Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 4G

Samsung’s petite Android tablet proves good things come in different shapes and sizes.

While the iPad is a sleek tablet, thankfully Google’s Android operating system gives gadget makers the freedom to make tablets of all shapes and sizes. Samsung is leading the charge with the impressive Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 4G.

This Samsung tablet is smaller, thinner and lighter than the latest iPad — making it very comfortable to hold. To be fair the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen is almost an inch diagonally wider than the Galaxy Tab 8.9, but you don’t feel the difference in day-to-day use. The 8.9-inch screen gives the Android interface plenty of room to move, with the dual-core 1.5 GHz processor and 1 GB of RAM keeping things snappy.

The screen certainly doesn’t feel cramped like the 7-inch Android tablets or 5-inch phablets like the Samsung Galaxy Note. Meanwhile the 8.9-inch Samsung feels much less cumbersome than Motorola’s 10.1-inch Xoom II.

Fire up the 8.9-inch Samsung and you’re greeted by a bright, crisp 1280×800 PLS LCD display. It’s sharper than the iPad 2 but admittedly still falls far short of the iPad 3′s new retina display. The use of LCD offers wide viewing angles, good contrast and bright whites help deal with outdoor glare. The trade-off is that colours aren’t quite as vivid as the AMOLED displays found on many Android gadgets.

The Samsung can hold its head high alongside the iPad thanks to its compatibility with Telstra’s new super-fast LTE mobile broadband network. The new iPad also has 4G written on the box, but unfortunately it’s not compatible with Telstra’s 1800 MHz LTE network. While the Samsung can squeeze more than 40 Mbps out of LTE in Australia’s major cities, the new iPad must be content with up to 20 Mbps via DC-HSDPA.

This is a considerable speed difference but to be fair Samsung owners are unlikely to notice a significant performance boost between 20 and 40 Mbps whilst doing day to day tasks (unless they’re using a notebook tethered to the tablet’s LTE access via Wi-Fi). Once Samsung owners roam beyond the inner suburbs they’ll drop back onto DC-HSDPA anyway. LTE is handy, but it alone shouldn’t seal the deal.

The Samsung also offers 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0, but what’s disappointing is that there’s no Wi-Fi-only 8.9-inch Samsung available in Australia. So you’re forced to pay for mobile broadband compatibility whether you need it or not.

Another disappointment is that the Samsung comes with Android 3.2 “Honeycomb” pre-installed rather than the new Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”. To be fair an ICS update is on the way and the wait is only likely to bother Android die-hards. What’s perhaps more frustrating is the Samsung lacks micro-HDMI, micro-USB and micro-SD slots. As with the iPad, you can get various adaptors for Samsung’s proprietary 30-pin connector. The lack of a micro-SD slot means you’re stuck with the Samsung’s 16 or 32 GB of onboard storage.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 8.9 4G retails for $720 (16 GB) or $840 (32 GB), or is available on plans from Telstra from $49 per month. For more details visit samsung.com/au

Set up a Wi-Fi hotspot on your Smartphone

If you’ve got a fancy smartphone, it’s easy to share its internet access with your other gadgets.

Australia’s high-speed mobile broadband networks make it easy to stay in touch when you’re out and about. Telstra’s super-fast LTE network offers phenomenal data speeds of more than 40 Mbps in the inner cities, but so far we’ve only seen a handful of compatible devices. Thankfully you’ll also get decent speeds out of the HSDPA mobile broadband networks, particular using the new iPad Wi-Fi/4G which can’t connect to LTE in Australia but can hit almost 20 Mbps thanks to DC-HSDPA.

Fast internet access is great for a 3G/4G enabled smartphone or tablet, but it’s easy to share that mobile broadband access with your other gadgets such as notebooks, tablets, e-book readers and handheld games consoles. The trick is to dip into the menus and set up a Wi-Fi hotspot. Sometimes this can rely on your handset maker or network provider enabling the feature, so you should check with them if you’re unsure.

Before you start, it’s important to remember that creating a Wi-Fi hotspot chews through your monthly mobile broadband allowance. Keep a close eye on how much data you use. You’ll probably have a fixed mobile broadband allowance each month, but if you go over your limit the excess data charges can be hefty.

It’s also important to password-protect your Wi-Fi hotspot, so people nearby can’t “borrow” your internet access and leave you holding the bill.

Setting up a Wi-Fi hotspot on an iPhone is pretty easy. Under iOS5 you’ll find a Personal Hotspot setting on the main Settings page. You can tap on this and then toggle Personal Hotspot to “on”. You should also tap on Wi-Fi Password to create a password for your new wireless network.

Apple has added Personal Hotspot features to the new iPad Wi-Fi/4G models, but unfortunately it didn’t add Personal Hotspot to the earlier Wi-Fi/3G models with the latest firmware update.

Android users will find Wi-Fi hotspot features built in Android 2, 3 and 4 smartphones and tablets. The process can vary between devices, but generally you launch the Settings app and then select Wireless & Networks (sometimes followed by Tethering & Portable Hotspot). Here you can tap on Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot to turn in on. You’ll also want to dip into the Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot Settings to set the name of the network and set the password.

Built-in Wi-Fi hotspot support was introduced with Android 2.2. If you’re running an older Android device which can’t be upgraded, you’ll find tethering apps in Android Market (which recently changed its name to Google Play).

Some Windows Phone 7 smartphones can also create Wi-Fi hotspots after the Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango” update. Under Settings select Internet Sharing, turn it on and then select Setup to configure the wireless network name and password. A few Windows Phone 7 devices such as the slick new Nokia Lumia 800 are still waiting for Wi-Fi hotspot features to be enabled.

Motorola Xoom 2: Second Time Lucky?

Motorola had a brief moment in the spotlight at CES 2011, when it unveiled the first Android tablet running on Google’s brand-new (at the time) Android 3.2 operating system, dubbed Honeycomb. The Xoom was the first of many, although it only narrowly squeaked onto the Australian market prior to the launch of competing Honeycomb tablets, some of which had been announced well after the Xoom itself.

The Xoom was a fair but not great tablet, hampered by slightly heavy carrying weight, annoying buttons — especially the volume controls — and a problem that’s weighed heavily on many Android tablets, in that they’ve been priced to the equivalent of Apple’s very popular iPad 2. Motorola’s just released the Xoom 2 in Australia, and like the original Xoom, it’s initially being launched as a Telstra product, either on contract or outright for $720.

First of all, the good news; Motorola’s designers clearly took a long hard look at what didn’t quite work with the original Xoom, and made some revisions. At 599g, the Xoom 2 is lighter than the original Xoom, and it’s enough of a carrying weight difference to make it very pleasant to hold. It’s also got a better IPS display panel than the original. The shape’s been refined into a an unusual square with rounded corners; it’s presumed this is to avoid the kind of patent territory that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 ran into with Apple, as it’s not really something that adds to the Xoom 2 experience. The tricky power and volume buttons on the original Xoom have been shifted to the right hand back of the tablet, and increased significantly in size. There’s also an integrated infrared transmitter on the top of the tablet, to be used with the supplied Dijit remote control application.

The bad news is rather more of a problem, however. While the internal CPU has had a small speed boost, up to a 1.2GHz Dual Core model, the rest of the Xoom 2’s hardware is all a bit familiar. It’s still running on Android 2.3 Honeycomb, rather than the newer Android 4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ variant. Motorola’s promising that the Xoom 2 will get Ice Cream Sandwich at some point in the future, but right now the operating system is stuck in the past. Performance starts out acceptably nippy, but I found that within around 30 minutes of tablet usage, the inbuilt browser became noticeably laggy, as did the tablet itself. Running third party applications, and especially games showed the Xoom 2 chugging badly; this is a tablet that sells itself as a premium product, but doesn’t quite act like it. At $720, still within the same kind of price band as both other Android tablets that already run Ice Cream Sandwich, or for that matter an iPad 2, I wouldn’t be putting my money down on Xoom 2.

2012’s Technology Secrets

As I’m writing this, the last few hours of 2011 are ticking away, taking with them one year while ushering in another. 2011’s been an interesting year in the technology world, with touch interfaces — whether on smartphones, tablets or touchscreen laptops and computers — a most notable feature that defined the consumer technology landscape. But what will 2012 bring us?

Any kind of prediction about the technology landscape is inevitably one that involves a certain amount of guesswork, and that means I could be hopelessly (or even haplessly) wrong with any kind of prediction that I make. With that caveat in mind, let’s jump headfirst into the crystal ball, taking a look at three industry heavyweights and how they might fare in 2012.

Apple gets first place in my tea leaf readings, purely on alphabetical grounds. Apple’s widely tipped to update its iPad, iPhone and Mac lines this year; those things are pretty inevitable simply from a marketing point of view. On the Mac front, new chipset availability will allow newer Mac models (the exact same thing is true on the PC front), and it doesn’t take a degree from the dubious institute-of-psychic-studies-that-I-just-made-up (established eight seconds ago) to suggest that new iPhones and iPads will see money flowing into Apple’s coffers. That kind of repeat business latest-model hype is exactly what Apple does, and based on previous years, that’s clearly what it’ll continue to do.

One rumour doing the rounds here at the moment is that Apple will unveil an “Apple” TV. Not to be confused with the small set top box that the company already sells, this would be an Apple branded TV set, hooked into the iTunes store for video delivery.

I doubt it. I strongly doubt it, although I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that Apple had prototyped such a thing; big IT companies go through lots of prototypes during research and development. The reason why I’m doubtful is that while it sounds good in theory (Apple has a content ecosystem in place, it does good industrial design and as yet nobody’s really “cracked” a good Smart TV), it ignores one of the factors that’s made Apple a whole lot of money in recent years — namely that it likes repeat business. People drop iPhones and iPads all over the place, and new features prompt some buyers to replace every year. Who replaces their TV every year? Almost nobody. A TV is a long-term prospect, and as such Apple would need lots of content to make its model of TV compelling. The existing Apple TV set top box already provides a gateway to its iTunes ecosystem for selling and renting content; I’d be less shocked to see, a say, LG-presents-TV-with-integrated-Apple-TV than a genuine Apple TV.

Next on the reading of the livers of unfortunate animals (and next in the alphabet) would be Google. Google’s likely to continue chipping away at many markets, essentially doing what Microsoft’s done for years; subsidising some products via the massive profits made from just a few. In Google’s case that’s largely search advertising, and it’s funded all sorts of acquisitions (some of which Google shuttered during 2011) and startup projects, most prominently Android-based smartphones and tablets. I suspect 2012 is the year we’ll see a “Google” Android tablet. Previously this could have been one built by another company — in the same way that Google’s own Android phones have been HTC and Samsung models respectively — but with Google having gobbled up Motorola in 2011, it could be an entirely in-house effort. Google’s own moves in the netbook space with its Chromebooks seems to have stalled for the moment, as has Google’ own TV ambitions; I’d be surprised if either made significant headway in Australia, if they ever make it here at all.

Last in my prognosticating list is Microsoft. While it’s not definite, it’s highly likely we’ll see Windows 8 emerge sometime in 2012, although I wouldn’t put a pin anywhere in the calendar before June if I were you. Windows 8 is clearly part of Microsoft’s strategy to more closely align all of its consumer IT properties, from smartphones to consoles to computers under one well understood interface, and it’ll be fascinating to see how well (and how quickly) Microsoft manages this. Its coffers are immense (as are its spending habits when it comes to both R&D and marketing) and it’s got an easy head start in terms of Windows existing place in the market; while big businesses will no doubt take a slow approach to the new operating system and everything it may offer, the push for individual users to bring their own devices (and increasingly laptops) into work may make Windows 8 a very rapidly adopted operating system indeed.

Samsung’s Tablet Clears Its Court Woes

Tablets have been one of the biggest technology issues of 2011, so it’s perhaps fitting that as the year winds to a close, one of the largest and most acrimonious legal battles surrounding tablets has come to a conclusion. Earlier in the year, Apple had sought to block Samsung from selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1, a Tablet running the Android 3.0 (“Honeycomb”) operating system. Not because there was anything wrong with Honeycomb, but because Apple felt it infringed on its iPad and specifically some patents relating to it. I’m no lawyer and hardly qualified to comment on the legal proceedings that took place, except to say that they were lengthy, no doubt expensive, and seemed to see-saw back and forth with each given week. At long last, after appeals, Samsung’s been granted the rights to sell the tablet in Australia; it will do so directly through retailers with a 16GB Galaxy Tab 10.1 costing $579 outright or $729 if you want the 3G-enabled version of the tablet. Telcos have also announced plans to sell the 10.1 on contract, although at the time of writing only Vodafone had announced exact pricing; that may well change by the time you read this.

For the truly technology keen, the 10.1’s been available through grey market importers for some time, so it’s not exactly a new product to our shores in one sense. I’ve not had the chance to test out an “official” Galaxy Tab 10.1 through Samsung directly as yet, but I have had some hands on time with a directly imported unit. It’s certainly a nicely designed tablet; I can see why it could have irked Apple as the feel is terribly iPad-esque, but having said that I’d better clarify again; I’m not a lawyer and even with that caveat I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea that this should be enough to have any product banned per se.

Getting them onto retail shelves will be the interesting next step, especially depending on how keen consumers end up being to actually buy them. There’s no shortage of competing tablets; even ignoring Apple you could buy a tablet from vendors such as Acer or Asus already, and whether the Tab 10.1 will grab attention will be interesting to see. I’m writing this at the moment rather remotely from the UK, where the Tab 10.1 has been available for many months, and anecdotally from what I can see — and especially what I can see busy technology shoppers actually stopping to test — the Tab 10.1 is seen as “just another tablet”. Given how long and hard Samsung Australia’s fought to have it appear on Australian shelves, I’m betting that’s not the response they’re hoping for from Aussie consumers. It’s worth noting that the Tab 10.1, like much of the rest of this year’s Android tablet crop, is an Android 3 product; the latest Android iteration, Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”, if you want its official product name) is currently only officially available on one phone, although ironically that’s a Samsung product; a phone produced for Google called the Google Galaxy Nexus. Ice Cream Sandwich is meant to bridge the divide between phones and tablets and is expected to be available on a wide variety of tablets, but it’s not yet confirmed at all if it’ll come to the Tab 10.1 or not.

Can Amazon’s Tablet Fire Up Apple?

To date, nobody’s been able to make a real dent in Apple’s near dominance of the tablet market, although plenty have tried. Apple and Samsung are, at the time of writing, locked in a fairly brutal court battle regarding Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, but it’s a unit that’s most likely going to be priced near identically to the iPad 2. At that price point, it’s a tough sell to the average consumer.

Amazon’s recently announced Kindle Fire, however, takes things in an interesting new direction. It’s a 7” Android Tablet with much the same hardware as Blackberry’s Playbook, which means that while it’s not absolutely cutting edge in terms of specifications, it’s still pretty handy in terms of basic processing. Amazon’s made two key decisions with the Fire that make it stand out from the somewhat bland Android pack.

For a start, you won’t automatically realise that it’s running Android, because unlike every other Android 3 (“Honeycomb”) tablet, the Fire isn’t running Honeycomb at all. Instead, it’s based off the older smartphone 2.1 version of Android, but completely reskinned such that it doesn’t look like anybody else’s Android at all. Amazon’s including tight integration with its online ventures including books, video and app stores, which sadly means that when the Fire launches in mid-November, it’ll be US-only for now. Having said that, Amazon’s only just launched the Kindle into the local Australian market at a retail level; the model that’s now known as the “Kindle Keyboard” is being sold on store shelves in Woolworths, Dick Smith and Big W, so there’s hope that we’ll see the Fire locally sooner rather than later.

The real hook with the Fire isn’t the specifications or the integration with Amazon’s web services, although they’re a great point of differentiation in their own right. Instead, it’s the asking price, which is $US199. The Australian dollar has only just slipped under parity with the US dollar, and there’s always GST to tack on to any purchase, so that could well become, say, $250 by the time it does hit our stores. Still, $250 for a tablet with these specifications is an absolute steal. The closest we’ve come to that kind of pricing on a brand-name tablet to date has been HP’s TouchPad, but that was a case of the company selling off the remaining stock in a (pun not intended) fire sale. The Fire’s low entry price makes it a compelling option for content consumption, which is still the single best reason to buy a tablet of any stripe, and if Amazon can get it to Aussie consumers sooner rather than later it could well have a real iPad competitor on its hands.

Google’s Chromebooks: Shiny, Or About As Useful As Tailfins?

Is there space for yet another operating system in the marketplace besides Windows, Mac OS X and the many flavours of Linux? Google certainly thinks so, and over the next six months we’ll see a number of laptops launch running Google’s own “Chrome OS”. This shouldn’t be confused with Google’s cross-platform browser, also called Chrome. Chrome OS is actually an offshoot of Linux, so much so that there’s an open source derivative version, Chromium that can be downloaded and run on pretty much any hardware you throw at it. Google’s own officially-branded notebooks running the Chrome operating system will have specific hardware requirements and be known as Chromebooks.

Chromebooks will differ from the regular laptop in a way that’s not all that surprising given Google’s focus on online applications. They’re primarily cloud-based, which means the majority of data a Chromebook will access will be stored online, with minimum quantities of onboard storage. As shouldn’t be a shock, Google’s own applications are front and centre, with the key experience intended to be similar to that of running everything in a browser, all of the time. Online access also means that onboard processing power will be kept low, although this cutting down of storage and processors hasn’t led to price drops for the first run of Chromebooks, expected to launch overseas mid-June. They’re priced at the same kinds of prices you’d pay for a netbook running Windows right now. To remain competitive, they’re probably going to have to drop prices a touch, especially in Australia where online data costs could quickly make a Chromebook a rather costly option.

While the big name vendors such as Samsung and Acer will start selling Chromebooks overseas very soon now, there’s actually a locally produced laptop available right now running Chrome… of a sort. Local online retailer Kogan announced the “world’s first” laptop powered by Google’s “Chromium” operating system back on the 3rd of June. The choice of words in describing it is undeniably rather deliberate; Kogan’s effort isn’t a Google-stamped Chromebook, but running on the open source Chromium variant instead. That could have implications down the track for updates and security, as part of Google’s pitch for Chromebooks is that they’ll update automatically (based on a common hardware profile) while the open source Chromium variant is dependant on open source developers continuing to improve the code, which they may or may not do. I’ve not yet had a chance to slap one of Kogan’s Chromium-based laptops onto my test bench to assess if it’s any good or not, however.

This still leaves the question quite open as to whether ChromeOS will actually capture the attention of consumer buyers. There’s been a definite shift in recent years towards cloud-based applications. Google’s the obvious poster child, but even Apple’s getting into the game with the launch of its iCloud service. Lightweight inexpensive netbooks have enjoyed reasonable sales, but they’re also being pinched by easy to use Tablets, including those running Google’s own Android operating system. Despite appearances, not everything Google releases automatically turns to gold. Its Wave online real-time collaboration product was launched with considerable hype, but failed to gain the attention of the broader market; Google’s essentially ditched Wave, as it has other products that haven’t taken the way the company intended to.

Is the mobile office a reality right now?

Recently a journalist I know (full disclosure; he’s my brother) spent an entire week working purely from his smartphone — you can read the whole tale here: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/05/no-luggage-the-complete-series/. There was a little more to his plan; he also abandoned luggage in the interests of utility, and, I suspect, seeing how far he could push an idea, good or otherwise. But for the purposes of his week, his smartphone was his working computer.

Smartphones are getting smarter, and they’re also becoming quite ubiquitous. There are many models that start under $200 (some even cheaper, although at the sub-$100 price point you quickly outstrip the phone cost with the cost of your ongoing bills, making their limited utility a not-entirely-smart choice.). If you’re carrying one around with you, the temptation to check email or get other work (or personal) chores done is quite high. I know I’ve been guilty of that on more than one occasion. As they’re ramping up in power, with new models sporting dual core processors, dedicated graphics chips and expandable memory, the concept of carrying a single, small device to do all your on-the-go work is becoming more and more realistic.

I’ve also been testing out an interesting concept from Motorola that plays with this concept of the smartphone as the centre of your working world. The company’s new Atrix mobile looks very much like a plain smartphone. It’s an Android smartphone with a specific trick up its sleeve. Dock it into the $449 lapdock (an optional extra) and it’ll power up the lapdock to act as a regular notebook style computer.

It’s not a full Windows PC or anything like that; you’re still running the Android applications on the phone plus a small selection of applications that run on the desktop itself; most notably the Firefox browser. Within that combination, however, it’s entirely possible to get a lot of work done via online services such as Google docs, as long as the data quota on your phone is robust enough, or you’ve got access to a WiFi network to sidestep that issue. As an example — and for something of a test run — this entire article’s been typed out on the lapdock using the online Evernote service to synchronise it automatically back to my main work PC. Writing this way is certainly a lot faster than trying to type the same amount of content on a small smartphone touchscreen.

So does it work? Sort of. There’s a point where spending $449 on what is basically a headless notebook (on top of the phone’s asking price) starts to strain anybody’s budget; at sales you could score a full notebook (or pretty easily a netbook) for the same kind of money. The lapdock charges the phone when docked, which is very nice indeed, and there is utility in being able to switch from very small screen phone apps to their full-screen equivalent for some work types. But still, if you’re carrying the lapdock around, you may as well carry an actual notebook. It would make a great desk-based dock for your phone, but again, you could have a desktop or notebook in the same location. Given it’s not bundled with the phone I suspect Motorola won’t sell too many lapdocks, but it does point to where computing is heading in the not too distant future.

Take Two Tablets And…?

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been testing out Apple’s new iPad 2 against its most immediate competition, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1v. I should point out before I start this that I’ve been using an iPad (version 1) since Australian launch last year, whereas the Galaxy Tab 10.1v is much more of a newcomer. Android tablets have been available since last year, but the 10.1v is the first model in Australia to use Google’s tablet-specific version of Android, informally known as “Honeycomb”. Make of that potential bias what you will.

Pricing:
iPad 2 16GB: $579/$729
Galaxy Tab 10.1v: $729

The two pricing variants on the iPad2 are there as Apple offers it in both a with and without 3G option; if you see the cheaper iPad2, it’s the one that doesn’t offer mobile broadband, just WiFi. It’s pretty obvious that this is a clearly tied pricing race for comparable tablets, though.

There are catches to both approaches that may not be immediately evident. It’s possible to spend quite a bit more on an iPad2 — up to $949 — but that comes with increased storage capability, up to 64GB, where the 10.1v is a stock, set, unchangeable 16GB. On the flip side, the 10.1v, which is exclusive to Vodafone, is offered by the carrier under contract from as little as $39 a month with data included. From a budgetary perspective, that’s pretty compelling.

Look & Feel: Apple’s whole marketing schtick behind the iPad2 is that it’s slimmer than the original iPad, and this is indeed true; at 8.8mm thick it’s slender and tapered beautifully. The Galaxy Tab 10.1v is by comparison a chunky beast, but this hides something of a hidden advantage. The back of the tablet is textured and gently contoured inwards, making it easy to grip even without a case. By comparison, the iPad2’s back is relatively slippery unless you pop it in a case — at which point the thickness advantage goes away.

Base specifications: iPad2:  Screen: 9.7” 1024×768 Processor: Apple A5 Dual Core 1Ghz Memory: 16GB-64GB Galaxy Tab 10.1v: Screen: 10.1” 1024×768 Processor: Nvidia Tegra 2 Dual Core 1GHz Memory: 16GB  Again it’s pretty neck and neck; the larger screen of the 10.1v and improved resolution are nice, but the fact that it’s a fixed memory size is an oddity in the Android world and sticks out like a sore thumb.
Performance: This is a considerably more subjective thing, and a lot harder to call. There’s no doubt that Honeycomb is a much better version of Android than the previous tablets offered, as the native applications make better use of the screen space, the onscreen navigation is very snappy, the mail client works well and the browser is just that little bit quicker than the iPad2. Using the online Browsermark benchmark, I recorded a score of 88717 for the Galaxy Tab 10.1v compared to 70310 for the iPad2. If your application needs are modest, the Galaxy Tab 10.1v delivers nicely. The problem for Android is that there’s still a dearth of genuine “Honeycomb” applications for Android, and running older Android applications is a very hit and miss affair. Some scale up to the full screen neatly, while others occupy only a tiny area of the screen, or shrink everything down so small as to be useless. Comparatively, the iPad2 not only has a rich array of native applications on offer, but also scales up the vast majority of iPhone applications with only a little bit of pixel chunkiness as a drawback. Honeycomb should improve over time in this regard, but right now it’s not quite there.

Conclusions: The 10.1v is a solid iPad2 competitor, but it’s not quite there yet, and it’s something that Samsung’s all too well aware of. The company has already announced that newer models of the Galaxy Tab 10 will be forthcoming in slimmer frames and possibly with more storage. It’s good to see competition to Apple in this space, but for right now, I’d still say that the richer application infrastructure supporting the iPad2 makes it a better buy. If you’re staunchly anti-Apple for whatever reason, I reckon it’d still be worth saving your money for more Android tablets, and critically more native Honeycomb applications to hit the marketplace.

Smartphones Head To Head

If you’re in the market for a new phone, you’ve got two choices. Buy outright, or pick up a phone on a plan. If you buy a smartphone outright, you’re typically looking at between $500-$1000 out of pocket; there are models that are both cheaper and more expensive than that, but it’s a fair average across the most popular models. That’s why contracts make a fair amount of sense. Not only do you shift the handset cost over a longer term (and potentially gain the ability to write it off against tax rather simply under certain business circumstances — but check with your accountant!), you also get the most generously provisioned rates for calls and data compared to most pre-paid plans on a handset you own yourself.

The problem is, most smartphone contracts cost pretty much the same irrespective of the model of phone you choose. Entry level points are now down around twenty dollars, but those are typically last year’s handsets being rushed out the door while they’ve still got stock. Between fifty to seventy dollars a month can get you the handset of your choice, including cutting edge models. It’s easy enough to test the physical layout of a phone by simply gripping it, but what about on the software side? With so many choices, which smartphone operating system do you go for? Here’s a brief rundown of the most prominent smartphone platforms and their pluses and minuses.

Apple iOS

Representative Handset: iPhone 4

Pluses: The largest applications marketplace for any smartphone, hands-down, which gives iOS a lot more flexibility in what can be done with it, especially in the realm of entertainment applications. The fixed hardware platform — basically just the nearly-obsolete iPhone 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4 — also means that all apps run optimally across handsets. iOS upgrades are regular and not subject to the approval of the carriers, meaning they’re usually a little faster than on competing platforms.
Minuses: Apple controls the iOS environment with an iron glove, which some folk plain don’t like; certain applications will never be approved for iOS as a result. There’s also no such thing as a “live” iOS application displaying twitter feeds, weather or the like. Everything is icon-based using push.

Android

Representative Handset: HTC Desire HD

Pluses: Google’s “open” smartphone OS is being rapidly picked up by just about every handset maker out there (excluding Apple and Nokia). That gives you a huge choice of handsets and price points, as well as a wide variety of features. Google’s tailored Android applications for its core search and gmail utilities are incredibly slick, and the applications market is growing rapidly. Applications can act as live widgets displaying up-to-date information constantly.
Minuses: The variety of handsets can make some applications behave in unusual ways, especially as application development isn’t a rigidly controlled as it is with Apple or Microsoft. Operating System software upgrades must be carrier approved before you can get them, which can lead to long delays in getting the latest version of Android for your smartphone — if it ever appears at all.

Blackberry OS

Representative Handset: Blackberry Torch

Pluses: Blackberry has long been the smartphone of choice for the business crowd, and its core competencies have remained the strength and speed of its email client, which simply blows the competition away. If you need email quickly (and want, on most Blackberry models, an excellent physical keyboard), the Blackberry is the one to get.
Minuses: Operating system upgrades are once again at the mercy of operators, and some handsets will get stuck over time. The excellent email service is part of a specific paid service, which (depending on the carrier) might not be the most cost-efficient way to get your email. The application library, like the devices themselves are largely productivity oriented, although this has changed slowly as more consumers have taken up the Blackberry brand.

Windows Phone 7

Representative Handset: Samsung Omnia 7

Pluses: Windows Phone 7’s “tiles” arrangement is amongst the simplest smartphone visual layouts of any smartphone platform, making it very easy to pick up and use. Xbox Live integration is built in for the gaming crowd, and the application market, while still quite small, is growing rapidly.
Minuses: There’s a relative dearth of available handset choices, although that’s likely to change with Nokia recently making the shock declaration that it would start building smartphones utilising Windows Phone 7. As yet for the existing models from HTC, LG and Samsung the full operating system upgrade path is quite unclear; even the patches to date have had a rocky history. At the time of writing, Cut & Paste functionality still wasn’t present, despite being promised as “coming soon” when it launched.

For any of these platforms it’s certainly well worth having a test run in a mobile phone shop to see not only which one may suit your needs, but also your style of smartphone use. Some users will prefer the full touchscreen setup of the iPhone or most Android models, while other users may favour the keyboards found on most Blackberry models.

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