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Samsung introduces new flagship tablet

NEW YORK — Samsung today (June 12) announced a new flagship tablet device, the Galaxy Tab S.

NEW YORK — Samsung today (June 12) announced a new flagship tablet device, the Galaxy Tab S.

Launched at a glitzy event at Madison Square Garden in New York, the new tablet boasts the same full HD Super AMOLED screen introduced in the Galaxy S5 smartphone earlier this year. It is the first of Samsung’s tablet devices to sport such a screen.

In their presentation Samsung emphasized the importance of a good display: Its consumer research showed that many of the top uses for tablet devices — web browsing, watching videos, viewing documents — were primarily visual. The Super AMOLED display can show 20 per cent more colour, and has a hundred-fold higher contrast ratio than regular LED screens.The AMOLED screen also doesn’t require a backlight, meaning that battery life lasts longer and the device can be slimmer.

The tablet comes in two sizes, 10.5 inches and 8.4 inches, each one only 6.6mm thin. The devices come with Android’s Kitkat 4.4 OS, Exynos 5 Octa or Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 2.3 GHz Quadcore processors, 16 or 32GB internal memory expandable by up to 128GB of microSD card memory. They have a 8 megapixel rear camera and a 2.1 megapixel front-facing camera that takes full HD video. Battery life is rated at 11 hours for video playback. The Tab S also has the fingerprint scanner which was introduced with the S5, which means PayPal functionality.

The Tab S comes in two colour options, bronze and white, and the design of the Tab S, with its textured back and brushed metal finishes, shares a deliberate consistency with the Galaxy S smartphone.

But Samsung is tying the two devices in more than just a superficial fashion: With its SideSync functionality — first introduced to link phones and PCs ­­—­ users with an S5 can remotely access their phone on the tablet, using apps and answering calls. Users can even send media from the tablet — such as maps and webpages — to the recipient while the phone call is ongoing.

Samsung announced new content and services to go together with the tablet: Papergarden, a magazine service with content from providers suc as National Geographic Conde Nast magazines such as Vogue and National Geographic; Kindle for Samsung, access to Netflix in selected countries, and over 15,000 Marvel Comics with 3 months free membership to Marvel’s Marvel Unlimited app.

The Galaxy Tab S is expected to arrive in Singapore in the third quarter of this year. Local prices will be made available closer to the release date.

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