Samsung Shows Off Galaxy Tab, Vows Allegiance To Google Android

Samsung is making no bones about it: Google Android is its future. And with the revealing of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the company is showing that it's all in when it comes to Android.

At the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, Samsung finally pulled the curtain of the long rumored and teased Galaxy Tab, the electronics maker's touch-screen tablet and answer to the Apple iPad.

The Galaxy Tab weighs in at 0.8 pounds, packs a 7-inch touch screen and offers a host of other capabilities like HD movie and television play, music, e-reading, navigation, video calling, Swype technology

"This is not just another tablet. We call it a Smart Media device," Thomas Richter, Samsung's head of product portfolio, told an IFA press conference, according to a report from The Guardian.

The Galaxy Tab packs in the Google Android 2.2 operating system, or Froyo, meaning it can play Flash video. It is expected to hit the U.S. in coming months. The Galaxy Tab's pricing was not revealed. Along with introducing the long-awaited Android-based Galaxy Tab, Samsung at IFA also highlighted its allegiance to the Android platform, calling it its mobile operating system of choice.

"We are prioritizing our Android platform. Android is very open and flexible, and there is a consumer demand for it," YH Lee, Samsung Mobile's head of marketing, told Reuters this week.

And the proof is in the pudding. Samsung's recent rally around Android is evident in the Galaxy Tab and its roster of smartphones, which include the first Android device from Samsung, the Galaxy S.

It didn't take long before Samsung, recognized as the world's second-largest mobile phone maker, realized the power of Android, as the Galaxy S smartphone sold more than one million in the U.S. during its first month available.

And while Samsung also expects to leverage its own software, called bada, in future devices as well, it's putting the majority of its eggs in the Android basket, as Android's popularity continues to snowball with other device makers like Motorola and HTC hitching their device wagons to Google Android.

Android has seen a massive uptick in sales since it was first released in 2008 and has recently beat out the Apple iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry devices as the mobile operating system of choice. Last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that the company sells 1 million Android devices every five days.

The Android sales explosion pushed Android to 33 percent of mobile OS market share in the second quarter, according to recent data from the NPD Group, which beats out BlackBerry's 28 percent and the Apple iPhone's 22 percent.