iPad v. Galaxy Tab: A User's Perspective

I have owned an Apple iPad for approximately six months and have enjoyed the device for entertainment and surfing the web on the couch. However, real productivity remains elusive when I am using the iPad. In fact, I am not sure that I have ever conducted any type of activity that could be considered “work related” during my time of ownership. I’m not even entirely sure why this is true but I suspect that it is related to the amount of keyboarding is takes to write blogs, tweet or *shudder* do job related tasks. For me, the iPad does not do a good job with data entry. It really doesn’t give you many options for entering data other than the on-screen keyboard (i.e., no on board camera or stylus).

As far as the entertainment side of things, the iPad is quite capable of keeping the kids busy in the car or at the doctor’s office. I also enjoyed laying in bed using the iPad to research our most recent trip to Walt Disney World. My wife used her laptop while I scanned websites using the Mercury Browser app (because of the tabbed browsing not available in Safari). However, I found that carrying the iPad was burdensome, not because of its heft but because of its size.

My dissatisfaction with the productivity of the iPad led me to look for something else. My criteria included the ability to hand write notes digitally, it should be a bit smaller than the iPad, and it needed a cellular data connection. My iPad is a wifi only model and I felt that having the ability to use a cellular data connection would add to the usefulness of the device. Once I reviewed several “iPad Killers”, I settled on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab because it fit my criteria for a mobile tablet device.

At first blush, the Tab was awesome. It was quick an responsive and it was easy to install applications, much like the iPad. I thoroughly enjoyed the smaller form factor (as it is 2 inches shorter and almost 3 inches narrower than the iPad). I did not miss the “real estate” lost from the smaller screen and found that I could surf the web as easily as on the iPad. Even though the Tab (0.84 lbs) is half the weight of the iPad (1.6 lbs), both are so light that the difference is barely noticeable.

As I got deeper into using the Tab I found that the button placement is a bit awkward. I found that I regularly hit the power/sleep button while trying to do other tasks. The screen slept far too quickly but that was easily rectified with some adjustments in the OS settings. However, the most annoying issue with the Tab is the four “buttons” at the bottom of the screen. First, they sleep faster than the screen which makes it very difficult to find them in the dark when you are reading in bed. Secondly, there are too many “buttons” there. They should limit it to two: the Home button and the Back button. Certainly the Settings button could be moved to on-screen control and why have the Search button at all? I have only owned the Tab for a week and have lost count of the number of times I have inadvertently hit the Search button while trying to read.

With all that being said, I prefer the Galaxy Tab over the iPad. The sheer size of the iPad makes it unwieldy and the lack of a camera is unfortunate. The Tab takes a cue from Apple’s iPhone 4 and puts a camera on both sides of the device. I haven’t had a chance to use the “user facing” camera, but the main camera is useful for using with Google Googles. Probably the best part is that I team my Tab with an iPhone 4 which results in the best of both worlds.

You might laugh me back to the days when we all gripped our Palm IIICs and furiously scribbled graffiti for saying this but the biggest weakness with both platforms is the lack of a stylus. I personally would love to have the option of handwriting notes in a digital notepad that I could access later from another device. I already do this with my Asus Eee PC T91MT tablet PC and Microsoft’s Onenote. Using a notebook shared across the local network, I am able to write notes in a meeting then later sit down at my desktop and review, edit, and add to those notes. It doesn’t have to be as feature rich as OneNote, but it sure would be nice to take a mobile tablet device into a meeting and hand write notes.

Of course, both the iPad and the Tab have access to applications that allow for handwritten entry and they both accept capacitive styluses. My problem is that the iPad is too big to carry with me a lot and I haven’t found the perfect app in the Android Market yet. I’ll keep looking...

Link:

PC World's comparison of the iPad and Galaxy Tab