Matt Buchanan on the Galaxy Tab: 'A Pocketable Train Wreck'

Entertaining review of the “first iPad competitor” from Matt Buchanon:

This thing is just a mess. It’s like a tablet drunkenly hooked up with a phone, and then took the fetus swimming in a Superfund cleanup site. The browser is miserable, at least when Flash is enabled. It goes catatonic, scrolling is laggy, and it can get laughably bad. When better browsing is half the reason to go for a larger screen, that’s insanity. Not only does it use a stupid proprietary charging/syncing cable, it won’t charge when you plug it into a laptop. Neither of the cameras are anything to write home about. Costing $699 off-contract is embarrassing when the iPad is $499.

Typically, the point of a compromise is to bring together the best of both sides. The Tab is like a compromise’s evil twin, merging the worst of a tablet and the worst of a phone. It has all of the input problems of a tablet, with almost none of the consumption benefits. With more apps geared to its tweener size, it could be a lot better, but it’s not clear they’re coming anytime soon, if ever. The Tab is an awkward first attempt at this kind of tablet—wait for somebody else to do it better.