by Art Samaniego Jr.
This is an exciting year for a lot of us as Samsung recently showcased their latest products from bigger TVs, appliances for a smarter home, and of course, the latest gadgets to rock your world, during CES 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Samsung Goes Pro
A dedicated Enterprise line for tablets — this is what we’ve been waiting for from Samsung for a while now.
The Samsung Galaxy TabPro and the NotePro.
Both devices feature 8 and 12-inch versions, boasting premium design quality inspired by the recently released Galaxy Note 3: leather-like back with stiches and a plastic chassis made to look like metal.
Both tablets ship with the latest Android 4.4 Kitkat operating system that allows for faster multitasking among other features. Samsung also changed their user interface, big time. Migrating from TouchWiz, Samsung has introduced Magazine UX, a new visual interface that relies heavily on widgets for swifter access of apps. It does take a slight learning curve for navigating the UI, but once that’s out of the way, the experience is great. In retrospect, Samsung made sure you can still access apps the old fashioned way without the new UI.
One of the coolest new Pro features is Remote PC, allowing you to connect the TabPro remotely to a PC or Mac, perfect for IT professionals and people in tech support.
The NotePro and the TabPro boast an impressive specs sheet. Internals sport Samsung’s own Exynos 5 Octa (1.9 GHz and a 1.3GHz Quadcore processors) or a Snapdragon 800 processor, depending on the region. The 12-inch version has 3GB RAM and can multitask four windows at once, while the smaller 10 and 8-inch versions have 2GB of RAM and can multitask two windows on-screen simultaneously. All versions feature 2,560×1600-screen resolutions, 2MP and 8MP front and rear cameras respectively. Both come with 32GB or 64GB internal storage options, with expandable memory, IR blaster, and a micro-USB port for charging.
To supplement the Pro experience, Samsung is partnering with more than 11 developers to come up with exclusive content.
Wider Range of Ultra HD TVs
There’s no joking around with Samsung’s 105 and 110-inch ultra-high-definition televisions. Samsung is boasting their 105-inch curved UHD TV, which sports the same aspect ratio and experience as if you were in a movie theater. Under the hood, a QuadCore Plus chip that boosts overall performance powers the curved UHD. If not to make things more enticing, an ‘instant on’ feature been added as well.
As if their Smart TVs can’t get any hotter, they threw the Smart Hub Games Panel right front and center. It’s a UI dedicated for games and other interactive content. Samsung has developers like Gameloft and EA working on downloadable games. Samsung claimed that its panel is open for all developers, so do expect an amazing games library soon.
UHD Ecosystem
While Samsung teases us with their latest TVs, they’re now getting ready to expand the ultra high-def ecosystem, by offering UHD content streaming service through each company’s application and other technologies. This is 4K streaming we’re talking about, and this is going to be a major leap in how we watch online. In order for this to become possible, Samsung has partnered with a number of video streaming providers such as Amazon Netflix, Comcast, and DirecTV.
Basically, Amazon together with M-Go and Comcast will provide a separate section within their existing TV applications while Netflix will provide UHD picture quality for select titles depending on the viewers’ bandwidth via adapting streaming. DirectTV will introduce UHD content through RVU technology, Direct TV Ready, that allow consumers to enjoy pay-per-view UHD content on various TVs in any room within the home with just a single set-top box.
Samsung also launched their UHD Video pack pre-loaded with popular movies and documentaries in partnership with Hollywood production studios including FOX and Paramount Pictures. This will fall on Samsung’s Smart Hub and into the Multimedia Panel on your TV.
It might be worth noting that these TVs have won eight CES Awards, including the “Best of Innovations” award.
Smart Home
As we’ve said earlier, this is an exciting year for a lot of us. Samsung is prepping us for big things, and with these smart devices, it’s only natural for them to offer their service – the Samsung Smart Home, which integrates all of these devices: Tablets, TV, appliances, into a single platform. Samsung is collaborating with third-party companies to develop means how to create this home platform.
Many of us would agree that Samsung knows exactly how to make people’s eyes glitter with fascination. Because, that’s one of the few things Samsung is really good at, impressing people. And in the recent CES 2014 event in Las Vegas, Samsung struck another home run.