Samsung, which is currently carving up the Australian PC market at the expense of several traditional PC brands, has overnight revealed five new Windows 8 products, including the world’s thinnest Windows tablet and the company’s first dual-OS Android/Windows 8 convertible notebook/tablet.
The company has moved away from naming everything “Galaxy”, with their new wafer thin tablet called the Ativ Tab 3.
The device is only 8.2mm in depth and runs the full Windows OS. The 19.4-inch tablet sports a 10.1-inch screen, delivers 8.5-hours of battery life and includes an S Pen stylus that lets users write and draw on documents and enter data into applications.
Samsung also unveiled two Windows 8 notebooks, a Windows 8 all-in-one PC and the Galaxy NX, promoted as the world’s first interchangeable-lens camera, with built-in 4G LTE.
The convertible notebook/tablet with dual OS is the Activ Q, whose 13.3-inch qHD+ display delivers what Samsung claims is “the world’s highest resolution” of any PC at 3,200 by 1,800 pixels.
It also offers 2.8 times higher pixel density (at 275 ppi) than FullHD displays, the company said. The display slides up at an angle to reveal a hard keyboard and create a laptop-like look.
The 13.9mm-thick convertible lets users switch from the Android 4.2.2 to the Windows 8 OS with the press of a button and without rebooting. The convertible also lets users pin Android apps onto the Windows 8 start screen for launch from the Windows start screen.
The convertible’s HD screen, with 178-degree viewing angle, is optimized for outdoor use in “very bright sunlight,” the company said, and the display autosenses light condition to automatically adjust for indoor or outdoor use.
The Activ Q’s hinged design also enables the display to be flipped into a stand mode for watching videos. The display can be floated above the keyboard at various angles to provide multiple viewing angles.
Other features include S Pen stylus, Intel Core i5 CPU, 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM and 720p front video-chat camera.
SideSync is available on both the Activ Q and Ativ Tab 3 to let users view and control Samsung Android phone content. Consumers will be able to use the Q and Tab 3 to respond to a text on a mobile phone, view maps on a larger screen and display files on both devices to make editing easier.
According to Todd Lynton, the Director of IT at Samsung Australia, the devices will be released shortly in Australia.