Almost a year ago, Apple?s announcement of its iPad touchscreen tablet computer and the excitement it generated acted as a wake up call for tablet makers. The fact that over 100 tablets are expected to be launched in 2011 itself, shows the rise in demand of the touchscreen tablet computer segment. Like each Apple product, manufacturers started to launch their offerings to counter the iPad, but other than the Samsung Galaxy Tab, there was none that could stack up next to Apple?s iconic product.

The Galaxy Tab has a 7-inch display on the front with touch sensitive Android buttons at the bottom. On the side is the power/hold button, volume controls as well as microSD and SIM card slot. The front bezel is glossy much to our dislike, though the white colour on the back gives the tablet an elegant look.

Another thing that we did not like was the fact that the white colour tends to get dirty. The tablet also sports a rear camera as well as a front camera. The 30-pin proprietary connectivity port is present at the bottom.

The Galaxy Tab scores in terms of ergonomics as even though its bezel is thicker than the iPad, it fits snuggly in the hand owing to its overall dimensions. The tablet weighs a mere 400 g, almost half of the weight of iPad and this makes it very easy to carry around. Using the tablet by holding it in one hand and working on the touch-screen with the other allowed for faster interaction.

The Tab comes with a 7-inch TFT display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The display is bright and has rich colours with excellent sharpness due to the resolution. The 1024 x 768 resolution allows for enough screen estate on the display to have multiple icons and various widgets to be placed. The tablet employs haptic feedback for the touchscreen and it proved to be an asset, especially while using the onscreen keyboard. Though as far as LCD screens go, the iPad sports one of the best in the business.

The Galaxy Tab runs on a 1 GHz Cortex A8 Application Processor with PowerVR SGX540 graphics. It comes with 16/32 GB storage on-board with microSD slot supporting up to 32 GB cards. The tablet comes with 512 MB RAM and also features 128 MB dedicated application memory for the graphics. It has 3G, WiFi as well as Bluetooth connectivity. The tablet runs on Android OS 2.2 with flash 10.1 support. It comes preloaded with various applications such as Reader?s hub, Social HUB, Thinkfree office document reader, Swype, MapmyIndia Aura navigation as well as augmented reality apps.

The Tab impresses in terms of its multimedia capabilities. The 7-inch tablet is great to watch videos or play games. The sound output from the speaker is good, but not extraordinary irrespective of music, movies or voice calls. It boasts of SoundAlive 3DAudio, which provides for 5.1-surround sound experience on the tablet when using headphones, but its best to have this switched off.

The device features a 3 MP camera at the rear that clicks good pictures in daylight, but otherwise when indoors or in darker environments the noise becomes visible on the display screen itself. The front camera is a 1.3 MP snapper, which is good enough for video calling. The rear camera also records videos in 480 x 320 resolution that is good enough for occasional usage. The camera is one of the biggest advantages that the Tab sports over the iPad currently as the iPad lacks any camera.

Coming to the user interface, the Tab runs on standard Android 2.2 OS. Although, the navigation is zippy and the overall experience is smooth, the 1024 x 600 resolution is not a standard for Froyo. The user interface feels no different than that on the Galaxy S in a lot of ways and due to the same applications, the Tab just feels like using a bigger phone. The visible difference comes in app such as mails and calendar where the split screen interface comes into play making it easier to work on the tablet.

Interestingly, the Galaxy Tab can also be used as a phone. It comes with a dialer interface as well as an SMS application! Though, we doubt anyone would use it by holding the device next to their ear. The Tab has Flash 10.1 support and will also support HTML5, which makes the device a much better option for browsing compared to the iPad.

The Galaxy Tab gave us a battery backup of just over 6 hours spent in browsing, listening to music, watching movies, occasional snaps and social networking with constant WiFi connectivity. Like the iPad, even the Galaxy Tab takes its own sweet time to recharge (over 2 hours) once the battery gets low.

In a nutshell, Samsung?s Galaxy Tab is perhaps the only alternative we can suggest at the moment for the Apple iPad tablet. It scores on a number of factors such as portability, camera and price, but in the end it just feels like a giant Galaxy S due to the apps and interface.

? CyberMedia www.LD2.in

Mail:talkLD@cybermedia.co.in