15th December 2010

The Samsung Galaxy Tab

The Android tablets are here and one of the nicest ones around is the Galaxy Tab from Samsung.

First shown back in September at the Berlin tech show, it is a rival to the iPad that is worth checking out.

Physically it is about half way in size between an iPhone 4 and an iPad, with a slick black and white body and a 7 inch screen.

It's 12mm thick, but the overall size works, as you can hold it in just one hand, and easily accomodate it in a jacket pocket.

It doesn't have an aluminium body but the solid plastic does feel pretty tough (though I wasn't tempted to bounce it off the floor!).

Forgive all of the iPad comparisons, but that's the market beater, so we have to continue with them:

The screen, while not an AMOLED, is still very sharp, it comes with two cameras (one 1.3MP on the front for video calls, and a 3MP camera on the back for pretty decent shots).

This obviously beats the Apple, as it has none, at the moment.

Connectivity means you have 3G, Bluetooth, and WiFi, as standard, and storage comes in 16GB and 32GB versions, plus you can use a Micro SD card slot which means you could add more storage and match the 64GB iPad. And yes, you can use it as a phone - a big phone, as you can just slot your sim card into it, and speak into the mic at the bottom and listen at the top - just like Dom Joly - although adding a set of headphones probably looks cooler. As well as voice and video calls, you have standard sms/mms and emails.

It operates Android 2.2 or "Froyo" (Frozen Yogurt - Android name all of their OS's after deserts...go figure). And unsurprisingly it has Adobe Flash Player 10.1, which no Apple players do, so you get to view all types of movies on the web, which iPads/iPhones just won't allow you to do.

It has a 1GB processor so it means it works pretty quick and smooth, but just not quite as smooth as the iPad, which is a real pity, because it is a good device, and multitasking works well on it.

The battery life is pretty good, but if you boost the screen brightness up, and I did, as the auto-brightness tended to be a bit on the dim side, then it will suck up more juice. Samsung claim up to 7 hours of life when continuously playing a movie on it.

Access to the Android Marketplace means you can totally personalise it, and make it a tablet device that gets you all the information you want for your lifestyle, along with your types of games, etc, but the number of Android apps designed for tablet size devices and screens is still relatively small, but will increase pretty quickly.

In terms of day to day usability, it will beat the iPad in certain areas and fall behind in others - there is no knock-out winner, and this is still a developing and progressing arena. It's great for media browsing, and the 7 inch screen is very good for movie viewing (I had to rip myself away from watching Toy Story 3 on it - picture and sound quality are great).

You won't use it as your day to day phone (though you could), so you'll have to get another sim card if you want to use the 3G feature, but it's the price if you want to buy it outright, that is the problem. It will cost you €635 if you want to buy it without a contract, which is a lot, but it is available from €79 on selected bill pay tariffs on Vodafone, O2, Meteor - and it must be doing something right, it has been selling out at The Carphone Warehouse. Look out for good deals - there is still talk of a non-3G version which could be more affordable.