Samsung is getting ready to unveil the successor to its Galaxy Tab S flagship tablet before the first half of the year is over.
A new report by SamMobile claims the South Korean electronics manufacturer is scheduled to take the wraps off the Galaxy Tab S2 in June. The report says we won't be seeing just one variant of Samsung's new flagship tablet but four.
Samsung is set to introduce a smaller Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 with an eight-inch screen and a larger Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 to compete with larger flagships such as the iPad 2 and the Nexus 9. Both big and small-screen devices will come in Wi-Fi only versions as well as Wi-Fi and cellular versions.
All four tablets are expected to sport an ultra-slim profile, even thinner than Apple's lightweight iPads. Rumors suggest the Galaxy Tab S2 will have a thickness of just 5.4 mm, more than half a millimeter shy of the iPad Air 2, and a weight of 260 grams for the eight-inch model and 407 grams for the larger tablet, making them Samsung's thinnest and lightest tablets to date.
Under the hood, the Galaxy Tab S2 is believed to run on Samsung's own octa-core 64-bit Exynos mobile processors with up to 1.9 GHz maximum clock speed, four Cortex-A57 and four Cortex A53 cores, and a hexa-core Mali-T760MP6 GPU. RAM is expected to be at 3 GB, while built-in storage is up to 32 GB with a microSD card slot for expanding the memory.
All variants feature a stunning 2,048 x 1,536 AMOLED display, and will run on Android Lollipop 5.0.2 out of the box, although customers can likely expect a decently quick upgrade to the latest version of the mobile platform when the tablets become available. The camera software is acceptable, with an eight-megapixel shooter on the rear panel and a 2.1-megapixel secondary camera for video chatting.
The Galaxy Tab S2 is expected to be available in many markets worldwide upon release, including the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America, China, Hong Kong, and India.
Last week, Samsung announced the official U.S. release of its Galaxy Tab A tablets, which also come in eight-inch and 9.7-inch variants like the Galaxy Tab S2. However, the Tab A tablets are designed with mid-range specs and features with a mid-range price, making them great choices for average users who don't mind having last year's technology on their devices. For techno-buffs who want the latest and greatest devices though, the Galaxy Tab S2 is the latest tablet to look out for and, if the report is true, it won't be for long before we can get our hands on Samsung's latest devices.
Photo: Sham Hardy | Flickr
