Hasta La Gadget!

What now, Verizon? Just a few days after Big Red lowered the price of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab to $500 off-contract, Sprint’s version has shed $100 — which means you can now score it for $300 on a two-year deal. As long as you’re willing to put your name on the dotted line, that now means that Sprint can put you into a Tab for less money than anyone but regional carrier US Cellular, which offers it for a bargain-basement $200. Interestingly, Sprint’s shift comes on the heels of an LTE-tweaked version of the Tab for Verizon with a faster processor and better camera, suggesting that a WiMAX model could definitely be in the works these guys — which might be what this “industry first” event is all about early next month. Pure speculation on our part, but it’d make some sense.

Update: US Cellular wrote in to let us know that the $200 promotion on its version of the Tab has actually expired — now, you get two for the price of one at $399 after a $100 mail-in rebate. In other words, if you just want a single Tab, Sprint’s the best deal in town right now.

Sprint drops Galaxy Tab down to $300, undercuts everyone but US Cellular originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung is following Sony’s lead by enabling owners of its tablets and TVs to control their cable boxes and access content directly via IP from Comcast and Time Warner Cable. For Comcast users, a new Xfinity TV app on the Smart TVs brings an all new “web-like GUI” (that looks a lot like the new set-top box interface it’s currently testing) for accessing live TV, DVR recordings and VOD.Plans for the Galaxy Tab sounds just like the Xfinity Remote for iPad, with control and access to streaming TV and movies, with plans to add the ability to pause and resume across different devices in the future. Time Warner Cable followed up its partnership with Sony by announcing it’s streaming live TV over IP directly to Samsung TVs and tablets, as well streaming from a DVR to TV or tablet in another room. Both services are expect “later this year,” check the press releases after the break or our live blog from the event for more details.

Continue reading Samsung will offer access to TV, VOD from Time Warner & Comcast on its Galaxy Tab, TVs

Samsung will offer access to TV, VOD from Time Warner & Comcast on its Galaxy Tab, TVs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 20:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew that Honeycomb tablets would be a big deal here at CES, but one thing we didn’t expect was for Samsung’s Android Froyo-based Galaxy Tab to get a little spec bump already just a few short months after release. This one is strictly a Verizon special, stuffing in an LTE modem (while maintaining backward compatibility with Big Red’s 3G network), adding another 200MHz to the Hummingbird processor for a grand total of 1.2GHz, and moving the rear camera from 3 megapixels to 5. No word on pricing or a release date — but this definitely explains the recent price drop, eh?

Continue reading Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy Tab sprouts LTE, upgraded camera

Verizon’s Samsung Galaxy Tab sprouts LTE, upgraded camera originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New year means a new price for the Verizon-branded Galaxy Tab. Droid-Life has received word from a couple of VZW store employees that the big red network intends to chop a nice $100 chunk off its price for the 7-inch Android tablet. Though this move hasn’t yet been made official, the Galaxy Tab should soon be available to buy for $500, without any contractual obligations and plus a $60 movie rental voucher that can be redeemed in Samsung’s Media Hub or the preloaded Blockbuster Mobile app. You shouldn’t freak out if you’ve just bought a Tab either, as Verizon’s also said to be offering a benevolent refund for the difference in price to buyers of the Samsung slate who happen to have receipts dating from the last 14 days.

Verizon cutting Galaxy Tab price to $500, will refund any purchases from last two weeks originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Jan 2011 21:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It sounds like all of NVIDIA’s wrangling and cajoling finally paid off, if a couple of analysts are to be believed — both say the company’s dual-core Tegra 2 chipset is racking up wins in the tablet space. We’ve seen it seemingly raise the bar for smartphone silicon in the LG Star and tease us in slate after slate, but Citigroup’s Glen Yeung says that Samsung has “placed a sizeable order with Nvidia for Tegra 2 chips in the first half of 2011, geared for both tablets and smartphones,” and BMO Capital Markets analyst Ambrish Srivastava anticipates the next Galaxy Tab will be one of the devices that use it. If that sounds obvious, remember that Samsung was supposed to be producing a dual-core chip of its own. What could cause companies to embrace Tegra 2, if that’s indeed what’s happening? Any number of reasons, to be sure, but Glen Yeung also says that Google has made Tegra the reference design for Honeycomb, aka Android 3.0, and so Tegra 2 may sound like a fast track to victory in the budding tablet space. Here’s hoping it’s a good choice for consumers, too.

Samsung nabs Tegra 2 for Galaxy Tab 2, Google makes Tegra the Honeycomb reference platform? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Dec 2010 14:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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