This spring is gearing up to be very interesting. The rumors are flying about both an upcoming new iPad and a new Samsung Galaxy Tab.
According to the rumors, Samsung will launch the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 11.6 at Mobile World Contress in Barcelona at the end of this month. The new tablet will (again unconfirmed) have a 11.6 inch screen with a resolution of 2560×1600 and be powered by a 2GHz dual-core Exynos 5250 processor. Some rumors talk about a quad-core processor, but I personally find that unlikely in this first version.
The operating system will, not surprisingly, be Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Despite the bigger screen, the actual size of the tablet is said to not be much larger than the existing Galaxy Tab 10.1.
As soon as Apple releases one product, rumors start about the next generation. But it seems very plausible that an iPad3 will be released this spring (the rumors talk about March). Here rumors talk about a quad-core processor in the 1MHz range (but the rumors are all over the place which processor it will be and exact clock speed), and a new graphics chip driving the 9.7 inch display with a resolution of 2048×1536 pixels, double the resolution of iPad2. A redesigned interior to allow a bigger battery is also probably, based on leaked pictures of the case. 4G LTE support is also a pretty good bet. The iPad3 will supposedly be slightly more bulky that the existing version, about 1.5mm thicker.
I guess time will tell, but this spring could be very interesting for tablets, and the summer/fall will be interesting for smartphones. Expected launces of iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3 and phones from RIM with Blackberry OS 10 (QNX-based and rumored to be able to run Android apps) are the ones I see as the most interesting.