Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus Tablet: Too Pricey At $400?

Samsung has made it official: Its 7-inch Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus will arrive at U.S. retailers on November 13. Pre-orders start Oct. 23.

The Wi-Fi-only Plus model with 16GB of storage will cost $400 at Best Buy, Amazon, Tiger Direct, Fry’s and other retailers. Samsung’s Friday announcement didn’t mention price and availability of other Galaxy Tab 7 Plus models with 32GB and/or cellular connectivity, although it’s likely they’ll arrive shortly.

The Tab 7.0 Plus packs some impressive specs, including a speedy, 1.2GHz dual-core processor; 1GB of memory; the Android Honeycomb 3.2 operating system; a 1024-pixel by 600-pixel, 7-inch color display; a 3-megapixel back camera with LED flash and HD (720p) video recording; and a 2MP front camera.

It has a whopper of a price tag too, at least when stacked against new 7-inch color slates such as the Amazon Kindle Fire and Kobo Vox, both of which are only $200.

Yes, half of what the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus costs.

Is It Worth It?

Is the pricing an apples-to-oranges comparison? Not really. At least not from the perspective of everyday consumers, most of whom aren’t well versed on the virtues of dual-core chips, not to mention the advantages of Android 3.x (or 4.x) over Android 2.x.

Neither the Kindle Fire nor the Kobo Vox has a camera. And the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, with its 1.2GHz dual-core processor, is bound to be faster. The Kindle Fire has a dual-core processor, but Amazon hasn’t revealed the chip’s clock speed. The Vox has an 800MHz single-core CPU. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus has 16GB of storage; the Kindle Fire and Kobo Vox each have 8GB.

Still, it’s hard to justify a $400 tablet when perfectly respectable $200 slate–which, by the way, lets you read ebooks, watch movies, listen to music, play games, run apps, browse the Web, and check email–has most (if not all) of all the features you’d want from a tablet.

True, some users may want a front and back camera–or at least a front camera for video chat. But that’s probably not a checklist item for most folks. After all, your smartphone has a pretty good camera already, right?

Fierce competition is driving down the price of tablets, and that’s great news. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is a quality piece of work, but it may be too fancy for its own good.