Samsung's rather nifty 7-inch Galaxy Tab will shortly receive an update to Android 2.3 Gingerbread.
Recombu's source at Samsung said the update should roll out within the next couple of weeks, and will be made available to SIM-free devices first -- that is, not those bought on a contract from a network provider.
The update should be coming to networks soon as well, though. Three tweeted on Wednesday that the Tab would be getting the update 'soon', although it didn't give a date.
The bad news is that, like all 'droid updates for Samsung devices, you'll have to plug your Tab into a Windows PC and update it using Samsung's Kies software. In our experience, Kies is buggier than a pram race and less pleasant than a mouthful of ants, so we're not exactly looking forward to updating our Tabs.
The Gingerbread update will add user-interface tweaks and a download manager, among other features. The update could also make your tablet a little faster and more nimble in general.
Tab owners will still be smarting from the news that the 7-inch tablet will not be updated with Honeycomb, the tablet-optimised version of Android. We know losing out on Honeycomb is heartbreaking, but take solace in the fact we've been slightly underwhelmed with the Honeycomb tablets we've seen so far. The Tab remains an excellent Android device.
The next Samsung tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, should be out in the UK on 4 August, provided Apple doesn't stop it going on sale.
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Comments 5
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Anonymous 8 July, 2011 19:45
Got my update this morning.
Sprint Galaxy Tab, but not logged on to a network (use wifi and wifi tethering from my Galaxy S).
Anonymous 9 July, 2011 12:58
Got my update this morning but what is different in gingerbread? I wish they would make honeycomb work for the 7 inch tablets
ace9988 10 July, 2011 14:31
Yh, I'd agree with anonymous since honeycomb 3.2 is being optimised for 7" tablets, it'd be a better update than gingerbread before they start rolling out ICS which is the bigger picture in the update situation. Some of the flak could go towards google since they could've optimised honeycomb for 7" tablets at the same time as 10" tablets, but it seems they didn't plan honeycomb out properly (unfinished on release without flash and SD card support i believe). Hopefully they don't mess up ICS in a similar way otherwise it will hurt them
Anonymous 12 July, 2011 22:45
Does the wifi only version get this update too?
Anonymous 27 July, 2011 11:38
If it's like last time, you need to run Kies on a PC with Internet access and it'll get the update for you, then you install it by wire. Took an hour or so and more than one attempt, first time it complained that I didn't have 3000 MB free disk space on the PC. So, one to do when you have plenty of free time to finish it. Probably needs an equally generous amount of space in the Tab's internal Flash, too, although that's a guess. First try may have failed by PC losing connection to my home wireless network.