Samsung Ativ S smartphone and Ativ Tab UK releases detailed

Samsung’s Ativ S phone and Ativ Tab are finally arriving in the UK this week.

Both devices will land on December 14 (that’s tomorrow at time of writing) and are set to hit the shelves (both digital and physical) of a number of retailers.

The Windows Phone 8-powered Ativ S handset will be available from Clove for £442.80 SIM-free while Unlocked-Mobiles is going slightly lower at £424.98.

However, if you’re after a contract then Phones4U will be offering deals with Vodafone or O2.

On a Vodafone tariff you can get the Ativ S free as part of a 24 month contract for £33 per month with 600 free minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of mobile internet data.

Samsung’s Ativ S features a 1.5GHz Qualcomm S4 Snapdragon dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM and options for 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage, plus microSD capability for cards up to 32GB.

The external design and build is virtually identical to the Samsung Galaxy S3 Android phone and both the camera and display are exactly the same – that means a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED screen at 306ppi and an 8-megapixel f/2.6 primary camera with back-illuminated sensor (BSI), LED flash, 1080p video recording and some nifty digital stabilisation.

We’ve had the Ativ Tab in the office for a little while now and our full review should be going up on the site fairly soon.

It’s a decent Windows RT slate which does a better job of running Microsoft’s software than the company’s own Surface RT hybrid tablet.

That’s probably at least in part due to the choice of a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz with 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 305 graphics chip.

The Ativ Tab also comes in either 32GB or 64GB storage models and each has microSD storage capability for high-capacity cards up to 64GB.

The display is a 10.1-inch PLS LCD touchscreen (Samsung’s version of IPS) with a 1366x768 pixel resolution at 155ppi and is reasonably sharp, colourful and bright.

Clove current has the Ativ Tab listed at £538.80 but it’s sure to become available at other shops as well.