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Galaxy Pad--Does it or doesn't it ?

I sold my iPad and got a 13in Air and a Galaxy Tab. Love the Tab, I keep it in the magazine pocket of my laptop case and pop it out if I need to look up something quick and often walk around at work with it in my back pocket. Navigation works great (waiting on a car kit). Its perfectly sized for eBooks and comics and magazines work well enough + the DPI is higher compared to the iPad. Web browsing is great if you get a (free) third party browser that supports full screen browsing. I also enjoy the fact that I just plug it into my Air and it mounts as a drive to drag and drop music and videos, which I don't have to convert to iTunes happy formats.

Battery life could be better and apps are limited, which are my two complaints. Battery will usually last me a day whereas the iPad could go 2 days. I never really used a ton of apps on my iPad though. Kindle, Pandora, Evernote, Square, PayPal, eBay, they're all on Android... the only two apps I miss are Netflix (hopefully coming early next year) and Flipboard, although Pulse does a really great job as well.

Also, works like a charm to create a WiFi hot spot to tether my air. That was the real kicker for me to get it - I'm paying the same monthly fee I would for a USB stick or mifi but for a little initial out of pocket I get a tablet, too!

For those comparing the Tab to an iPad though, I think they're different products who share similar features. My iPad was replaced by the air because the iPad is a viable computer. The Tab is more like a turbo charged, full sized PDA. Its a good companion to a computer but I wouldn't use it solo for work, and usually wherever it goes I'm bringing my laptop as well, although it saves me from having to pull it out and open it a lot of the time.
 
Are there any third party browsers that let you full hulu into thinking you're on a desktop and not a mobile device so that you can watching streaming videos.

Also where can I go to see what apps are available in the Market Place? I'd like to compare what's out there vs the App Store
 
I played around with the Samsung Galaxy Tab the other day and here are my impressions:

- Fast, snappy performance.
- Sometimes that performance "hick-upped".
- Swiping through pages of photos wasn't smooth like the iPad, it was like the difference between a 30fps video, and a 15fps video.
- More portable, but too small to be a tablet and too large to be a phone, the best way I can describe the way I felt about the 7" screen is: "meh", it's like the competition has started where Apple left off many years ago before Apple discovered 7" screens wouldn't cut it. Guess the competition didn't get the memo.
- Given the price of $599, I very much felt that people would sooner buy an iPad than this device given the option.
- I felt that I would only have bought the device, if it were 1/2 the current price- or less.
- I walked away thinking if this is the best tablet the competition can come up with, then that is really pathetic.
 
Sorry if this is slightly off topic

I love my ipad and wouldn't swap it for anything

That said I've been looking at buying a cheaper tablet for my 10 year old for Christmas and it looks like it's just been released.

The advent Vega :eek:

Looking at reports its got a faster processor and better battery than the ipad and it smashes the hell out of the ipad and Galaxy on price at just 245 pounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYtWxTGevO8

Have a look at the video and let me know if you lot thinks it's worth buying?
 
You can find featued & top apps here: http://www.android.com/market

I don't think I would ever entertain the idea of switching away from my iPhone, but Android is good for a tablet. A lot of reviewers are complaining its just a phone OS blown up, but I think its actually the reverse - Android seems to me more like a tablet OS shoehorned into a phone, and thats why you see all these Android phones with huge screens. Its still a little rough on the UI side but I heard the next Android update will bring a lot more polished look to it.

Oh, and I have to say, I love widgets. iPad really needs to implement widgets or some sort of Dashboard. I have right on my home screens a widget for my to-do list, live weather/news update, and controls for Pandora.

Here is pretty much a run down of my Apps, keep in mind that most of these are designed for Android phones so some of them are just blown up. The Tab handles this a million times better than the iPad with iPhone apps though, since everything is rendered properly, you don't get huge blurry text like an up scaled iPhone app, it looks proper. Images, however, can sometimes look blurry - much like running an app on iPhone 4 that hasn't been updated for the retina display.

Browsers
- Opera Mobile
- Dolphin HD
- Firefox Beta

Utilities / Work
- Remember the Milk
- Evernote
- PayPal
- ThinkFree (Is included with the Tab, lets you edit Office files and view PDFs)
- PhotoShop Express (Not really set up for a tablet yet)
- Kelley Blue Book

Instant Message / Social / VOIP / VideoChat
- Twitter
- Facebook
- AIM
- Google Talk
- Skype
- Yahoo! Messenger (supports video chat)
- Qik video chat

E-Book
- Kindle
- Nook
- Kobo
- Zinio Beta
- Press Display
- Borders
- ezPDF Reader (Its a PDF viewer with page animations like iBooks, 99 cents)

Video & Music
- AllStream (Samsung's built in DLNA tech, its like AirVideo but goes both ways. I can stream videos to my PS3, for example. Or I can stream videos from my computer to the Tab)
- Pandora
- Last FM
- TV.com
- Shazam
- TV Guide
- IMDB
- Fandango
- MovieFone

News
- Weather Channel
- Pulse
- USA Today
- NYTimes
- NPR News
- Yahoo! News
- Engadget
- CNBC
- Huffington Post
- Yahoo! Finance
- CNET News
- Financial Times (Optimized for Tab)
- Wallstreet Journal (Optimized for Tab)
- Associated Press
- Daily News
- TIME Mobile
- Bloomberg
- StumbleUpon

Cooking
- Big Oven
- Epicurious

Eating Out & Travel
- Yelp
- TripAdvisor
- UrbanSpoon
- OpenTable
- Kayak
- Priceline Negotiator
- Layer

Shopping
- MediaHub (Samsung's version of iTunes, very little content)
- Overstock
- Target
- Best Buy
- Amazon
- eBay
- Amazon MP3
- Google Shopper

Games
- Pocket Legends
- Zenonia
- SNesoid - Super Nintendo Emulator
- psx4droid - Playstation 1 Emulator
 
aberrero said:
As a reading device, the iPad is excessively large. I love it for PDFs, but for books it is not as convenient as a 7" or 6" display. I think there could be a real market for the Galaxy Tab, assuming they price it better.
Click to expand...

People who want an ereader first and foremost will almost always, without exception, buy a Kindle. They are cheap, small, light, and most people seem to really like e-ink. I can't see anyone buying a Tab to primarily use as an e-reader. If, like me, they will only read occassionally and want some of the other features available on tablets like the iPad, I don't see the Tab as a better value.

I'm almost positive the Galaxy tab, as it stands now, will come and go without making so much as a dent in the market.
 
I got my iPad 3g+Wifi on the day one. I just sold my iPad last week for the MBA. I still miss my iPad every now and again. I got to play around with the Samsung Galaxy tab at BB for almost hour. Although, the Galaxy tab seems good. But, the touch screen is not as good as iPad and not as fluid as iPad. Maybe, I am not just used to Droid. When I am getting a tablet again, it would still be iPad. I do plan to get iPad 2 next year.
 
The Galaxy Tab is more portable. Seems better for business everyday. Calendar, contacts etc... But the browsing experience is poor. The iPad remains King of the tablets.
 
It's kinda nice, I actually like the smaller size, but I also find it an issue, It feels like a huge phone because of android (even more than the iPad looks like a huge iPhone)
And the thing is that it's too big for any pocket and it's ridiculous to have a case for it because it's too small, and the unsubsidized price kills it, If it was 200-400$ I would think about it, but it's still something fresh and new that i like
I'd rather have an iPad because it's compatible with my Hundreds of dollars in apps and because the iDevices last aprox. a year and Android devices get overtaken by other ones in weeks
 
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