Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 coming to U.S. this weekend, Players launching soon

Samsung showed off the Galaxy Tab 8.9 back in March at CTIA and yesterday they made the U.S. announcement official with a release date of 2 October. You will be able to find this new Android tablet for $469 for the 16GB model and $569 for the 32GB model this weekend. Samsung also revealed the Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0, essentially Android smartphones without the cellular phone capability.

Android Central has some hands-on impressions with the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and two new Galaxy Players. I am pretty happy with my 7 inch HTC Flyer and 10 inch Apple iPad 2, but do think an 8.9 inch tablet is an appealing size and would like to try one out. There should be some coming with LTE data functionality, but Samsung did not reveal those details yesterday.

The Player 4.0 and 5.0 look like solid alternatives for those who don't want an iPod touch and are fans of the Android operating system. These two Players are scheduled for a 16 October release date with the 4.0 (4 inch display) priced at $229 and the 5.0 (5 inch display) priced at $269. Neither of these has the traditional Samsung Super AMOLED Plus display and instead have LCD displays with 800x480 pixels resolution.