Samsung Galaxy Tab GT-P1000 Mobile Tablet Teardown

Overview / Main Features

Samsung announced their first wireless tablet device, the Galaxy Tab GT-P1000 at IFA, which garnered much publicity as the first true Apple iPad competitor. The 7-Inch tablet features a custom Android 2.2 (Froyo) build supporting an unheard of Android screen resolution of 1024 x 600. As a flagship mobile device within Samsung's Galaxy line of products, the Galaxy Tab is actually a functional mobile handset as well as tablet computing device running 3G (UMTS/HSPA) in 3 frequency bands. According to Samsung's micro-site for the Galaxy Tab, the 7-Inch tablet users can download applications from Samsung's home-grown Apps Store as well as digital media from Samsung "Hub?service. The Galaxy Tab distinguishes itself from the iPad by having built in Flash support (for a more universal web browsing experience) and gyro sensors (presumably for gaming purposes). Also, the Tab comes with a primary 3MP autofocus camera along with a 1.3MP front facing or video conferencing camera (a feature that the Apple iPad has yet to offer).

From a design perspective, however, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is more a scaled up smartphone than a full-size tablet device like the iPad. Inside, we find that the Tab has nearly the identical components as we have seen on the Galaxy S smartphone. Again, we see a similarly complex MCP with 8Gb MLC Flex-OneNAND + 4Gb Mobile DDR + 1Gb OneDRAM, PoP (Estimated) along with the Samsung "Hummingbird" apps processor. Just as we found on the Galaxy S, the Tab uses the Infineon PMB9801 baseband running a tri-band 3G radio.

Additions to the Galaxy Tab design is a 3-axis gyro from ST Microelectronics which is very similar to the one found on the iPhone 4 as well as a custom display driver IC from Samsung to drive the high resolution display (likely a hardware solution to overcome the Android 2.2 screen resolution limitations).

UPDATE: Since the first publication of this teardown analysis, we've discovered new insight to inform our display/touchscreen pricing. Previously, we priced the display and touchscreen as one unit, however, this was not representative of the supply chain as both the TFT display and touchscreen are sourced from different manufacturers. Upon further investigation, we found out that the yields in these large formation capacitive touch displays were very low - in the magnitude of 50% in some cases - and therefore needed to adjust our touchscreen pricing accordingly. Also, the TFT display - while not IPS - does offer higher than average viewing angles and thus deserved added premium to the display cost.

Target Market

Wireless Tablet Segment (Apple iPad 3G competitor)

Released

September 2010

Pricing and Availability

Pricing - An unsubsidized version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab is retails for 699 Euros or approximately $1000 USD.