Samsung New Tab S To Challenge Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPad Air

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930), the leader in the smartphone market is now striving to lead the tablets market as well, which is presently dominated by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). The company recently announced Galaxy Tablet S, which it claims to be the thinnest and lightest to date. With this a challenge has been posed to Apple and Sony.

Better specs than Apple, Sony

Samsung for the launch of the new tablet organized an event at New York, where it revealed the Galaxy Tab S. This is an 8.4 inch device weighing as less as 294 grams and only 6.6 mm thick. Larger, 10.5 inch model too was revealed, which is equally thin, but weighs 465 grams.

The sensational tablet from Sony, Xperia Z2, is 6.4 mm thin and weighs 439 grams to which the new tablet from Samsung is very close while the iPad Air is bulky tablet comparatively. It weighs 469 grams and is 7.5 mm thick despite being smaller than the Sony and Samsung tabs at just 9.7 inch.

The smaller 8.4 inch version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S is much favorable than iPad mini as the latter is quite thick at 7.5 mm and bulky also with 331 grams of weight while the screen is almost 0.5 inch smaller.

In terms of raw specifications, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s screen too is trounced by the screen of the new Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) tablets. The Korean firm offers a screen resolution is 2560X1600 pixels and it is Super AMOLED with enhanced color reproduction. This works out to have 359 pixels per inch resolution in the 8.4-inch model case. While on the iPad mini the resolution is just 326 pixels per inch.

Tablet sales gap narrowing

It is worth noticing that while Samsung sells 13 million tablets per quarter globally, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) sells 16.4 million, according to ABI Research. This indicates that Samsung is very close to catching up with Apple in terms of tablets sold. In the past one year, the Korean firm has been able to gain 10 percentage points of market share from the U.S firm. If this trend continuous this year too, then the dominant position enjoyed by Apple in the tablets market will be taken over by Samsung.