Honeycomb 3.2

Samsung’s seven-inch Galaxy Tab was launched last year on September 2 at the IFA in Berlin and as of April of 2011 they managed to ship six million units worldwide. A year later, the Korean company has updated the tablet with a thinner form factor and a speedier processor. It’s also gotten a new name to convey the enhancements to buyers, the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. According to Samsung’s press release, the new version supports faster 3G HSPA+ connectivity and runs a speedier 1.2GHz processor versus the “Hummingbird” 1GHz chip found inside its predecessor. It also features WiFi Channel Bonding which bonds two wireless channels into one for improved network connection and data transfer at up to twice the speed.

The device is 9.96mm thick and weighs in at 345 grams. This compares to 11.98 millimeter depth and 380 grams of weight of the original Galaxy Tab 7.0. The front camera is of a 2.0-megapixel variety (1.2 megapixels on the original model), and RAM has been bumped up from 512MB to 1GB. On the software front, the Plus runs Android Honeycomb 3.2 which is optimized for seven-inch devices, in addition to Samsung’s latest TouchWiz user interface. Other specs are left unchanged, including 16/32GB of built-in storage expandable via a microSD card slot, a three-megapixel camera on the back and a 4000 mAh battery. The new devices launches at the end of October in Austria and Indonesia, Samsung said, followed by a U.S. launch and the global roll out. Full specs after the break.

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According to “industry sources” who spoke to Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes, Google is about to release Android Honeycomb 3.2 to select tablet makers at the end of July or early August:

Google is expected to release its Android 3.2 OS to production partners at the end of July or early August, according to industry sources. Asustek has indicated it will launch Android 3.2-based tablets soon, while Huawei Technologies also said it will roll out a 7-inch Android 3.2 tablet in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, CNET confirms that Google is already pushing out the Honeycomb 3.2 update to the Motorola Xoom, hoping to bring the software to other tablets “in the near future”.

Android 3.2 is a minor update that will improve hardware acceleration and bring optimization for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors that power many top-selling Android smartphones and tablets. The software update will also bring improvements in Google-created apps, including Movie Studio, Movies, Music and Widget. It will also have a new compatibility mode for apps called zoom-to-fill. “Imagine viewing your app at the size of a phone screen then zooming in about 200 percent,” Google explains on the Android Developers blog. And as we explained earlier, this Honeycomb version also takes into account the popular seven-inch tablet form factor, which continues to be in abundance…

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This is my next reports that Google will update Honeycomb to version 3.2 with support for tablets with seven-inch screens, in addition to Qualcomm processors and Nvidia’s Tegra 2 chip. They also heard that the software update will contain the obligatory bug fixes and better hardware acceleration plus updated widgets and apps such as Movie Studio, Movies and Music. Motorola’s Xoom will apparently get the update in the “next few weeks”. Three independent sources have confirmed these tidbits, telling the publication:

Android 3.2 will be the last Honeycomb point upgrade before Google opens up the Ice Cream Sandwich freezer, and it will indeed run on a “range” of screen sizes, meaning that proper 7-inch Android tablets are about to become a reality.

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