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Galaxy Tab 10.1 Vs. iPad 2 Review
DeviceGuru writes "DeviceGuru's 10-inch tablet smackdown pits Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 against Apple's iPad 2. At price parity the iPad 2 is probably a better bet for the average user since it's a more stable, near-perfect device with a rich assortment of apps for nearly every possible function you'd like to perform on a tablet, reasons the post. However, with the Samsung tablet's cost of goods rumored to be around $215 versus $260 for the iPad 2 for comparable models, Samsung could drop its 10-inch tablet's price to $425 and pose a serious challenge to Apple's device. But will they...?"
If you can go on Newegg you can already get a 7 inch dual-core tablet for $300. Or you could get the Transformer for $400. Pretty soon Archos will release their own 10 inch dual core versions for sub $400. Heck the Viewsonic G Tablet has been out since last year for $300. Competitors will drive down the price of these tablets until they've pushed margins so low we finally get sub $300 10 inch tablets. Until then however I think the iPad 2 is just better bang for the buck.
Except actual users don't, you know, give a shit about Flash. http://blogs.forbes.com/elizabethwoyke/2011/07/08/taking-the-pain-out-of-tablet-typing/?partner=yahootix From the article: The study, which polled 1,011 U.S. tablet users in June, found that typing large documents (more than 500 words) was the chief frustration among respondents, netting a 44% response. Other tablet features were also singled out as irritations, but less vehemently. Battery life, for instance, got a 36% response while “limited connectivity” earned 23%, “not enough apps available” got 19% and “no flash” 3%.
Every Android vs iPad review, summed up:
"The iPad is the best product, hands down, but if you don't mind dealing with a bunch of issues, the Android tablet is a strong contender."
It's like all reviewers need a horse race, and will bend over backwards to try to say nice things about the Android tablets. Do you think they'd do the same if the tables were reversed?
Disclaimer: I got my galaxy tab for free, so I have a little extra love for it.
I've been using the tablet for a couple months now and I'm pretty happy with it. Since the Android 3.1 update came out, it fixed a lot of the initial software issues I had with the device. My biggest annoyance is the lack of Netflix support. But overall, it's been great for web browsing and standard tablet activities.
Pros:
Cons:
In the deeper parts of the device I'm sure I could find complaints, but as a web browser/email client and occasionally playing games on it, my Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been a good experience (again, since 3.1 came out).
The 3.0 firmware that was originally on the Tab was really buggy. I had lots of rendering errors when visiting various websites (Google News was a big offender). but they fixed all my major issues since then.
Its not what it is, its something else.
If units sold means a better product then Britney Spears is one of the best musicians in the world.
I've had an iPad since the day it launched. And I do like the hardware and I prefer the screen ratio to the Android tablet widescreen - the page size is better for reading magazines and comics.
Then Woot had a sale on refurbed XOOMs and I bought one. Imagine, I can just plug it in with mini-USB and transfer files or SSH them over wifi. I can replace the soft keyboard with a better one. I can have mail on my 'desktop'. Basically, there's very little I can't control, especially with Tasker. The screen on the XOOM is not quite as good as the iPad's in sunlight, and of course the iPad has a far better game selection, but I don't think I can go back at this point. So since I think the Tab 10.1 is better hardware than the XOOM except for that stupid proprietary cable that'd be even better.
My biggest regret is that I could only delete iTunes from my computer and not skull@#$ it till it died, since that's what I feel like it was doing to me every time I was forced to use it.
As someone who works in the open source world, I gotta say that's not only spot on, but applies to almost all open source software. You're trading ease of use for configurability and openness, at the cost of glitches and big, empty promises.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
For new users, if you like tinkering, the galaxy tab is for you. Otherwise, get an iPad, to have *today* the reference tablet, or a Galaxy Tab 2 to have an old version of *tomorrow* reference tablet (Galaxy Tab 3). Unless you need flash, in that case, buy a laptop.
I've had my Xoom almost since it first came out and I, as you, have had a much improved experience following the 3.1 update. A friend of mine as well as my boss both have iPads that I have had much experience with and here's my 2 cents.
I prefer the Xoom for the following reasons:
The web browser makes more sense ergonomically on a tablet than Safari does on the iPad since it has tabs that are always viewable.
Higher resolution widescreen display.
I prefer the way multitasking works as I just hit a button on the taskbar and thumbnails of currently running programs display to pick from.
Always visible and consistent "back" button on the taskbar.
Widgets
Wi-fi hangs on to a signal better. My boss is constantly getting the "would you like to sign up for a cellular plan" pop-up on his iPad when the wi-fi falls down.
Google Music integration with the music player so all of my stuff is always at hand.
Scripting layer for Android so I can write and run python scripts right on the device.
Choice of keyboards including "Hacker's Keyboard" that gives me access to all keys including Esc, Ctrl, and Alt for vnc/ssh sessions.
Firefox web browser that stays in sync with my desktop browser including tabs/settings/passwords, etc.
Ubuntu chroot so I have an industrial strength cli environment right on the device.
About the only advantages I see for iPad is the interface is smoother and their are more tablet oriented apps. Some people claim that it is simpler to operate but I don't really think that is the case. I have yet to see any particular exclusive apps that would draw me away from Android and I can get past the relatively small difference in smooth. YMMV.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Everyone else, stay away until they either become significantly cheaper than the iPad or Android has caught up in marketshare and polish (which, conveniently, is always 6 months from now.
6 months from now, when the androids can finally compete head to head with the ipad2, and all the early adopters have expired after being shot in the back with arrows, I'm sure sales against the ipad3 with retina display or whatever its supposed to have will be ... once again, not so brisk; but I promise once again, in just 6 more months, we'll have an Ipad3-killer android tablet ... ready by the rollout of the ipad4...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It's one or the other - if you want to claim they have the polish *and* and marketshare, then you are dreaming.
There are some really awesome Android handsets that are more than a match for the iPhone. These don't make up the majority of the Android market share though - that distinction belongs to the cheaper "built to a budget" phones that can also run Android. I've seen several of these handsets too (and used them) and they are nowhere near the polish of an iPhone (or their much better Android cousins).
So, it is more accurate to say "Android has swelled its marketshare by going after part of the market that Apple has no interest in - cheap, crappy smartphones - while also having some genuine iPhone equivalents". You can't simply say that have "overtaken iPhones in marketshare and polish".
There are some features of Android that I'd love to have on iOS, and funnily enough, they weren't features that the cheap Android phones I've used have had on them either. Other than that, by far the biggest downer on the cheap ones is the quality of the screen and the quality of the touch response.
Of course manufacturers can make something equivalent to the iPad 2 "within a year" - they just can't make it cheaper than Apple, which has been the rub. Everyone automatically assumed that Apple was slapping a giant markup on the iPad and making hay while the sun shined. The number of "just you wait for the Android tablets at half the price with better features! any day now! any day! next month!" posts that we saw on slashdot and other sites during the iPad 1's unchallenged reign was remarkable. The closest we really got was the Xoom, which, funnily enough, cost pretty much the same as the iPad. What they were hoping for was to be able to get some sales going because the Xoom was better than the iPad 1, but Apple went ahead and one-upped them and released the iPad 2 at the same time and for the same price as the first one and the Xoom is dead in the water. It didn;t help that they rushed it to market too quickly because of the impending iPad 2 and shipped it with some of the much lauded "essential missing features" of the iPad not working at all (SD reader, Flash, usb).
Tactical error on my part. A better standard /. analogy would have been:
$9K for a used beater from '05 with 100K miles driven hard by teenage fast-and-the-furious wannabe that often breaks down vs $10K for a new one of whatever jedidiah thinks is a decent car brand.
The point remaining, if I'm gonna toss out a substantial amount of dough for a luxury, I want it to "just work perfectly", not be "kinda close for 10% less".
"Kinda close for 10% less" is how you sell 6-32 screws to engineers who wanted to use 8-24 screws but the boss forced the redesign because its a little cheaper. "Kinda close for 10% less" is not how you sell luxury goods.
"Here's my new Rowlex... Its almost like a Rolex, in that its worn on a wrist and tries to tell time, but not really, because it doesn't work. Oh well, I saved 10%" ... um, maybe, just maybe, that would fly at a 2600 meeting, but probably no where else..
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
These don't make up the majority of the Android market share though
Can you cite that? The only lists I can find of top-selling Android phones are almost completely dominated by the "super phones", i.e., Evo 4G, Motorola Droid, Galaxy S. The crap Android phones seem to be far outsold by the good ones. Which kind of blows a hole all through your long-winded theory here.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
I have no cite
That's what I thought. Here's Amazon's best seller list in post-paid cell phones. Notice the list is dominated by high-end Android handsets. Here's an article from a while back showing the same thing.
Your personal experience means squat and it would be great (and make for a more honest dialog) if you wouldn't pretend like it does.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Used to be until two and a half years ago [wikipedia.org]. In February 2009, Adobe published the SWF specification under a license that does not prohibit third-party SWF players. Flash Player remains proprietary software, but the spec license change has allowed for Gnash [wikipedia.org], Gordon [slashdot.org], and Smokescreen [slashdot.org].
That argument seems to be sort of a smokescreen to me (no pun intended). None of those projects can play all Flash content. The most mature of the three, Gnash claims to support "most" Flash v7 and "some" Flash v8 and 9. Flash is on Version 10. As long as the only way to reliably play Flash content is to install the Adobe product, then Flash remains "closed" as a practical matter. Same is true of Microsoft's XML-based Office file formats; you can read the specs, but how many open source projects can reliably read/write .docx files? I would say none.
Breakfast served all day!
None of the demos on this page( http://www.apple.com/html5/ ) will run on the Galaxy Tab. Therefore the Galaxy Tab does not support the entire web.
How do we know if they'll run on the Galaxy Tab? They very well might, if Apple hadn't put up a wall that prevents non-Safari Web browsers from viewing them. The content won't load on a Galaxy Tab, but to my knowledge nobody has checked whether it will run (which isn't the same thing). Saying that makes Apple's product superior is like saying Internet Explorer 6 is a better Web browser than Chrome because Chrome can't view Web pages with ActiveX controls on them.
Breakfast served all day!
Heh, open in the sense that any door is open if you have a crowbar.