16 November, 2011
By Adnan
Samsung has had a rough year. Its flagship tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 based on the Android platform, is having a hard time taking off in the market. Credit for that goes to Apple, for being engaged in a vicious court battle with Samsung. Apple previously won an injunction in Germany where the court barred Samsung from selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Deutschland. Now Samsung has relaunched Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany with a slightly new design as well as a new name.
In the image embedded above, you can see that Samsung has slightly tweaked the original design of its Galaxy Tab 10.1. The screen size remains the same, only change that has been made is that a metal frame has been added around the device,. This product is now being called the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N in Germany, since the injunction was against the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung can sell this device in the country if Apple doesn’t win another injunction.
Apple is battling Samsung in court in a variety of countries, taking up the chance to block sales of their products in whichever country they can legally do so. Apple claims Samsung has blatantly ripped off the design of their products. In this case, Apple says Samsung copied the iPad’s design for their Galaxy Tab 10.1. While it is evident that both devices are strikingly similar to each other and given the fact Apple released iPad 2 first, Samsung’s position in this lawsuit couldn’t have gotten any worse when Samsung’s lawyers failed to different between iPad 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 during court proceedings.
Currently, sales of Galaxy Tab 10.1 are blocked in Australia as well, where the Korean manufacturer launched Galaxy Tab 10.1 in its original design. Soon enough, they were slapped with a lawsuit from Apple and Australia’s Federal Court ruled that Samsung can not sell their Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia due to the fact that they have copied Apple’s design.
Who knows, maybe the Galaxy Tab 10.1N would change things once and for all. This slight tweak in the design does add a decent bit of disparity between the two devices, the question is whether or not its enough for Apple.
