Samsung unveils Ativ Q tablet running both Windows 8 and Android

Samsung Electronics Co, the biggest mobile-phone maker by sales, has introduced its first tablet capable of running on both Microsoft Corp Windows 8 and applications based on Google Inc Android software.

With the Ativ Q tablet, users would be able to share files between Windows 8 and Android applications, the company said at an event held to unveil the new device in London yesterday. The hinged device also comes with a keyboard that allows operation of the device like a laptop.

Shipments of Samsung tablets, No 2 to Apple, more than tripled in the first quarter from a year earlier, giving the Suwon, South Korea-based company 18 per cent of the market, a May report from researcher IDC showed. Apple, with about 40 per cent of the market, saw shipments increase 65 per cent.

According to  DJ Lee, Samsung's head of sales and marketing, the tablets were the result of people-centric innovation, and they were designed to provide consumers the flexibility to manage their digital lives on their terms whether they were in the office, at home or on the go.

Market research firm, IDC said in a report last month that tablets would be expected to surpass shipments of personal computers by 2015. Tablets are touchscreen computers that occupy a space between laptops and smartphones. Tablet shipments are expected to grow 45 per cent from this year to 332.4 million as PCs declined.

Samsung also displayed other products in different ranges at the event. Among them, the Samsung Ativ Q a tablet-laptop hybrid featuring a 13-inch display with a resolution of 3200 by 1800 pixels.

The company also introduced the The Ativ Tab 3 a more traditional tablet. According to Samsung it was the world's thinnest Windows 8 tablet, which was also pretty light.

The Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus is the successor to Samsung's Series 9 laptops and  comes with a 13-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 3200 by 1800 pixels.

The Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite, a more affordable alternative to the Book 9 Plus, has a display with a resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels and is powered by a quad-core processor that Samsung did not name.

The company  also announced an all-in-one desktop PC, named the Ativ One 5 Style with a 21.5-inch, 1080p touchscreen display, and an AMD A6 processor, 4GB of RAM, up to a 1TB hard drive, and a 720p webcam. The desktop also comes with four USB ports (two USB 3.0), HDMI input and output, and a 3-in-1 card reader.