Overall, we were very impressed with the Samsung Galaxy Tab - its size and chassis certainly make it stand out from the crowd.
We've used devices like the Archos 7 Internet Tablet before, but this is so much quicker and more powerful (not to mention more pocket-friendly) and just seems to make the tablet conundrum make sense.
We liked
The pocket-friendly shape is a real boon - you can pull this out to impress a girl in a bar and she won't even know you had it in your jacket pocket. She might not care one bit, but hey, at least the lines in your clothes are safe.
The speed of operation was, on the whole, quick and efficient, and the times it got a little bogged down seem more to do with early firmware than a real problem.
The screen is the right size for things like playing games, reading books and browsing the internet, and the email and messaging options are plentiful and easy to use as well.
We disliked
The Samsung Galaxy Tab crashed on us a couple of times, which is always worrying, but par for the course on pre-production devices.
The screen didn't blow us away either - it shows how good Samsung is in the display market that we consider it not being amazing as a negative, but we didn't get the wow factor of the Samsung Galaxy S.
The music player is similarly average - we need to investigate the sonic ability of it, but overall we think the interface could be a little bit better.
Verdict
Put it this way - if Apple had made this, there would be Jobs-fans crying in the streets, as it's a pretty darn neat device.
Android still needs to go some way to shake the nerdy reputation that comes from being the darling of the geek community, but things like the Samsung Galaxy Tab should show that it's come a long way since the T-Mobile G1.
One problem we can see, especially in the UK, is the fact that users can't have the same number on two SIM cards (our European brethren are allowed such a treat).
This means two contracts rather than one unified number, and that's going to grate a bit, as well as raise the price. However, Apple's managed it with the iPad 3G, so perhaps Samsung can repeat the trick.
But pound for pound, it out does the iPad at every turn (other than the larger screen size) and adds in a few treats like video and voice calling, a camera and Flash video playback.
The screen size, hand-friendliness and simple ease of operation make this a potentially awesome gadget - now we just need to find out the price to see if it's going to be really popular, so stay tuned for our full Samsung Galaxy Tab review.
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Liked this? Then check outSamsung Galaxy Tab: 10 things you need to know
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