Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android Tablet coming July 22nd, pre-order now

As Cersei said to Ned, “When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” You can apply this quote to the Tablet Wars, and if King Robert Baratheon was the iPad, and Joffrey Baratheon the iPad 2, then is the Galaxy Tab 10.1 Robb Stark?

Perhaps that doesn’t work because Joffrey isn’t actually Robert’s son and…okay, as you can see I have been watching too much of HBO’s brilliant Game of Thrones TV series. Trying to find suitable analogies in a fantasy epic for the battle for dominance in the emerging tablet market might be a bit of stretch. But it’s true to say that the overwhelming market leader, Apple’s iPad 2, will soon have a real fight on its hands.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is Samsung’s second kick at the tablet can. Actually, technically it’s their third. Their first attempt was the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab released late last year, and while it was well-made and a great device, it suffered from a number of handicaps that prevented it from being a big success, such as only using Android 2.2, and a cheaper Wi-Fi model not initially being available.

Samsung’s second attempt was announced at this year’s Mobile World Congress in February. The original Galaxy Tab 10.1 (now called the 10.1v in Europe) would be Samsung’s first Honeycomb tablet. It was very similar to the Motorola XOOM — it also ran stock and Android 3.0, but had a better 8MP camera and was lighter. It would have been very successful if it wasn’t for the elephant in the room: The iPad 2…. Read More [via futureshop]