Tech

AT&T offers 17.3-inch Samsung Galaxy View 2 Android tablet as portable DirecTV viewing device

If watching TV on the go via your smartphone just isn't enough, you can haul around this massive tablet for $37 per month added to your wireless bill.

Written by Sean Portnoy, Contributor April 28, 2019 at 5:36 p.m. PT

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Samsung seems to have a bit of an odd fascination with gigantic tablets (albeit one that the buying public doesn't appear to share). In 2015, it launched a huge 18.4-inch Android slate, the Galaxy View, that weighed nearly six pounds. Undeterred by consumers' shift from tablets to smartphones for content consumption, the company is back at it with a new large-scale tablet that has a slightly smaller screen but a much bigger battery.

While Samsung sold the original Galaxy View through its normal channels, the Galaxy View 2 is currently available through AT&T, which has a couple of compelling reasons to offer the device to its customers -- namely, its existing DirecTV service and the streaming video service it has planned to launch later this year. These and other streaming video alternatives can be accessed through a TV Mode button and viewed on a 17.3-inch full HD touchscreen. A built-in kickstand provides support to hold the View 2 while you're watching it, as you may not want a 4.9-pound inanimate object sitting on your lap for long amounts of time.

See it now: Galaxy View 2 at AT&T

That's especially true as the 12,000mAh battery probably produces a not insufficient amount of warmth, more than doubling the power of the Galaxy View's 5,700mAh battery. It's also upgraded to an Exynos 7884 chip from an Exynos 7580 processor, and 3GB of RAM from 2 gigs of memory. You get 64GB of onboard storage -- with a microSD card slot to add up to 400GB more -- as well as a 5-megapixel front-facing camera and a quartet of speakers equipped with Dolby Atmos Sound technology.

Because it's being made available through AT&T, you obtain the Galaxy View 2 via monthly contract. In particular, you'll pay $37 per month for 20 months, or over $700, which is nearly $200 less than the original View costs at Amazon.com or Walmart.com. Do you think it's worth the cost to have a giant viewing surface for your binge watching, whether the original or its successor? Let us know in the comments below.

[Via Engadget]