Back when HDTV really took off a decade ago, displays everywhere started transitioning from the 4:3 aspect ratios with which we’d been familiar to much more widescreen ratios like 16:9, 16:10, or even those more extremely stretched. That may have made a degree of sense for entertainment hardware on which media consumption was the primary use-case, but what about general purpose computing devices like smartphones and tablets? While widescreen is still the standard, certain manufacturers have been pushing back against the grain, and especially on the tablet side of things, we’ve seen many successful models that retain the old 4:3 shape – the iPad chief among them. Lately, Android tablets have been reconsidering the value of 4:3 displays, and now it looks like Samsung might be the next manufacturer to follow that path, as rumors suggest the company is developing a number of new Android tablets with 4:3 screens.

Remember last week when we saw model numbers for half-a-dozen-some Samsung tablets leak? Supposedly, all these models will have 4:3 displays. Really, we could be looking at four distinct devices (with other model numbers maybe pointing to cell-connected variants): a new Galaxy Tab 8.0 and 10.1, and a new Galaxy Note 8.0 and 10.1.

All four of those tablets would reportedly run Snapdragon 410 SoCs, though the complete hardware picture is still pretty blurry, with no mention of important considerations like screen resolution. It could also be quite a while before we get the full story on these guys, with Samsung not expected to make an MWC announcement; instead, a launch might fall a bit closer to the middle of the year.

Source: SamMobile