Samsung and Apple are into court battles because of the claims of the latter copying the designs of the former. The Galaxy Tabs are one of those products that said to have been copied from the iPad. But amidst the controversies, it had enjoyed some success behind Apple. It provided some alternative for those who either have no money to spend on shinier devices or just hate all products by Steve Jobs.

Users are expecting another product when the Galaxy Tabs 2 was announced. This was during the time when the rumors of the release of the iPad 3. But when the news about the specifications of the new tablets by Samsung came out, there was nothing to be impressed about.

All the hardware remained the same as the original. There is the dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 which is the same with the one on the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. This processor is not an improvement over the original’s Exynos processor. Actually, the Exynos is faster at is clocked at 1.2 GHz while the Tegra 2 is clocked at only 1 GHz.

The screen resolution is also the same which is depressing for Galaxy Tab loyalists. This is probably because of the news that the iPad 3 will have retina display and their favorite tablet has no improvements on this area. The 10-inch version will remain at 800 by 1280 pixels and the seven-inch version will stay at 600 by 1024 pixels.

While tablets are now transitioning to 4G LTE connectivity, the Galaxy Tab 2 remains at 3G. Just like the original, you have a choice between 3G and Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi only models. The speeds are the same as original: 21 MB/s for download and 5.76 MB/s for upload.

The only improvement on the Galaxy Tab 2 is the interface as it now sports the latest Android version, Ice Cream Sandwich. This version is the best looking version of Google’s mobile OS besides offering a slew of new features. Ice Cream Sandwich is Android’s answer to the simple elegance of Apples iOS 5.

With all of these, it seems like the Galaxy Tab 2 is just the original upgraded to the latest Android OS. ICS is good but we would have expected something better in terms of hardware from a company such as Samsung like what ASUS did with their Transformer Pad. There could have been added functions such as NFC or, as mentioned, support for 4G LTE. No prices have been released yet for these devices. But there are rumors that they will be sold at a lesser price than the original. If this is true then the Tabs are worth a look in terms of practicality. But performance wise, the new tablets by Samsung are depressing.