Samsung's new Galaxy tablet revealed

SAMSUNG has unveiled a bigger tablet as well as the high-end Android-based Galaxy S 2, the successor to its 2010 smash hit.

Samsung Galaxy 10.1

SAMSUNG unveiled a bigger tablet as well as the high-end Android-based Galaxy S 2 smartphone, the successor to its 2010 blockbuster, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona overnight.

South Korea-based Samsung, the world's second-largest maker of mobile phones behind Nokia, said the new devices would help it maintain double-digit operating profit growth at its mobile division in 2011.

The star product announced by Samsung overnight, just before the official start of Mobile World Congress tonight, was the Galaxy S 2, a super slim smartphone with a 4.3-inch Super Amoled screen, a dual-core chip and an 8-megapixel camera.

The handset can also record and play back video in high definition.

The new handset follows the widespread success of the Galaxy S, launched at last year's event. Samsung shipped 10 million units of the model in 2010.

Samsung on Sunday also announced a new tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which runs on the latest version of Android, called Honeycomb.

This new version of the operating system is built to be better suited to tablets. The Tab 10.1 features surround-sound speakers, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2 megapixel front-facing camera.

Samsung launched its first tablet to compete with Apple's iPad in the second half of 2010 and sold more than two million units within three months.

Over the same period, however, Apple sold 7.3 million iPads.

"The Galaxy tab was about being first after Apple," Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at research firm Gartner, said.

"The fact that it didn't sell a great deal doesn't matter. It wasn't supposed to."

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will launch in Europe in early March with mobile operator Vodafone Group PLC.

Thanks in part to its latest tablet and the Galaxy S 2, Samsung expects to ship around 60 million smartphones and tablets this year.