Samsung Galaxy Tab Active Officially Announced, a Rugged, Business-centric Tablet

Samsung has so many tablets on the market that it’s hard to keep track which are the low-end models and which are the top-tier ones. To confuse us even more, the South Koreans have added a new tablet model to their line-up: it’s called Samsung Galaxy Tab Active and it’s “built specifically for business.”

Samsung didn’t make a fuss about the launch of the Galaxy Tab Active, but they issued a detailed press release for us to learn everything about their new device. According to the said press release, the new tablet features an anti-shock body that allows it to survive drops of up to 4 feet and it’s IP67 certified, thus water resistant and dust proof. Citrix Ready and SAP-certified for SAP’s Work Manager and CRM Service Manager applications (whatever that means) and it packs a removable battery that promises up to 10 hours of autonomy.

Hardware-wise, the Galaxy Tab Active comes with a Snapdragon 400 processor with quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex A7 CPU and Adreno 305 GPU, 1.5 GB of RAM, 16 GB of native storage, and microSD support (up to 64 GB). The rugged tablet has an 8.0-inch LCD display with 800 x 1280 resolution, 3.15 MP primary cam with LED flash, 1.2 MP secondary cam, and a 4,450 mAh battery.

It’s running Android 4.4.4 KitKat out of the box with TouchWiz on top of it, and, surprisingly enough it has a C-Pen stylus. Naturally, support for handwriting and note-taking apps will come pre-loaded.

In terms of connectivity, the Galaxy Tab Active comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, NFC, and microUSB 2.0. There’s also an LTE-enabled variant of the device.

The South Korean company officially revealed that the WiFi-only Galaxy Tab Active is already available for pre-order in the US and that the first units will be shipped by the end of the month. The price is a quite prohibitive, though: $699.99. Check the full list of specs and features on Samsung’s website here.