Samsung Teases ‘Galaxy View’ Tablet
Samsung Teases ‘Galaxy View’ Tablet
REPORTING FROM BERLIN—Samsung had a little surprise at the end of its Galaxy Gear 2 launch presentation: a tease of what appeared to be a large tablet, called the Galaxy View, coming next month.
According to the 20 seconds of video (below), which is pretty much all we know about this thing, the Galaxy View seems to have a cover that becomes a kickstand, and it’s probably a multimedia-focused tablet rather than a productivity-focused tablet.
Samsung has had large tablets before. Last year, it introduced the 12.2-inch Galaxy NotePRO (pictured), and the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2, which were supposed to be productivity-focused and generally considered to be sales failures. Samsung is eliminating the “Tab Pro” line this year, the company told me.
Apple, meanwhile, is widely expected to be launching a 12.9-inch “iPad Pro” soon, either at its event on Sept. 9, or at another event in October. That larger tablet has been in the works for a few years, but the design may only have come into its own this year thanks to new iOS 9 featureslike split-screen multitasking, which take advantage of larger screens.
Considering that the Tab Pro wasn’t a market success—in general, productivity-focused Android devices tend not to burn up the charts—it makes sense for Samsung to retrench and turn its large tablet into, essentially, a small TV. We’ll see next month. For now, here’s the video that Samsung showed at its event.
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