Edible Apple

Apple last week unveiled the iPad 2, a thinner version of the original with a front and rear facing video camera. Still base priced at $499, Apple’s offering compares favorably to the Motorola Xoom and any other tablet looming on the horizon. And to be honest, though Apple may not win every category on a spec by spec comparison chart, it’s been said in a number of different ways that the iPad is about the user experience not how much RAM it has.

Last week we wrote,

Apple’s competitors like to brag about specs that most people find boring at best, or confusing and alien at worst. Apple gets that it’s not about what a product is in a vacuum, it’s about what one can do with a product when it’s put in your hands… Specs don’t sell tablets, user experience does, and that goes to the heart of Jobs’ oft-used analogy of Apple focusing on the intersection of technology and the liberal arts.

But Apple’s competitors are still spec-obsessed, and Apple’s next-gen iPad coupled with the same affordable price point is forcing Samsung to rethink its tablet strategy and pricing methodology altogether.

The South Korean Yonhap News Agency relays a quote from Lee Don-joo, executive VP of Samsung’s mobile division, about Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Tab 10.1 compared to the new iPad.

“We will have to improve the parts that are inadequate,” Don-joo said. “Apple made it very thin.”

Feature aside, Samsung also finds itself in a bind price wise. The upcoming Galaxy Tab, complete with a 10.1-inch screen and Android 3.0, was initially going to be priced higher than the current 7-inch Galaxy Tab. Apple’s iPad 2, however, is forcing Samsung to “think that over.”

The 7-inch Galaxy Tab was priced at nearly US$900 without a two-year contract from mobile operators, while the price of the iPad 2 starts at $499, with the most expensive model costing $829. Samsung did not announce the pricing details for the 10.1-inch tablet.

Now as for which parts of the Galaxy Tab Samsung finds inadequate, only the folks at Samsung can elaborate on that. But you can bet that the thinner iPad 2 threw them for a loop, not to mention the user experience offered by iMovie and Garageband. Then again, for all we know, the iPad 2s remarkable 10-hour battery life is what has them worried.

That notwithstanding, Samsung has subsequently clarified that plans to release the new Galaxy Tab this Summer remain on schedule. And for all you spec-hounds out there, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be available in both 16 and 32 GB varieties, will sport front and rear-facing cameras (2 megapixels on the front and 8 on the back), and a dual core Tegra 2 processor.