Samsung Unfazed by iPad 2 Announcement, Still Plans to Ship Galaxy Tab 10.1 As-Is

Steve Jobs and company made sure to present the iPad ecosystem in the best light possible when announcing the iPad 2, and may have distorted the facts a bit in the process (we'll let you be the judge of that, see here). But while Jobs was busy misquoting Samsung and painting a decidedly different picture of the Galaxy Tab's position in the tablet market, Samsung was handing out props to Apple, saying that the Cupertino gang essentially set a new bar by coming out with a thinner, lighter, and faster tablet at the same price point.

"We will have to improve the parts that are inadequate," Lee Don-joo, executive vice president of Samsung's mobile division, told the Yonhap News Agency. "Apple made it very thin."


Don-joo's comments prompted speculation that Samsung might delay the release of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in order to make improvements to the overall design to better compete with the iPad 2, but that's looking less likely by the day. Samsung over the weekend clarified that it has no plans of pushing back the release date and, for better or worse, will proceed as scheduled.

There's still the issue of price. Don-joo was previously quoted as saying that "the 10-inch [Galaxy Tab 10.1] was to be priced higher than the 7-inch [Galaxy Tab], but we will have to think that over." Samsung hasn't announced official pricing for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and even though it sports a larger screen than the original Galaxy Tab, Apple's iPad 2 announcement and recent iPad 1 price cuts might put enough pressure on Samsung to keep the pricetag the same.