Samsung Launches Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus In India

After starting the year by unveiling two new smartphones, Samsung has now launched an upgraded version of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 called Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. The new Tablet is the latest addition to the Galaxy Tab range, the company's last Tablet launch was Galaxy Tab 7.7 (the world's first super AMOLED plus Tablet).

The Tablet has a 7 inch WSVGA PLS (1024x600pixel resolution) capacitive touchscreen display and runs on the Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system (with Samsung's TouchWiz UX user interface). It is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and has 1GB of RAM (improvement from a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM in its predecessor). Users have the option of selecting between models with 16GB and 32GB of internal memory (Galaxy Tab 7.0 had only 2GB) which can be further expanded an additional 32GB with microSD card.

The Tablet has a 3 mega pixel auto focus rear camera with LED flash that can also record high definition videos (720p) and a 2 mega pixel front facing camera for video calling (similar to its predecessor). On the connectivity front, the Tablet has Bluetooth v3.0, Wi-Fi (with Wi-Fi Direct) and 3G and it also comes with a USB 2.0 port. Additionally, the Tablet comes with pre-installed Google apps, A-GPS, Polaris Office (users can create or edit PowerPoint, Word and Excel documents) and supports Flash.

All the Samsung Hubs like Social Hub that integrates messaging of E-mail, IM and SNS (social networking service); Music Hub for searching, downloading and listening to music; and Readers Hub that has over 2.3 million e-books, 2,000 newspapers, and 3,000 magazines in up to 49 languages have been added to the device. The dimensions of the Tablet are 193.65mm x 122.37mm x 9.96mm and its weight is 345 grams. Samsung has provided a 4000mAh battery in the Tablet that is similar to the battery in Galaxy Tab 7.0.

The price of the Tablet is Rs 26,499 and its competitors in the Indian market will include Apple's iPad 2 (starting from Rs 29,500), Acer Iconia A500 (Rs 26,915), IdeaPad Tablet K1 (Rs 28,784), Asus TF101 (29,929) and Sony Tablet S (29,990).

Our Verdict

The Tablet is a decent one (a definite improvement from the original Galaxy Tab 7.0), although the company could have improved the battery in the device. Additionally, the price at which it is being offered is not that appealing and could cause problems in its acceptance among customers. Samsung should learn from the recent price slashing phenomenon (read here for more) and make its devices more competitively priced.