Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 Release Date Delayed: Is Ice Cream Sandwich To Blame?

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 launch has been delayed until the end of April, reports Pocket-lint. Both the 10.1-inch and seven-inch versions of the tablet were said to be released in March, as previously promised by the company.

But Samsung is now saying that they will start to ship at the end of April, possibly due to Ice Cream Sandwich related setbacks. Pocket-lint reported that a spokesperson from the Korea-based company said that Samsung and Google need more time to work on the Android 4.0 software to tailor it to tablets.

The ICS update has already begun its rollout on smartphone devices such as the Galaxy S2, the predecessor to the long-awaited Galaxy S3. UK owners have begun upgrading their handsets through Kies, but Galaxy Note owners are still facing a delay.

Although no official reason for the delay has been announced, the newest version of Ice Cream Sandwich has been spurring some problems. Earlier this week Sony detailed the differences between ICS and its predecessor Gingerbread.

According to a developer blog related to the company, the new treat-themed update was described as more intensive when it comes to resource usage. This means that as the software's applications become more advanced, more CPU power and RAM are required. The data operations are also said to be slower, resulting in delayed start up times for applications that aren't optimized for the ICS. The Galaxy Tab 2 will be the second tablet to feature Ice Cream Sandwich, with the first being the Motorola Xoom that received the update earlier this year.

The Galaxy Tab 2 will feature a seven-inch display, dual core 1GHz processor and 1GB of ram, similar to the previously released model. In terms of internal memory, users will be able to choose between a 16 GB and 32 GB version of the gadget.