Samsung doesn't bend under pressure, reworks the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to make it thinner than the iPad 2

We know that concept-to-development time in the mobile industry was shrinking dramatically in the last few years, due to the enormous competition, but the great minds at Samsung outdid themselves.

The incredibly thin iPad 2 was just announced a few weeks ago and obviously caught Sammy by surprise with its slim profile. Two days after, it vouched to go back to the drawing board, calling the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 that was announced just last month "inadequate" with its 0.43" (10.9mm) thickness.

So what's an innovative company like Samsung to do when it gets outdone? Cry? Blame our consumption-oriented society? No, Sammy just sat down, and totally reworked the chassis of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 to fit it in 0.33" (8.6mm), a tad less than even the iPad 2's 0.34" (8.8mm). The weight is also less than Apple's finest, at 1.31 pounds (595g). The profile slimming doesn't come at the expense of battery capacity, as Samsung claims the same 10 hours of video playback as before.

The new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sports 1GHz dual-core chipset, 10.1" screen with 1280x800 pixels, and a 3MP camera with LED flash on the back, plus a 2MP front-facing cam. It is not entirely clear if we will still have the Tegra-2 chipset here, or Samsung's Exynos, that we saw tested on tablets a few months ago. Not to worry, though, the chipset is still capable of Full HD 1080p video playback, and the tablet records HD video at 30fps via the rear cam.

Besides the Wi-Fi version that will come out first, we are also looking at HSPA+ variant with 21Mbps download speeds. As for internal memory, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will have 16GB and 32GB versions, plus a microSD card slot for extra storage.

Samsung has also created a tablet version of its TouchWiz interface to place over Android 3.0 Honeycomb, here's what the first OEM Honeycomb overlay includes:

"Samsung’s TouchWiz user experience is designed with a Live Panel menu users can customize to display a variety of content on the home screen including digital pictures, favorite Web sites and social network feeds. In addition, the interface includes an application tray of commonly used features such as task manager, calendar and music player which can be launched while other major applications are also in use, including large file downloads and document editing. This Mini Apps Tray provides a mixture of convenience and flexibility previously unheard of with tablet devices."

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 takes both fun and work seriously - it will come with the Readers Hub and Music Hub, giving you access to millions of books and songs, but will also sport corporate-friendly features to help IT managers, developed together with industry stalwarts like Cisco, Sybase, Cytrix and SAP.

Granted, for now Samsung is just showing the prototypes, but nevertheless one can only admire the swift reaction, which shows the type of determination that made Samsung stand out last year with phones like the Galaxy S, and the first brand-name Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab.

As for pricing and availability, how do June 8th for the Wi-Fi Galaxy Tab 10.1, at $499 for the 16GB, and $599 for the 32GB versions sound to you? Pretty good, eh? Let us know in the comments.

source: Samsung