The new Samsung Galaxy Tab A

Samsung officially revealed its brand new Galaxy Tab A lineup and two devices were announced, Tuesday March 17, at an event in Russia. The two new slates sport mostly identical hardware and come in 8" and 9.7" display sizes.

The Galaxy Tab A tablets are the first to show Samsung's switch to the 4:3 screen ratio, which will reportedly feature in the new generation top-of-the-line Galaxy Tab S models. In the Galaxy Tab A range both sizes come with the same low resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels, which translates to the rather unimpressive 160ppi and 132ppi for the 8" and 9.7" flavors, respectively.

The tablets are powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, presumably within a Snapdragon 410 shipset. The 16GB built-in storage is expandable up to 128GB via microSD. A 4,200mAh battery is quoted to power the 8-inch model, which Samsung claims will be enough to last for up to 10 hours. The larger slate's battery capacity naturally gets a bump to 6,000mAh.

The larger of the two models also sports a dual speaker arrangement, over the 8-inch single one, and a 5MP/2MP camera combo on board.

The tablets sport a new design, compared to the Galaxy Tab 4 models, which they are supposed to replace. The new slates show a metal-looking back, with wireless charging. and they are reasonably thin at 7.5mm.

The 8-inch Galaxy Tab A is priced between RUB16,990 ($275) and RUB18,990 ($307) for the Wi-Fi-only version and RUB20,990 ($340) to RUB22,990 ($372) for the LTE-enabled one, with 32GB built-in storage ,and the 9.7-inch model will set you back exactly RUB 4,000.