The cellular-enabled mid-end Android tablet will cost $320 at full retail, and precede the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Note 5 smartphones to market on August 19.
The countdown has officially started for the very swift US launch of Samsung’s latest flagship phablets, but if you’re interested in something even bigger and much cheaper, the Galaxy Tab A may well steal the spotlight away from the overpriced S6 Edge+.
Unveiled for “international” territories about five months ago in two separate screen variations, the sequel to last year’s GTab 4 finally adds a US carrier to its distribution tally. Or an “Uncarrier”, as T-Mobile likes to be referred to, given it has stopped doing contracts a long time ago.
For some reason, Magenta likes its Android slates small, currently selling only the LG G Pad F 8.0 and 7-inch Alcatel OneTouch Pixi 2, and gearing up to welcome the Tab A 8.0 in its midst on Wednesday.
As always, the most convenient purchase method will see you pay nada upfront for the GTab A, then monthly fees of a little over $13 for a couple of years, bringing the grand total to $320. That’s roughly 90 bucks more than what Amazon charges for a Wi-Fi-limited 4:3 8 incher with 16 GB internal storage and 1.5 GB RAM.
The Galaxy Tab A variant due on T-Mobile in less than a week should raise the random-access memory bar to 2 gigs, and it might even offer 32GB digital hoarding space. The display resolution is nowhere near as impressive, at 1,024 x 768 pixels, and the quad-core 1.2 GHz processor, 4,200 mAh battery and 5 MP/2 MP cameras sound adequate but short of remarkable.
Oh, and on the software side of things, Lollipop will naturally run the show, likely in a 5.0 rendition. Overall, the bang for buck factor is satisfactory, which makes up hope other US service providers may ultimately follow T-Mo’s suit, and perhaps spread the LTE love to the larger Tab A 9.7 as well. Fingers crossed.
Sources: TmoNews, T-Mobile Newsroom
