 3G phone capabilities with a SIM card slot, dual cameras, one of which is on the front for UMTS video calling.

Toshiba Folio 100
Screen: 10.1-inch capacitive touch screen LCD, 1024×600
Storage: 16GB SSD, + 16GB SD
Camera: Front facing 1.3 megapixel
Processor: Nvidia Tegra 2
OS: Android 2.2 Froyo
Ships: Now shipping in Europe
Price: 399 Euro (US$510)

This 10-incher from Toshiba is right in line with Apple’s iPad. It’s got a crisp 1024×600 capacitive touch display and a blazing fast Nvidia Tegra2 processor. With Android 2.2, this tablet should be what dreams are made of. Only a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera, but at least there is one. It comes with 16GB of storage, SD card slot, HDMI out, 802.11n Wi-Fi, USB 2.0, and Bluetooth, all within its 1.7 pound frame. A 3G mobile broadband version is also in the works for what we believe could be a North American launch in Q1 2011.

Archos 101 Internet Tablet
Screen: 10.1-inch TFT LCD, 1024×600
Storage: 8GB and 16GB flash, +32GB MicroSD
Camera: Front facing VGA
Processor: ARM Cortex A8 at 1 GHz with DSP
OS: Android 2.2 Froyo
Ships: October 2010
Price: $299.99 (8GB) and $349.99 (16GB)

The Archos 101 Internet Tablet is one of those things that just make you all fuzzy inside. It’s pretty loaded from every angle, with a decent CPU to push Android 2.2 and watch full HD movies on with its 3D OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics accelerator. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth only, but that’s a given as Archos was never in the mobile phone business to begin with. This is more of the “multimedia player” of tablets, offering USB slave 2.0, full size USB host, and a mini HDMI output jack.

Archos 7o Internet Tablet
Screen: 7-inch Capacitive multitouch screen LCD, 800×480
Storage: 8GB flash, up to 250GB HD
Camera: Front facing VGA
Processor: ARM Cortex A8 at 1 GHz with DSP
OS: Android 2.2 Froyo
Ships: October 2010
Price: $274.99 (8GB) and $349.99 (250GB)

A miniaturized version of the Archos 101, the 7o is basically the same tablet but can hold up to 250GB with the mega-harddrive upgrade. A nice feature that the Archos tablets come with is a built-in kickstand, allowing you to prop up your tablet just about anywhere for viewing 720p HD movies. Archos was always about multimedia, and the support for just about every audio and video file type out there stays in line with their dedication to providing solid portable media players.

With the release of all these tablets one thing is for certain. Wireless carriers are going to have to ramp up their data networks like never before. The amount of information that is going to be transferred between large tablet devices is going to break records, video calling will eat up a large chunk of that bandwidth, but won’t even come near what wireless movie and tv show rentals will use. One device we did not forget about, but purposely excluded is the Dell Streak. With its 5-inch LCD display, outdated software, and overpriced tag, we cant decide whether this is a tablet, smartphone or just a rip off. What do you think? Which tablet will be on your lap this holiday season?

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If there was one mobile-related pulse-quickener at the IFA Berlin show, it had to be the debut of the Samsung Galaxy tab, which pretty much sucked most of the oxygen out of the mobile electronics category. Due hit the shelves in Europe by early October, a few weeks later in Asia and shortly after in North America, this Android challenger to iPad dominance offeres every-which-way connectivity and weighs in at a feathery 380g. The 7.0” WSVGA (600×1024) TFT display is something anyone can wrap their fingers around (standby and volume buttons are mounted flush into the slim 11.98mm side), yet still leave room for even my sausage-like fingers to type a quick error-free email on the touch screen qwerty keyboard.

Sliding and pinching the screen made me feel like I was cheating on my iTouch, while navigating the Need for Speed course had me ready to file for divorce, since the tilt sensor mechanism made “steering my tab” as tight and responsive as a simulation can get (though here, I thought, an iPad-sized device would give you better torque). I keep a low social networking profile, so the Social Hub integrated calendar, email and social networking didn’t move me, but I could have spent hours browsing the virtual international newsstand by country, then city and tapping next to the thumbnail and watching, say, the Vancouver Sun burst open in crisp living color. Tethered to the table-charger (and a crush of people around me waiting their turn), there wasn’t much of chance to test what the LI_POL 4000MAH battery can deliver.

The specs promise 1000 minutes of 3g talk time or 1500 hours standby, which I found to be a pretty interesting metric since, thanks to Apple, I just about forgot these things could be used as a normal mobile phone.

The post Hands on with Samsung’s Galaxy Tab at IFA appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Running Android 2.2 (Froyo) with a 7-inch TFT-LCD WSVGA screen (1024×600), the Galaxy Tab has enough gusto to run the most taxing apps and HD movies.   A Cortex A8 1.0GHz processor, PowerVR SGX540 GPU, just like its smaller Samsung Galaxy S brother.   Variants of 16GB and 32GB both come with 512MB RAM. Tack on another 32GB by slipping in a microSD.

Wirelessly connected with standard Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11n, quad-band 2.5G and tri-band 3G (HSUPA 5.76Mbps, HSDPA 7.2Mbps).   To my dismay, it’s running Samsung’s TouchWiz UI of which I haven’t grown to be a fan of on the mini-screen. In front there’s a 1.3MP CCD for video conferencing, on the flipside, a 3MP auto-focusing, LED flash touting camera; no HD video recording on this one.

Samsung mentions DiVX certification, first of any tablet and will most likely tie heavily into over-the-air movie and TV show rentals. This is a sexy looking slab of a gadget, and we cant wait to take a look first hand. You can expect for a European launch in mid-September, with the rest of the good Earth (US too) later this year.  Hands on action to come from the IFA show floor.

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http://galaxytab.samsungmobile.com/

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