The No. 1 thing to understand about the 18.4-inch touch-screen Samsung Galaxy View is that it isn't really a tablet. It probably shouldn't be understood as a tablet, and won't live or die on it's performance as a tablet. It's really a streaming TV.
That's what Samsung is telling me, and I'm willing to take it at its word. Other companies have tried the "big kitchen tablet" idea before, and it's never taken off. But we're in a cord-cutting moment, where an 18.4-inch, Wi-Fi and/or LTE-connected panel that stands up well on a table might offer some things to watch.
The Samsung Galaxy View has a big, 1080p screen which appears low-res if you're very close to it, but it's fine when you're 4 feet away, watching it like you would a kitchen or bedroom TV. It runs Android 5.1.1 on a Samsung Exynos octo-core processor.
But the real software star here is a custom tiled interface of streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, HBO GO, and the streaming interfaces from Comcast Xfinity, Time Warner Cable, and DirecTV. Other cable companies' interfaces may be coming in the future, Samsung told me. You tap on one of the big tiles, pick your show, and start watching.
The tablet-TV (TVablet?) comes with 32GB of storage, but it also has a MicroSD card slot under the back panel and a MicroUSB data connector so you can hook up external storage. Power comes from a proprietary adapter; there's a big battery in the device to let it run eight hours without being plugged in, if necessary.
The Galaxy View works. I'm just struggling to figure out whether anyone actually wants what it has to offer for its $599 price. Yes, people watch streaming TV, and cord-cutting is a real thing. I don't have a cable TV subscription myself.
But there are a lot of 19-inch TVs out there which people use in bedrooms or dorm rooms. They generally cost under $150, and the Galaxy View will cost $599. You can buy a 24-inch 720p Samsung TV for $150 at Best Buy and hook it up to a $50 Roku box or Chromecast, and you have a lot of what the Galaxy View is offering. That setup isn't portable, of course. But it comes with a remote control, which for many people is a more traditional way of accessing TV services from a distance.
That said, the Galaxy View has everything Android has, including all of the games and productivity apps. You can lay the Galaxy View down on a table and the kickstand snaps to put it at a comfortable angle for tapping on and viewing the screen. That way kids could do Internet research, or play Crossy Road in a big way. But once again, for $599, I'm not sure that's something people actually want.
The Galaxy View will go on sale Nov. 6, and we'll have a review soon afterwards.