Tuesday, November 2, 2010

My take on the Galaxy Tab

I got to fool around with the Samsung Galaxy Tab for a couple of days thanks to Mr. Donovan Chan and Advertlets. It's pegged in the tablet category, taking a stab at the iPad market.


As you can see, it's a lot smaller than the iPad at 7-inch TFT LCD with 1024 x 600 resolution (WSVGA) compared to the iPad's 9.7-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen with IPS technology.





It sits quite comfortably in your palm unlike the iPad which can sometimes feel clumsy to hold.

Both of these devices sport a speedy 1GHz processor. However, the iPad only has a memory of 256MB compared to the Galaxy Tab's 512MB. The Galaxy Tab has full Flash support thanks to Android 2.2 a.k.a Froyo, the iPad doesn't. Support for up to 32GB of storage of expendable memory, the iPad doesn't support memory cards. Hell, you can make phone calls from it via the speaker and microphone (no, you don't have to look like an idiot holding up the whole thing to your ear!), the iPad only does data and not calls.

The Galaxy Tab has front and back cameras, the iPad doesn't have any cameras at all. The rear camera is a 3 megapixel camera with flash. It does feel a little bit awkward holding such a big device to take pictures but it does come in handy! The front camera is a 1.3 megapixel camera to be used for its video calling feature.

In terms of hardware, looks like the Galaxy Tab is ahead in many aspects despite it's smaller size. The use of the other features that the iPad doesn't not support can be quite handy at times.

In terms of the OS, it still feels like the Android OS isn't really "made" for tablets and you can tell right away... It doesn't feel refined, more like 'plonked' in. Scrolling in the web browser, you will notice that it is not smooth and very choppy. Hopefully if the tablet segment takes off, Android will be more fine tuned for tablet devices in future.



Android 2.2 also known as Froyo!


What the address book looks like.

The calendar is something I've always loved about Android. Everything from calendar and contacts will be synced and backed up from your Android device via Google to your Google account.





So to wrap things up, it's great to see Samsung putting out a tablet device to take a poke at the market. I really don't know how well this will do but judging from what Samsung has done with it's Galaxy Tab, they sure have set quite a standard for the other manufacturers. It's a first chapter for Android with tablets and I'm pretty sure there will be a few more chapters to come.

How does it fair against the Apple's juggernaut iPad? To be honest, I hardly use tablets. It's a great device for browsing, surfing, checking emails and such. It's more of something you use to view stuff and there are plenty of people out there who will find tablets fitting comfortably into their lifestyles. I find that the iPhone is sufficient enough for me to browse when I'm on the go and then I have my MB pro to do the other stuff...

I'll finish off with a clip of an ad for the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

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