Samsung revealed the pricing and dates for its two new Galaxy Tab 2 tablets at an event in San Francisco.

The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 and 10.1 are Samsung’s first tablets to run on Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Google’s Android OS.

The 7-inch model will launch in the US on April 22 at $250 for 8GB of storage. Pricing for the 16GB and 32GB models is unknown at this time. The 10.1-inch version is set to release on May 13 at $399.99 with 16GB.

The specs

The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 and 10.1 are the successors to the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, respectively. The 7-inch version packs a 1024×600 display and 1GHz dual-core processor, while the larger 10.1 boasts a 1280×800 resolution and a similar CPU.

TechRadar went hands-on with the tablet at Samsung’s European Forum in Prague in February. With front- and back-cameras, the 7.0 is poised to compete directly with the Kindle Fire, especially at that price. The 10.1 may struggle to find a foothold at $400, though.

Both versions of the Galaxy Tab 2 may seem underwhelming in power given that both the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus (1.2Ghz) and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 (1.4Ghz) pack more powerful processors

Ice Cream Sandwich delays

The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 was originally slated to be released in March, but the date came and went with little word from Samsung. It was eventually reported that the tablet had been delayed until “late April” due to problems with the Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS.

ICS is meant to unite the GUI aesthetics and functionality of tablets and smartphones, but it’s had its share of setbacks. Hopefully the extra month or so has given Samsung enough time to perfect the new tablets.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That seems to be Toshiba’s motto as the company debuts its new Excite tablet line on April 10.

The Excite tablets have kicked things up a notch with Tegra 3 processors and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but the rest of the song sadly remains the same.

A size for all tastes

The Toshiba Excite line attempts to cover users of all walks of life, with a junior-sized Excite 7.7 at the small end, a more traditional Excite 10 (Toshiba AT200 in the UK) that attempts to go head-on with the new iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and a downright gargantuan Excite 13, a first of its kind with a spacious 13.3-inch screen.

But are these kinds of options what the consumer is really looking for? In an era where the iPad brand is becoming synonymous with all tablets, throwing different sizes against the retail wall to see what sticks may not excite consumers (pardon the pun).

Additionally, the fractured Android tablet market and the variety that exists therein may be the ultimate undoing of Android tablets. Simply put, the marketplace is already too confusing for consumers and app compatibility can be hit or miss.

Same as it ever was

Worse yet, Toshiba appears to be making the same strategic mistake in pricing that all Android tablet makers have made thus far – trying to match financial wits with Apple’s iPad.

The Excite 10 (known as the Toshiba AT200 in the UK) will hit US stores in early May priced at $450 (£399) for 16GB – a modest $50 less than the smallest capacity new iPad, at a time when last year’s iPad 2 can be had for only $399 (£329). (Pricing gets a little more competitive at $530 for 23GB and $650 (£449) for 64GB, but these are Wi-Fi only.)

Timing is everything

Even more perplexing, the Excite 7.7 arrives in early June at $500 (around £315) for 16GB – $50 more than its bigger brother and even matched with the entry-level new iPad, presumably due to the higher quality AMOLED display. (A 32GB model gets a little more reasonable at only $580 (around £365).)

While Toshiba’s Excite tablets boast niceties such as 1GB RAM, SD card slots (micro on the 7.7, full size on the 10) and cameras that match the new iPad, there may be no compelling reason to choose either of these models – especially with a $200 (around £125) Google Nexus tablet rumored to be arriving this summer.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That seems to be Toshiba’s motto as the company debuts its new Excite tablet line on April 10.

The Excite tablets have kicked things up a notch with Tegra 3 processors and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, but the rest of the song sadly remains the same.

A size for all tastes

The Toshiba Excite line attempts to cover users of all walks of life, with a junior-sized Excite 7.7 at the small end, a more traditional Excite 10 that attempts to go head-on with the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and a downright gargantuan Excite 13, a first of its kind with a spacious 13.3-inch screen.

But are these kinds of options what the consumer is really looking for? In an era where the iPad brand is becoming synonymous with all tablets, throwing different sizes against the retail wall to see what sticks may not excite consumers (pardon the pun).

Additionally, the fractured Android tablet market and the variety that exists therein may be the ultimate undoing of Android tablets. Simply put, the marketplace is already too confusing for consumers and app compatibility can be hit or miss.

Same as it ever was

Worse yet, Toshiba appears to be making the same strategic mistake in pricing that all Android tablet makers have made thus far — trying to match financial wits with Apple’s iPad.

The Excite 10 will hit stores in early May priced at $450 for 16GB — a modest $50 less than the smallest capacity new iPad, at a time when last year’s iPad 2 can be had for only $399. (Pricing gets a little more competitive at $530 for 23GB and $650 for 64GB, but these are Wi-Fi only.)

Timing is everything

Even more perplexing, the Excite 7.7 arrives in early June at $500 for 16GB — $50 more than its bigger brother and even matched with the entry-level new iPad, presumably due to the higher quality AMOLED display. (A 32GB model gets a little more reasonable at only $580.)

While Toshiba’s Excite tablets boast niceties such as 1GB RAM, SD card slots (micro on the 7.7, full size on the 10) and cameras that match the new iPad, there may be no compelling reason to choose either of these models — especially with a $200 Google Nexus tablet rumored to be arriving this summer.

Via: CNET, Toshiba

Is Amazon’s Kindle Fire 2 on the way?

While the outside world panic-buys pasties, we’ve got greater things on our minds: new stuff! For tech fans the last week’s been like Christmas: we’ve been inundated with exciting new things.

The most obviously exciting shiny new thing is the Techradar website itself, which has been completely redesigned – and we mean redesigned in a “Windows 8 Metro” way, not a “New Apple TV user interface” way.

As Editor Paul Douglas explains, “There was a lot of content on the old site, but finding it wasn’t always that simple.” Now, it is. The Techradar site is faster, cleaner and can get even the most stubborn stains out of your clothes at just thirty degrees.

In Depth
Amazon Kindle Fire 2 release date, news and rumours

We’re not the only shiny thing that’s got people excited this week. The new Sony Alpha e57 camera is looking pretty tasty, as is the new Nikon D800.

As Amy Davies says, the D800 is “probably one of the most highly anticipated DSLRs, and most widely rumoured cameras, of the past few months”. Now it’s finally official we’ve got one squirrelled away in our labs, and Davies has been uploading stacks of images as well as a video run-down for your excitement and delightment.

New Apple TV reviewed

There’s also a new and shiny Apple thing: the new Apple TV, which our Apple expert Graham Barlow looked at until his eyes went boggly.

That, er, distinctive interface aside, it looks like the new Apple TV is a pretty solid bit of kit, but he was honest about its shortcomings: if you’ve got other Apple kit it’s a handy thing to have – “at this price you should really consider getting one because it integrates wonderfully with your current setup”, but “for everyone else, even with the addition of 1080p HD, there’s no compelling reason to buy an Apple TV over other media streamers right now.”

Meanwhile Apple’s arch-enemy Amazon is up to something: instead of a Kindle Fire 2, it seems the retail giant intends to launch a Kindle Fire 2, a Kindle Fire 2 and — wait for it — a Kindle Fire 2. That’s what the latest reports suggest, anyway: the firm is apparently working on three Kindle tablets for three different price points.

The cheapie gets an 800 x 600 seven inch display, the mid-range one a 1,280 x 800 seven-incher and the top-end one an 8.9inch, full HD 1,920 x 1,200 screen. No other details have leaked just yet, but they will sooner or later.

Can a digital locker really work?

Remember UltraViolet, the digital locker service that would take the movie business by storm by giving everybody a digital licence for the content they buy on disc? While it hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, 20th Century Fox says it’s going to be a big deal – which is why it hasn’t provided any content to the service.

Eh? “We have been working on UltraViolet since the beginning, and we view it as a very serious work in progress,” the studio’s Danny Kaye said. “We want to make sure that [it] is as good as it can be.”

There’s something of a chicken and egg scenario here, we reckon: Fox won’t provide the content until the service is better and more widely supported, but the more content it has the better and more widely supported it will become.

As Marc Chacksfield reports, the Fox executive vice president just wants to see a few tweaks: “the improvements that need to be made are everything from how UltraViolet works [to] the support it has been given.” In other words, it’s absolutely brilliant and every aspect of it needs to be changed. That’s promising, isn’t it?

While Fox isn’t currently providing content, Sony is: its first UK UltraViolet discs will ship in June. Meanwhile Dixons says UltraViolet is here to stay. Senior category manager Gary Hearns told us that the entire retail industry is behind the service. “This thing is not going to disappear in 12-18 months. This is permanent,” he said.

Should we believe him? Dixons, you may recall, told us that HD-DVD’s future hadn’t been decided when everybody and their dog were dumping it back in 2008. To be honest, we didn’t recall it either: we used Techradar.com’s new, improved search system. We told you the new site was good.

Amazon Kindle Fire 2 rumours rounded up

The Kindle Fire has been a big success stateside, though it sadly hasn’t yet made it to the UK.

However, there is plenty of speculation and rumour about what the Kindle Fire 2 could bring to the party – and whether it will be available in the UK.

So we’ve rounded up all the suggested Kindle Fire 2 specs, release date and more and put together this little piece to share them all with you.

Kindle Fire 2 release date

The Kindle Fire 2 is set to land in spring 2012, according to DigiTimes, which reported that Quanta Computer has already been given the order to start producing the new device.

However, on March 8, Digitimes suggested that the second Kindle Fire wouldn’t launch until the second half of 2012 – and that there would be more than one version of the tablet.

On March 26, rumours emerged that Taiwanese chassis manufacturer Catcher had received an order from Amazon for a new tablet.

The Kindle Fire 2 screen will be bigger

The Telegraph – and many others – predicts a Kindle Fire 2 vs new iPad summertime tablet fight-fest based entirely on a single post by the not-always-that-accurate DigiTimes, which says that the Kindle Fire 2 will have an 8.9-inch touch screen and will begin manufacturing in the first quarter of 2012.

That may well be true, but Digitimes also reports that the Kindle Fire 2 screen will be 9.7 inches, or maybe 10.1 inches. Perhaps the Kindle Fire 2 is made from potatoes and powered by clockwork elves.

Further rumours in early March 2012 suggested that the Amazon Kindle Fire 2 will land in both 8.9-inch and 10-inch flavours.

An analyst writing in February 2012 predicted a 9-inch Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, as well as a refreshed 7-inch model by the middle of 2012.

Chad Bartley of Pacific Crest has increased his Kindle Fire 2012 sales estimate from 12 million units to 14.9 miilion units, partly due to the expected new models.

“We are raising our 2012 sales forecasts to 14.9 million from 12.7 million,” he wrote in a note to investors.

“But we believe there is an upward bias, particularly from the new 7 and 9-inch models, which we expect to launch in mid-2012.”

The Kindle Fire 2 processor is a quad-core Tegra

That’s what Boy Genius Report predicted back in May, anyway: Amazon was “planning on releasing at least two before the end of the year… the big boy? That’s codenamed ‘Hollywood’ and will be based on the Nvidia Tegra 3 which will bring a screaming quad-core processor with a 500% performance increase”.

That would come in handy, as some reviews have pointed out that the current Fire is a bit slow, but if it’s coming there’s no way you’re getting it for $200. Amazon may be losing money on every Kindle Fire, but there’s losing money and there’s losing enormous amounts of money.

The Kindle Fire 2 is the real Kindle Fire

Speaking to Gdgt, a “source” claimed that the Kindle Fire 2 is the tablet Amazon really wanted to make, but couldn’t get out in time for the pre-Christmas shopping period.

The Kindle Fire 2 operating system is Android, sort of

As with the first Fire, the Kindle Fire 2 should run Amazon’s own fork of Android, which adds a nifty interface to Google’s OS. Expect integration with the Amazon app store and services rather than Android market and Google books.

An early March source also claimed that Amazon has reduced its E Ink orders (the fancy screen technology found on Kindle e-readers).

The Kindle Fire 2 display won’t be a hybrid

A hybrid e-ink/LCD screen is one for our Kindle Fire 2 wish list, although we don’t expect to see it on the next Kindle Fire.

The Kindle Fire 2 specifications might include some missing features

There are some obvious omissions from the current Kindle Fire – GPS, a microphone, cameras – but we’re not sure the Kindle Fire 2 needs them: if it wants to be an iPad rival then yes, such things are important, but they’re not necessarily deal-breakers for sofa surfing.

The Kindle Fire 2 name probably won’t be Kindle Fire 2

If a launch is imminent, Amazon won’t want to annoy existing Kindle Fire customers by suggesting their shiny new tablet is already obsolete. It’ll be called something different, such as Kindle Burny. OK, probably not Burny.