Samsung Galaxy Tab Hands-On Preview: What You Might Expect

Essentially the forthcoming Tab will be a larger version of the Galaxy S phone launched in June, although you'll probably need to use VoIP over WiFi for phone calling in the US. Aside from a bigger 7-inch enhanced TFT display screen, providing 1024-by-400 SWVGA resolution, the Tab adds a 1.3 megapixel front- and 3.1 megapixel rear-facing cameras to the basic design. 

When released by the four major US carriers at various points later this year, it will come pre-loaded with Android 2.2 Froyo and Adobe Flash Player 10.1, so you won't require the same kind of firmware upgrade from Android 2.1 that you've needed with the Galaxy S phone.

The Galaxy S

As with the Galaxy S, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile have all separately announced plans to sell their own versions of the Galaxy Tab. Yet while all four carriers showed up for the smartphone launch, also held in New York, none were on hand for the Tab rollout.

At the New York City launch event on Thursday, though, Samsung let some US journalists (including me) play around with the GSM-enabled "European Union (EU) edition" of the phone unveiled two weeks ago at IFA.

Precedent here

There's surely a precedent here, since specs and apps do differ among the various renditions of the Samsung Galaxy S offered by US wireless carriers. Most notably, Sprint's edition, the Epic 4G, is the only one to be equipped with a built-in hard keyboard and front- and rear-facing cameras. But editions of the smartphone also vary among carriers somewhat in terms of onboard and expandable memory capabilities.

I found that the Tab's built-in WiFi worked fine for connecting to the Internet, playing back videos on YouTube, and conducting a video chat with another journalist involving use of both the front- and rear-facing cameras.