U.S. Cellular will also be offering the Samsung Galaxy Tab this holiday season for about $399 on a new, two-year contract.
The Galaxy Tab will be available on U.S. Cellular on Nov. 19 and that $400 price tag will be after a $100 mail-in rebate. The long-term costs may also be a lot, as it comes with the option of a $15 monthly plan for 200 MB of data or a $55 monthly plan for 5 GB of data.
The Samsung Android tablet will soon be available on all four major U.S. carriers and U.S. Cellular and each is taking a different approach to pricing. Verizon is offering the Tab for $599 with or without a data contract, AT&T is bringing it out at $650 with no long-term data contracts, Sprint will have it for $399 with a two-year data agreement and T-Mobile will also have it for about $400 with a contract.
As for the device itself, the Samsung Galaxy Tab sports a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen, a 1 GHz Hummingbird processor, a 3-megapixel rear camera, a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera and it will come with Android 2.2.
The U.S. Cellular Galaxy Tab will also be part of the carrier’s Belief Project. This means you won’t have to sign a second contract once your first one is completed. Now, I don’t know if you really will still be using this type of device in two years but at least it’s nice to know you won’t have to get on another long-term contract if you do.
Is the shotgun approach going to be enough for the Galaxy Tab to overcome the Apple iPad this holiday season? It’s too soon to tell but I don’t think having to sign another long-term contract for a “third” device is going to be that attractive. Additionally, the Apple iPad is not much more expensive when you’re looking at comparable versions and the average consumer may opt for the larger screen.