A few days with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Wow, this slate tablet is thin! In fact, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is currently the thinnest 10" tablet on the market. At 8.6mm thick, it barely beats the iPad 2 which is 8.8 mm thick (converting 0.34 inches to 8.636 mm doesn't work because Apple uses 8.8 mm in its specs). At any rate, can you really notice 0.2 mm of difference? Probably not. You won't find support for microSD cards on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. You'll need the Motorola Xoom if you need to read microSD cards on a larger Android tablet.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 that I am currently testing was provided to me by Sprint. This is a Wi-Fi tablet and I'm sure we can expect a 4G version for Sprint fairly soon. The 4G Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is currently available from Verizon.

This is the first device running Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) that I've really had the chance to use. I've played around with Android 3.0, but I didn't have the opportunity to spend this kind of time with a device running this OS. Overall, I think I like Honeycomb, but I'll need to get used to the screen-only navigation because I'm still used to buttons.



Copy/paste is certainly easier on Honeycomb. Plus, the multitasking experience is significantly enhanced. Gmail is optimized for the larger screen and it's nice to view calendar events next to your month calendar on a large device like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Plus, I like the tabbed browsing that comes as a standard feature on this device.

I'm still getting used to Android 3.0 on this device and since my HTC ThunderBolt still runs Android 2.2, I find myself reverting to old habits. I'll be spending some more time with this device and I'll be sure to post some additional thoughts about the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Android 3.0 Honeycomb.