Samsung has officially unveiled the long-rumoured Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9, alongside a new, thinner Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 – and both are just 8.6mm thin, making them the slimmest tablets on the planet. Yes, even thinner than the iPad 2.
Both Tabs feature the Android 3.0 Honeycomb interface with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface slathered over the top – the first time a manufacturer has monkeyed with Honeycomb. TouchWiz includes a Live Panel menu, letting you customise the home screen with pictures, social networking widgets, website links. There’s also a Mini Apps Tray featuring the most commonly used apps (calendar, music player etc.), and these can be launched while other apps are running.
The new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Which will be sold alongside the 10.1 slate launched last month) and 8.9 comes with 1280 x 800 screens, 1GHz dual core processor and support for Flash 10.2. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 features surround sound stereo speakers and weighs 595g – 6g less than the iPad 2. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 weighs 470g. Both models will be available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions, with microSD slots letting you boost storage by a further 32GB.
Samsung is keeping schtum regarding pricing and release dates for its new Tabs, but the Wi-Fi versions will apparently be available this summer.
