Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus now shipping

Last holiday season, the tablet market was a two-horse race between the iPad and the primary Samsung Galaxy Tab. It wasn’t much of a race, as the iPad cemented its standing as Apple’s latest iconic product, and the overpriced Tab collected dust. After releasing two larger Galaxy Tabs over the last yr, Samsung is now returning to its roots with a souped-up version of the seven incher. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, which is now listed as delivery from Amazon, might have an excellent tougher time selling than its predecessor did.

We like to put in writing about issues like tablet market share, however really it isn’t a winner-take-all race. A company could know full well that a product gained’t get any sizable market share. However so long as they will discover some method to profit off of it, they’re content. For Samsung’s sake, I hope that’s the case with the 7.0 Plus, as a result of it doesn’t have much of an opportunity this vacation season.

How could it? It’s an upgraded model of the identical tablet that couldn’t get any traction final year, when it was the only real Android pill available. Positive, the Nook Shade was there, but it surely was much less of a tablet then than it is now, with extremely restricted third-social gathering app support. Other options, like the Archos a hundred and one and Viewsonic G-Tab, weren’t important enough to be on most clients’ radars.
Stiff competitors

This 12 months, in addition to the dominant iPad 2, the 7″ Tab shall be going up in opposition to a number of other Android tablets which have additionally spent the 12 months sitting on store shelves. But the largest motive it’s in all probability doomed from the beginning will be described with two words: ‘Kindle’ and ‘Fire.’ Amazon’s content-subsidized pill is promoting for half the value of the 7.zero Plus. It has already racked up over 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 pre-orders (and counting). Those not offered on the Fireplace will be capable of purchase the Nook Color’s sequel, the Nook Tablet, for $250.

It’s true that neither of these tablets has the Android Market put in, so that is one factor that Samsung can dangle their hat on. But the Amazon AppStore is on the Kindle Fireplace, and-except for missing Google apps, Dropbox, Netflix, and Hulu Plus-it has a lot of the quality Market apps. Amazon additionally has its own alternate options to those apps.

If the Android Market is basically that big of a precedence for you, you'll in all probability soon have the ability to root the Fire and install a custom Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich ROM on it-in addition to the Market. There’s no have to pay $200 extra simply to get a extra conventional Android experience.

About the only other perk that the new Tab has over the Kindle Fire is that it has cameras. As pill cameras are normally mediocre (at greatest) anyway, this won’t seemingly sway too many customers.

So what we now have with the Galaxy Tab 7.zero Plus is a device tailored for somebody who: insists on a seven inch size, should have Google apps, demands cameras, refuses to hack, and needs to pay $200 extra. That ought to rack up not less than a few thousand sales for Samsung.