With a screen that’s larger than most conventional tablets, the Samsung View out last week in Singapore defies easy definition.
This “entertainment companion”, as the Korean electronics maker calls it, sports an 18.4-inch touch screen and carries the promise of long-lasting battery life to play back movies.
The resolution is a modest full HD for such a large screen, but it isn’t so bad since there is scarcely little 4K content for now. The difference isn’t clear for such a screen size unless you look carefully enough.
That’s what Samsung will be betting on. The full HD screen also lets it save costs for a gadget aimed at sharing between family members. It can’t be too expensive.
The basic Wi-Fi version goes for S$898 while the 4G+ one goes for S$998. Both come with 32GB of storage and support for microSD cards offering up to 128GB, so you don’t have to worry about running out of space for your movies.
The Galaxy View also packs a hefty 5,700mAh battery, which is unsurprising since the large screen will use up the juice pretty fast while playing back videos.
Otherwise, the device is pretty modest in other aspects. Packing 2GB of RAM and a 1.6GHz octa-core processor, it should still run other apps well but won’t set records in benchmark scores.
Of course, the big question is why you’d want to lug around a machine that weighs about 2.7kg – that’s more than twice as heavy as many thin and light laptops.
Possibly, you’d want to use it in a classroom, as part of some interactive lesson, with the help of an app called Superstar Teacher that Samsung has included.
Or, you might want to share kid-friendly content with your child, such as games and e-books, which are part of another included app called Samsung KidsTime.
One thing’s sure, though. At least it’d be too heavy for a small toddler to carry around much and won’t be so easily thrown around.
