As you can see from the gallery, both the 10.1 and the 8.9 look extremely similar, and boy are they thin. They measure just .33-inches thick, and as you can glean from this picture, they absolutely give the .34-inch iPad some real competition in terms of dimensions. The models we saw weren't final -- in fact, they didn't even power on -- but Samsung says the 10.1 will weigh 1.31 pounds and the 8.9 just 1.03 pounds. Both tablets have microSD slots, 3.5mm headphone jacks, and SIM slots, although there will be WiFi versions of both of them. The two tablets have the same array of cameras, which includes a 3 megapixel shooter with an LED flash on the back and a 2 megapixel lens on the front.
Internally, the Tabs will pack 1GHz dual-core processors. We're assuming it will be Tegra 2 since all the Honeycomb tablets thus far have used NVIDIA's silicon, but that's unconfirmed at this point. The 8.9 will be available with 16GB of storage and a 6000mAH battery, and the 10.1 will come in both 16GB and 32GB varieties and with a 6860mAH cell. Both are said to provide 10 hours of video playback. There are full specs of both of these in the press release below.
As we said, the two 10.1 and 8.9 models we saw prior to the launch weren't working units, but the hardware certainly seemed solid and way more polished than the original 10.1 that Samsung introduced back at MWC. Speaking of which, Samsung says it has no plans to bring that original version out in the US, but it will still hit Vodafone overseas.
TouchWiz UX
We know, we also cringed when we heard Samsung was planning to start adding its own software on top of Honeycomb, but TouchWiz UX actually adds a bit to the Honeycomb experience. You can see some of the new additions in the video below, but we're particularly big fans of the ability to resize widgets. Samsung also claims that will work with Google's own widgets. Additionally, its Mini Apps Tray, which hides on the bottom of the screen, is helpful for quickly launching apps, though we're not sure why this is needed with Honeycomb's own app launcher.
Beyond those main features, TouchWiz styling has been sewn throughout the OS -- the e-mail interface looks a lot like the one on the original Galaxy Tab and even the settings menu has been Samsung-ified. We're not going to make a call on the software at the moment, especially since we only saw it running on the older 10.1, but it certainly looks like it will add some useful features on top of Google's stock experience. We should also add that Samsung seemed to imply that in some regions the 8.9 and 10.1 would launch without the TouchWiz UX, but that it would be an update at a later time.
Pricing / Outlook
We wish we had more for you on this one, but Samsung simply isn't giving up the details on the pricing right now. That said, it is promising a summer arrival for the WiFi versions. Obviously, those pricing details are ultimately going to impact our end decision on these two new tablets, but if Samsung can rise above the rest and get competitive with the dollar signs, we'd say these rail thin tablets have a real shot of rising to the top of the Honeycomb tablet list.
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