Galaxy Tab A and Tab E (2016) press renders leak, new small Android mid-range tablets incoming

While last week’s Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge announcement will undoubtedly be the highlight of Samsung’s year, it seems the company is still showing interest in the tablet market. Evan Blass leaked a set of press renders for upcoming 2016 models of the Galaxy Tab A and Galaxy Tab E.

Both tablets have 7-inch displays, but we can assume that the E-series model will be the more affordable bare bones tablet, while the A-series will be more high end. Design-wise, very little has changed for the Galaxy Tab over the past couple of years, and it seems Sammy is sticking with the same design language this year.

Like its smartphones, the tablets have the traditional physical home button sandwiched between capacitive back and multitasking buttons. On the back, there’s a protruding Galaxy-esque camera right in the middle just above the company brand logo.

Clearly these two devices belong to the same family, but there are some differences between A and E-series. Most notable perhaps is the much slimmer bezel surrounding the 7-inch display on the Galaxy Tab A.

From left to right: Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2016 7-inch (x2), Galaxy Tab E 7.0 (x2), in black and white, respectively. pic.twitter.com/tVZa7qBfsz

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 29, 2016

While the leak in and of itself isn’t massive news, it perhaps worth using it to question how major Android OEMs will play the tablet market this year. Google launched its first home-made tablet, the Pixel C, last year despite the fact that Android (still) isn’t the most tablet-friendly operating system. Without multi-window support, and very few truly optimized and attractive apps, Android tablets are far from being the most attractive portable solution. Although, that may change with Android N.

What’s more, with virtually every analyst in agreement that tablet sales are diminishing, many companies seem hesitant to invest. TechCrunch‘s report on how ‘Tablets are Dead‘ won’t be doing the industry any favors either.

Samsung, however, has been one of the few companies to continue building tablets in multiple ranges for years. It even created its own, albeit slightly clunky, custom user interface for multi-window multitasking. Whether it’ll be as proactive as it has been in the tablet space is yet to be seen. As the old saying goes, only time will tell. Let’s just hope these two small mid-rangers aren’t all Sammy is planning this year.