Samsung might not have been allowed to show off its Galaxy Tab 7.7 (the Galaxy Tab 10.1‘s little brother) at IFA in Berlin due to Apple’s injunction preventing them from selling it in Germany, but that doesn’t stop it being a very impressive little tablet.
Choosing the 7.7″ form factor means that the Galaxy Tab 7.7 is smaller, lighter and cheaper than its big brother. But more importantly it means that it is not competing so directly with the iPad which has so far shown the the 10″ market is not so much a tablet market as an iPad market. The screen is, however, a beautiful 1280×800 Super AMOLED Plus panel offering brightness and colour as yet unmatched by its competitors, and with the device coming in at only 335g (0.74 pounds) – it is as easy to hold as a paperback book but oh so much thinner. With a 1.4GHz dual-core ARM processor running the show and a 10 hour, it is also one of the most powerful devices available. Yup, I think we finally have a tablet contender – even if it is going to be notably more expensive than the upcoming Kindle Tablet from Amazon which will come in the same form factor.
It’s interesting that Apple’s “look and feel” injunction would prevent the 7.7″ Galaxy Tab being sold, being as it is just about as close to a phone in shape and size as a tablet, but that is something for their patent lawyers to argue about…