iPad 2 vs Samsung 10" Tablet
So I broke down and bought my wife the iPad 2 upon its launch here in South Africa. I bought it for a couple of reasons.
1) She loves her existing Apple kit. Macbook / iPhone and iTunes make a comfortable environment she has mastered to the point that I am not needed for most of her work & play.
2) I didn't like the hardware spec of the original iPad, mainly due to the lack of camera's for skype. It just seemed a wasted opportunity.
3) The price *IS* right. It's way cheaper than the nearest competitor which is the 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab over here. In fact, the entry level iPad is about 40% cheaper. That's a huge difference.
From what I've heard, the 10" Samsung hasn't been priced, but I ended up playing with it for a few hours. I'm not sure if it was running the final software build, but it was running Honeycomb. Compared to the 7" tab, it didn't have the Samsung specific software and bundled apps, but I had market access and was able to load some of my favourite apps.
However, this blog post is more focussed on differences between the 2 products rather than exhaustive reviews.
With regard to the iPad 2, first impressions are good. It appears to be quite nippy and responsive and relatively bug free. Everything worked as advertised and the setting it up with my work email & home wifi setups was painless. While driving I was able to access the internet over wifi tethered to my android phone which worked well, if a bit slow. Could just be a network related issue, but the actual setup was painless.
Sync'ing with iTunes is brilliant and crap at the same time. Brilliant in the way it allows you to configure the screens with your apps & the seamless way your backups are handled. Crap, in fact, awful, in that you have to be physically connected over USB to get anything done. What's worse, is that while you are syncing, you cannot do anything else with the tablet.
Coming from the Linux world, I'm using to browsing the internet during an O/S install and I've been multitasking since my first Amiga in the 1980's. Its absolutely mindblowing to think of such an advanced product forcing you to twiddle your thumbs while you are copying data to it. It defies belief that users of IOS products put up with this. I swear, I'd be heading for Cydia if this was mine, but it belongs to my wife so....
It bears mentioning at this point that the average Android phone or tablet has multiple solutions for syncing wirelessly and you CAN sync data while using the device.
Onto the app store. In South Africa, being a new store, its severely limited. I was able to access the US store to compare and while there was much more content available, accessing it was incredibly frustrating. It just doesn't seem like the navigation options encourage browsing or discovery of apps. I found myself looking for lists of top apps on the web and then manually searching them using the search tools in iTunes and on the device itself. At least you can install / purchase apps from the iPad without the need to be connected to iTunes. The actual process of acquiring and updating apps seems seamless, although swapping between the US/ZA apps stores requires a password login each time. This is annoying, but understandable.
With regard to the Samsung tab, the Honeycomb market seemed to have fewer apps than on my Froyo phone. I couldn't find a couple of the apps I regularly use which seemed strange, but I guess this will change over time. I did find a few of my favourites which was awesome, but some of them seemed quite unstable. For some reason, rotating the tab caused a number of apps to Force-Close everytime. The core OS apps did not do this so I guess some of the 3rd party apps need some Honeycomb fixes. In fact, since I played with the tab, a number of them have been updated with changelogs reflecting Honeycomb support.
There are still many more FREE apps in the Android store. Finding quality free apps on the iPad is not as common and clearly the developers on Android have realised the market difference compared to the Apple user base. On Android Ad-supported free apps are in abundance and there is adequate choice of apps for most purposes.
On the iPad I forgot that you have no real choice when it comes to the core app functionality, something I wouldn't mind. On my Android phone, I have samba support which allows me to browse my media server and sync my podcasts or watch divx files. On the iPad, I am limited to using very flaky DLNA implementations with now file-system browse support. I guess its a different approach to the same problem, but I know which I prefer.
I realise that on both platforms, rooting is the way to go in order to maximise them. On the iPad, that will enable the use of XBMC as a media player and once that happens, it will kick Honeycomb's ass comprehensively in that department. XBMC supports DLNA as well as most common network protocols natively. I am literally dying to have this in a tablet device.
In conclusion though, what can I say. The iPad 2 is a combination of very good hardware with a brilliantly functional & stable O/S with an aweful ecosystem filled with lock-in and DRM. Its enough to drive you crazy and delight you from moment to moment. To make the device more usable for me would require some kind of Jailbreak. This should enable wireless syncing, alternate media codec support (flac / ac3 / etc) and wireless media streaming. For the price it would make even the Samsung 10" Android 3 based tablet struggle to compete.
One last nod to the Samsung. The camera's, screen, peripheral support & expandability are so far superior to the iPad 2, that they don't bear comparison. Its a better hardware device in most respects. However, the software support and the relatively new O/S needs some work to be spouse-friendly in this household.
Oh, before I forget. Screen rotation. On iPad its a joke. Some apps don't rotate properly forcing you to use the portrait mode in one one side only. Flipping it 180 degrees makes no difference. This can be annoying if you have the charging cable in. Also it means the home button moves from left to right or top to bottom depending on how you hold it. On Honeycomb, the buttons are virtual and follow the screen orientation, always at the bottom left. Its strange when you first see it, but it works like a charm.
Which would I buy for myself? Well, I guess it comes down to price. I'd be willing to pay a premium to get and Android device. However, I can honestly say, XBMC is just so damn good, that I might still be tempted to get a jailbroken iPad instead.
1) She loves her existing Apple kit. Macbook / iPhone and iTunes make a comfortable environment she has mastered to the point that I am not needed for most of her work & play.
2) I didn't like the hardware spec of the original iPad, mainly due to the lack of camera's for skype. It just seemed a wasted opportunity.
3) The price *IS* right. It's way cheaper than the nearest competitor which is the 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab over here. In fact, the entry level iPad is about 40% cheaper. That's a huge difference.
From what I've heard, the 10" Samsung hasn't been priced, but I ended up playing with it for a few hours. I'm not sure if it was running the final software build, but it was running Honeycomb. Compared to the 7" tab, it didn't have the Samsung specific software and bundled apps, but I had market access and was able to load some of my favourite apps.
However, this blog post is more focussed on differences between the 2 products rather than exhaustive reviews.
With regard to the iPad 2, first impressions are good. It appears to be quite nippy and responsive and relatively bug free. Everything worked as advertised and the setting it up with my work email & home wifi setups was painless. While driving I was able to access the internet over wifi tethered to my android phone which worked well, if a bit slow. Could just be a network related issue, but the actual setup was painless.
Sync'ing with iTunes is brilliant and crap at the same time. Brilliant in the way it allows you to configure the screens with your apps & the seamless way your backups are handled. Crap, in fact, awful, in that you have to be physically connected over USB to get anything done. What's worse, is that while you are syncing, you cannot do anything else with the tablet.
Coming from the Linux world, I'm using to browsing the internet during an O/S install and I've been multitasking since my first Amiga in the 1980's. Its absolutely mindblowing to think of such an advanced product forcing you to twiddle your thumbs while you are copying data to it. It defies belief that users of IOS products put up with this. I swear, I'd be heading for Cydia if this was mine, but it belongs to my wife so....
It bears mentioning at this point that the average Android phone or tablet has multiple solutions for syncing wirelessly and you CAN sync data while using the device.
Onto the app store. In South Africa, being a new store, its severely limited. I was able to access the US store to compare and while there was much more content available, accessing it was incredibly frustrating. It just doesn't seem like the navigation options encourage browsing or discovery of apps. I found myself looking for lists of top apps on the web and then manually searching them using the search tools in iTunes and on the device itself. At least you can install / purchase apps from the iPad without the need to be connected to iTunes. The actual process of acquiring and updating apps seems seamless, although swapping between the US/ZA apps stores requires a password login each time. This is annoying, but understandable.
With regard to the Samsung tab, the Honeycomb market seemed to have fewer apps than on my Froyo phone. I couldn't find a couple of the apps I regularly use which seemed strange, but I guess this will change over time. I did find a few of my favourites which was awesome, but some of them seemed quite unstable. For some reason, rotating the tab caused a number of apps to Force-Close everytime. The core OS apps did not do this so I guess some of the 3rd party apps need some Honeycomb fixes. In fact, since I played with the tab, a number of them have been updated with changelogs reflecting Honeycomb support.
There are still many more FREE apps in the Android store. Finding quality free apps on the iPad is not as common and clearly the developers on Android have realised the market difference compared to the Apple user base. On Android Ad-supported free apps are in abundance and there is adequate choice of apps for most purposes.
On the iPad I forgot that you have no real choice when it comes to the core app functionality, something I wouldn't mind. On my Android phone, I have samba support which allows me to browse my media server and sync my podcasts or watch divx files. On the iPad, I am limited to using very flaky DLNA implementations with now file-system browse support. I guess its a different approach to the same problem, but I know which I prefer.
I realise that on both platforms, rooting is the way to go in order to maximise them. On the iPad, that will enable the use of XBMC as a media player and once that happens, it will kick Honeycomb's ass comprehensively in that department. XBMC supports DLNA as well as most common network protocols natively. I am literally dying to have this in a tablet device.
In conclusion though, what can I say. The iPad 2 is a combination of very good hardware with a brilliantly functional & stable O/S with an aweful ecosystem filled with lock-in and DRM. Its enough to drive you crazy and delight you from moment to moment. To make the device more usable for me would require some kind of Jailbreak. This should enable wireless syncing, alternate media codec support (flac / ac3 / etc) and wireless media streaming. For the price it would make even the Samsung 10" Android 3 based tablet struggle to compete.
One last nod to the Samsung. The camera's, screen, peripheral support & expandability are so far superior to the iPad 2, that they don't bear comparison. Its a better hardware device in most respects. However, the software support and the relatively new O/S needs some work to be spouse-friendly in this household.
Oh, before I forget. Screen rotation. On iPad its a joke. Some apps don't rotate properly forcing you to use the portrait mode in one one side only. Flipping it 180 degrees makes no difference. This can be annoying if you have the charging cable in. Also it means the home button moves from left to right or top to bottom depending on how you hold it. On Honeycomb, the buttons are virtual and follow the screen orientation, always at the bottom left. Its strange when you first see it, but it works like a charm.
Which would I buy for myself? Well, I guess it comes down to price. I'd be willing to pay a premium to get and Android device. However, I can honestly say, XBMC is just so damn good, that I might still be tempted to get a jailbroken iPad instead.
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