It seems Samsung’s a manufacturer caught in the middle of a really bad divorce.  Whether the company can take advantage of the situation is another matter.  The Korean manufacturer is facing fire on one end, battling Apple across the globe.  Then there’s Microsoft, with a sweetened deal that siphons royalties on Android devices as well as dibs on a WP handset.  Samsung’s also pushing its own OS, diversifying beyond Android.  But Samsung and Android still serve well for each other, catapulting Samsung sales and bearing some top-line Android devices.

With a surprise launch this morning comes the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, an eye-catching move to counter the Amazon launch of Kindle Fire.  It’s getting hot for the tablet market, emboldening Android’s tablet array just as we approach the holiday season.  It’s fodder for plenty of pundits as anticipation around the iPhone 5 builds as well.  Here’s a few recent unveilings to soothe your gadget appetite.

Samsung unveiled a new Android-based tablet labeled Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus amidst all the Apple chaos and Kindle Fire’s launch.  The tablet runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb, has a 7-inch screen display, 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 802.11n wireless support, is HSPA+ network compatible, available in 16GB and 32GB variants, and comes with a microSD slot that enables users to add up to 32GB of additional storage.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus will first launch in Indonesia and Austria by the end of October and will continue to roll out in Asia, the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world.  The price for the tablet is yet to be announced.

Samsung and Kindle aren’t the only ones jumping head first into the tablet market.  ZTE, one of China’s leading phone and network suppliers, is prepping to launch a series of tablets, one being built with Nvidia’s newest quad-core Tegra 3 processor codenamed “Kal-El.” It contains a fifth core to help save power.  For instance, during low-power tasks like web browsing or music playback, the Tegra 3 processor will power down its four cores and instead rely on its the fifth.

Developments like this are pushing the chip market as well, spurring it to innovate around mobile.  It’s created a secondary war in the chip market, with Tegra amongst the leaders in product performance and distribution partnerships.

Consumer gadgets love to egg on the holiday shopping season, anticipating an opportunity to turn over a lot of product with special deals. You’ll see a rush of devices trying to elbow each other out, a throng of devices thrown at buyers’ feet.  You can expect a lot of wow factor, and an infinite number of choices for buyers to choose from.  It seems the push works its way up the calendar every year, and this year it’s the war of OSs.