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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...?"
I think it's wise to focus purely on the specs. WARNING CAR ANALOGY: It's like having powerful car but the seat is milk crate and the steering wheel is made of unpolished metal rods welded into a square. Sure, it's fast but the ergonomics are so awful that who would really want to use it? Most of the cheaper tablets out there suffer from the same problem.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
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.
That is exactly how I feel the ipad is. Polished on the outside, secret on the inside and I am not allowed to peek inside nor add any update not approved by the manufacturer and without paying the manufacturer a piece of the update-price.
Oh, and the ipad comes without a passanger-seat and lighter-plug meaning if someone wants a ride, they have to take my seat, and I can't plug in anything.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Yeah, that's why I'm still running Internet Explorer. Firefox and Webkit (among the most popular and widely distributed of open source software) may have configurability and openness, but they'll never match Internet Explorer for its ease of use, lack of glitches and fulfilled promises.
It's not secret on the inside. The hardware and software APIs are extremely well documented. You are confusing your ignorance of the product with an imagined secrecy.
You are allowed to peek inside - Apple even has a free developer program and downloadable tools to let you do exactly that. Download the free OS developer tools, develop any app you like, and install your app on your IOS device.
The only caveat is that Apple won't help you install "whatever update you like". And you most certainly can't sell products on the Apple App Store that don't conform to their rules. But there's nothing stopping *you* from installing *your* apps on *your* devices.
This is what irks me about the supposedly Free Software and Open Source advocates when it comes to Apple's IOS. Free Software could really go to town on IOS. For example, Apple won't distribute MAME through their App Store; and fair enough too. But anybody with a free developer account could compile the source code for MAME for IOS (assuming it exists) into an app, sign that build with their developer certificate, then upload the binary onto their own phone.
Instead people bitch-and-moan that they can't use Apple's App Store to distribute binaries. Why is that a problem? This is a community built on open source and free software. So why not distribute the apps as source. If open-source is such a big deal, why the fascination with bundling everything up as binaries and asking Apple to distribute it?
So you could have any app you like on your iPad or iPhone. The only barrier to entry is you need to know how to compile and install software. Is that really a problem in the Free Software world which has distros like Gentoo? It would keep out all the annoying non-developers too. It would be like the good old days of Linux when everybody actually knew UNIX; before the hoi-polloi found out about it and fucked it up.