
Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and new Galaxy Tab 10.1 hands-on - dave1619
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/22/samsung-galaxy-tab-8-9-and-new-galaxy-tab-10-1-thinner-than-the/
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ctdonath
"The models we saw weren't final -- in fact, they didn't even power on"

Stopped reading.

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ugh
I think pre-announcing tablets at this point in time is a clever thing to do,
it makes sure that nearly every article talking about iPads or tablets in
general will mention that comparable products from Samsung are coming very
soon.

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CountSessine
Ummm...who cares? There's always something coming out very soon.

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ugh
There aren’t that many high profile Android tablets.

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dave1619
Competition just heated up. Slightly thinner and slighter lighter than the
iPad 2, and at the same price. Wow!

Samsung makes so much of the internals of the iPad 2, I think they might be
Apple's biggest hardware competition. Too bad Samsung makes only slim margins
on the hardware while Google and Apple make lots more off of the apps and
browser.

~~~
timdorr
This includes their "TouchWiz" UI customizations, so there's definitely the
chance for them to make some money from the software side of things or cross-
promote more profitable products. Example: Functionality could be bundled in
that pushes content to only Samsung-brand TVs.

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tjarratt
Please, let's not give manufacturers any more ideas on how to lock down their
functionality to specific hardware.

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nuclear_eclipse
I was really looking forward to getting the 10.1, but the addition of TouchWiz
onto the stock Android makes me very hesitant. I'm hoping it will feature the
same unlockable bootloader found on the Nexus One, Nexus S, and Xoom; if so,
then I can just reflash it with a stock image if I don't like TouchWiz. I
refuse to be at the mercy of Samsung to get updates for my $500 devices...

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oconnore
You would prefer to be at the mercy of Apple for your updates?

Software written for a specific piece of hardware can be a very good thing.

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jokermatt999
Stock Android update timing tends to be much, much worse than iOS update
timing, especially when custom firmware is involved. I say this as someone who
borders on being an Android fanboy. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to
prefer Android, but guaranteed on-time updating is not one of them, unless
you've got a custom ROM. But if you're going to mention custom device images,
aren't there similar options for jailbroken iPhones anyway?

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gxs
I find engadget reviews a bit too quick to praise. While this is actually a
problem with most review sites, I notice it an awfully lot with engadget.

I'd like for them to actually use the device, load it with data and let data
from regular use accumulate, and THEN make an assessment.

For example: they gave the HTC evo spectacular reviews. And the phone is
actually pretty nice. But after a few thousand text messages, a few apps
installed, email, etc., the device is very sluggish - not quite what your led
to believe from reading their reviews.

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MatthewPhillips
Strange that you brought up the Evo, which after almost a year has held up as
a top 3 phone for 2010.. I think high praise was deserved, regardless of
whether it had a few issues.

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gxs
Interesting, do you have an Evo that you've used for the past year or are you
anointing it top 3 status based on reviews alone?

If you actually have one, It would be interesting to know how it's held up
after heavy use.

Personally, my experience with it, and those of people I know that have it has
been less than stellar, though by no means awful.

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jtreminio
HTC Evo owner here. Bought it on the day it came out.

Since then, I've upgrade the battery, and am currently running CyanogenMod 7
(Android 2.3.3).

I just purchased a Samsung Epic 4G for my wife 2 months ago ... and comparing
stock Evo with stock Epic, Evo blows the Epic away. The battery life also
seems to be much better than the Epic's.

The Evo is the best phone I've ever owned, and I've owned an iPhone 3GS.

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dsuriano
In regards to competing with Apple, I feel like a lot of people forget the
advantage that Apple's retail stores give them. The Apple retail stores give
people an opportunity to use iPads preloaded with software in a nice shopping
environment.

How will Samsung (and others) reach the average consumer with these new
tablets? Will Best Buy just stick them in the middle of 4 other tablets with
price tags?

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bryanlarsen
Sounds like an opportunity for Best Buy competitors. There's no reason stores
other than Apple can't deliver a nice shopping experience.

Not an easy problem, though: people will just browse and evaluate at your
store, and then order online.

Solution: aggressively charge for shelf space, just like grocery stores do for
end cap placement.

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ChuckMcM
Its nice to see well funded competition to the iPad.

As with most technologies, we can describe the 'killer' product which would
cut off the iPad at the knees:

* Tegra _3_ [1] quad core mobile processor

* 2400 x 1800 10.1" screen (300 ppi) with 'real' pixels (which is to say every pixel can be every color)

* Combined capacitive touch and wacom equivalent stylus control.

* 2 GB low power DDR3 ram, 64GB flash

* Wifi, LTE, Bluetooth wireless stacks

* Micro SD, Sim, micro hdmi, usb2 (or 3) port

* Android OS with FOSS drivers for all peripherals.

* $400 / $600 / $800 price points

* 10 - 12 hr Battery life

If one started shipping that device today, I would bet my 401k that it would
outsell the iPad2 by the end of the year.

Of course you can't ship it today, nVidia won't commit to a ship date on
Tegra3, No one will commit to the 'high def' glass for the LCD (ideally OLED
so no backlight to add thickness), Android isn't yet good enough at managing
the battery to get that sort of efficiency, and the Wacom equivalent near
field stylus interface will need a new driver and API to integrate with the
rest of the stack.

Which is why Steve Jobs can make an iPad and most people can't. Steve would
say (as legend has it) "Don't tell me what you can't do, tell me when you'll
have it done or I'll find someone else who can." (and since really there isn't
any new physics here, just engineering work, he'd be right) So far none of the
players in the field seem to have shown that sort of attitude, which is
unfortunate.

I'm also on record saying that Android is too heavy weight for this type of
thing. I suspect that hiring 150 smart people who were told that after every
checkin the total number of lines of code in the android build had to be less
than it was prior to their checkin, and that the feature set had to remain the
same. Let those folks run for a year and it might get close.

[1] [http://blogs.nvidia.com/2011/02/tegra-roadmap-revealed-
next-...](http://blogs.nvidia.com/2011/02/tegra-roadmap-revealed-next-chip-
worlds-first-quadcore-mobile-processor/)

~~~
ctdonath
...and not a word about user experience.

This is why competitors are playing catch-up.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't dispute that user experience is a factor, but I did not include it in
the above based on the following reasoning; If Apple's UX was sufficient to
keep an equivalent product running Android with equal or better technical
performance off the market, then Android phones would not currently outnumber
Apple phones.

Manufacturing a technically competitive tablet form factor device is not
something that can be taken on by a small start up. Creating a better UX is
well within the reach of a wide variety of shops from small to large.

The G1->N1->N2 evolution is a nice empirical example of the presence of
competitive hardware allowing for a rapidly developed competitive UX.

Android based phones aren't playing 'catch up' any more, once we have a
reasonable execution of Android in a tablet form factor I reason that they
will catch and surpass iPad volume and sales. If a technically superior
platform was released ahead of an iPad refresh then I reason that platform
would take substantial share from current and future iPad sales.

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andyman1080
I won't argue that Android tablets will never overtake the iPad, but I
disagree with the reasoning you cite in paragraph 1. I don't think the
comparison with smartphones holds up because the tablet and smartphone markets
are so different. A few big reasons:

-phones are a "necessary" device whereas a tablet is a luxury device

-consumers don't want another carrier contract so most tablets are sold without subsidies or contracts, whereas nearly all phones here are sold with subsidies and 2-year contracts.

-with phones, the carriers have influence/control over what devices are available to their customers. would Android be where it is today in the US if Verizon hadn't pushed it so hard before they got the iPhone? Carriers don't have nearly the same influence over tablets, and most people don't and won't buy tablets from their carriers anyway.

And I'm sure others can come up with many more. Again I'm not saying that
Android tablets will never catch the iPad. I'm just saying that the smartphone
market is sufficiently different from the tablet market that arguing for
Android tablets vs iPad by citing Android phones vs iPhone isn't very
convincing.

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ChuckMcM
Fair enough, some questions though;

"phones are a "necessary" device whereas a tablet is a luxury device"

Ok, but are _smart_ phones a necessary device? What if your phone reverts back
to just a dial and talk unit while the "smart" part migrates into the tablet
you are carrying with you? [not that I think that will save Nokia :-)]

"consumers don't want another carrier contract so most tablets are sold
without subsidies or contracts, whereas nearly all phones here are sold with
subsidies and 2-year contracts."

Except the Android Revolution as envisioned by Google is that nobody wants
contracts at all. So perhaps a single contract? How about a Wifi tablet
connected via tether to a single contract phone? Or both your phone and tablet
using SIP over a Metro-Fi scale white spaces network? I believe auction priced
spectrum at the consumer level without contract will become a key business in
the next 10 years.

"with phones, the carriers have influence/control over what devices are
available to their customers. would Android be where it is today in the US if
Verizon hadn't pushed it so hard before they got the iPhone? Carriers don't
have nearly the same influence over tablets, and most people don't and won't
buy tablets from their carriers anyway."

I agree that this is the current state, do you have reason to believe it won't
change? Certainly it seems that people are pushing to change it. Can you talk
more about your reasoning that leads you to the conclusion that carriers will
also control an individual's communications infrastructure?

You make this claim "I'm just saying that the smartphone market is
sufficiently different from the tablet market that arguing for Android tablets
vs iPad by citing Android phones vs iPhone isn't very convincing."

I certainly agree that "the smartphone market is different from the tablet
market" _today_ but back in the last century I witnessed a similar
transformation in the computer market. I don't know if it will resonate with
you but allow me to share it.

In the 70's a "Computer" was a big machine that cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars, had a large staff to maintain it, and was so costly to run that
keeping it 100% utilized the was goal of every owner to maximize the value.

Computers were controlled by a few big names which can be stand ins for
"carriers" in your smartphone argument. Along came companies could build you a
computer for a few tens of thousands of dollars, that were expensive for
individuals but cheap for departments. They were typically called "mini-
computers" and there were some upstarts named Digital Equipment Corporation,
Prime, and Data General Corporation who were disruptive forces.

Then microcomputers came out, they were toys. It was a completely different
market, you played games on them or used them like oversized adding machines,
sufficiently different from the "real" computer market that they were in a
space all by themselves.

The microcomputers eventually displaced 99% of the computing needs of
individuals and businesses. Because computation and data handling, were the
fundamental "product" that people used, not "computers", "mini-computers", or
"microcomputers".

I see the players in the smartphone market, attacking the big players the same
way the mini-computers attacked mainframes. A smartphone is just like a
feature phone, except it also can do internet things and run applications. Now
we have tablets and they are more like laptops than phones (although you can
make phone calls on them too) and they are coming at the market from the other
side. But what all of these pieces of gear have in common is that they are the
communication tools we use in our day to day lives to keep up to date, and
communicate with our friends, colleagues, and family. Its not difficult to see
that one could build a tablet that easily included phone calling features,
accessed via a hands free headset that were both more robust and more useful
than today's 'smartphone'.

Because I see analogies in the computer revolution with the current
phone/smartphone/tablet phenomena, I'm inclined to feel that companies that
can be disruptive in the smart phone market can be disruptive in the tablet
market as well. It was of course the capitulation of IBM in 1981 with the
release of the IBM PC that signaled the beginning of the end for mid-range
computers, perhaps we'll see a similar capitulation with tablets by a phone
vendor. The addressable market is larger so there is more money at stake. And
when carrying a tablet means you don't have to carry any printed matter it
becomes a net benefit to many professionals to prefer a tablet with phone call
capability over a smart phone.

So my claim is that the communications market, of which smart phones and
tablets are both participants, will become much more homogenized in the future
(perhaps to the point where no one bothers to break them out) and that in such
a market, technical performance and choice will be the dominant variables in
driving market penetration. Android wins handily over iOS when it comes to
"choice", so by my reasoning if the technical performance was there to meet or
exceed the contemporary offering from Apple, it will have greater market
share, in spite of a less refined UX.

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cryptoz
> The WiFi 10.1 will hit on June 8th -- the 16GB version will cost you $499
> and the 32GB $599.

Awesome! The Xoom's pricing is hard for many consumers to swallow (personally
I can't wait to buy one myself as soon as they come to Canada). But the Tab
10.1 looks like it will be the first awesome Android tablet that's truly
competitively priced with the iPad.

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MatthewPhillips
The prices are the same, but Xoom just doesn't have a 16gb model.

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initself
Why do engagdet.com urls always seem to create 2-4 additional urls in browser,
so that clicking back once keeps me on the same page?

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BobSacamano
If you look at all the photographs in the gallery relating to the article, you
must click back the amount of images you looked at. Plus there is no back-to-
article button. Bad navigation, Engadget. Use jQuery, it would make things
much easier.

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zrgiu
noooooo.. Samsung screwed up a perfectly good OS again. Welcome to the tablet
compatibility hell.

