Samsung haven’t been afraid to push boundaries of size in the past .. the original Galaxy Note was groundbreaking for its size, and that size is now commonplace in mobile. In tablets, Samsung has equally pushed into the larger end of the market, with the NotePro 12.1″ tablet last year, and now this year, they’ve got an even bigger trick up their sleeve.
The Samsung Galaxy View is an innocuous name for a decidedly conspicuous tablet that’s a whopping 18.4″ across. This is a tablet clearly designed for media consumption, being larger than most laptop screens. While the Galaxy View runs Android, it’s somewhat customised; Samsung have developed a custom home screen for quick access to media content, some of which you can see in the picture above.
Being as large as it is, there’s a kickstand built into the Galaxy View to help you hold the mammoth beast upright, or propped up when laying down. There’s also a handle cutout towards the top of the panel to help you lift it — this tablet isn’t a couple of hundred grams; it’s a staggering 2.65 KILOGRAMS heavy. Beyond its size and weight, the specs are mostly middle-of-the-road:
- Display: 18.4″ 1080P
- Chipset: 1.6Ghz octa-core processor
- Memory: 2GB of RAM
- Storage: 32/64GB on-board, microSD expansion
- Camera: 2.1MP front-facing camera
- Battery: 5,700mAh (rated at 8 hours of video playing)
- OS: Android 5.1 (Lollipop)
Being media-centric, there’s high quality stereo speakers included in the unit, and it will be available in a WiFi and LTE configuration .. though how this is a tablet for mobile use, thus justifying LTE, is a little bit beyond me. At this stage there’s no details on pricing or availability.
This is a tablet that could be quite useful in a number of scenarios; for cooking and watching a recipe or instructional video in the kitchen, for viewing videos on the go on a gigantic screen, and it could be good in the business space too, as a touch-panel information kiosk rather than using a no-name brand device with limited functionality.
What uses can you come up with for the Samsung Galaxy View? Note, any comments suggesting it would be good for bludgeoning a home intruder will result in hearty chuckles.
