Seoul - Samsung Electronics' new tablet, unveiled in
the US, is the South Korean electronics giant's latest attempt to
wrestle market share from Apple, but is not being heralded as an iPad
killer.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet launches on Thursday in the
US, Britain and South Korea, just weeks before Samsung is expected to
unwrap its revamped version of the original Note smartphone.
Samsung,
which Apple accuses of copying the design and some features of its iPad
and iPhone, hopes the enlarged version of its popular phone-cum-tablet
Note will resonate with consumers, and the device - with a stylus-type
pen and split-screen feature - has picked up positive early reviews from
tech bloggers.
That said, the price - $499 for 16GB of memory
and Wi-Fi-only, the same as the iPad - and competition from increasingly
smart phones, have left analysts doubting the new device will see off
the iPad.
Rival tablets
"When you look at the price
and overall consumer awareness about Samsung tablets, it's not likely
to be a big success," said Park Young, an analyst at Woori Investment
& Securities in Seoul.
"Tablets are getting cheaper and even
Apple is rumoured to be preparing a cheaper iPad. Consumers also tend
not to spend much on tablets any more as smartphones can do most of the
entertainment functions that tablets offer."
Samsung has been
keen to differentiate the Note 10.1 from rival tablets, which are
primarily used to consume media - highlighting the device's ability to
personalise and create. At Wednesday's launch event in New York, Moulin
Rouge movie director Baz Luhrmann and fashion designer Zac Posen were on
hand to demonstrate how they use the S-Pen stylus in their work.
The
Galaxy 10.1 is named after its screen size, which is slightly larger
than the iPad, and has impressed with a split-screen feature that allows
users to have two apps active side-by-side.
Samsung hopes the
bigger version of the original Galaxy Note, which has sold more than 10
million units since its October launch, can help it narrow the gap with
Apple in tablet markets, where it remains a distant second to the
California-based firm.
Apple sold 28.8 million iPads in January
to June, giving it 64.4% of the market, well ahead of Samsung's 9.9%
market share, according to research firm IHS iSuppli.
Supremacy
The
Note 10.1 uses Google's Android software and a quad-core processor with
1.4GHz clock speed. It boasts a 5 megapixel rear camera and 1.9
megapixel front-facing camera, which also detects the user's eye
movements to prevent the device from going into standby mode.
The 32GB model will sell for $549, versus iPad's $599.
A
US judge on Wednesday asked for the chief executives of Apple and
Samsung to speak to each other before a jury begins deliberating next
week in the high-stakes patent trial between the two tech titans.
The
two firms have gone toe-to-toe in a multi-billion dollar patents
dispute mirroring a struggle for industry supremacy between two
companies that together control half the global smartphone market.