I ended up getting the Sprint Galaxy Tab after all. At $399 and $29/mo for 2GB of data, it's a bit on the steep side, but I have some work connections that mitigated the price enough to make me pull the trigger. So the big negative here is that it's overpriced for most people -- it's $1020 over the course of 2 years or $42.50 per month to own a supplement to your existing cell phone and laptop/desktop, and that's assuming you stay within the 2GB limit (which is quite feasible if you stay on wifi most of the time, or $60/mo for 5GB). Here are my first impressions:
The long and short of it is that the Tab as an oversized Android phone, specifically one of the newer models with 4+" screens. But the increase in size and, more importantly resolution (1024X600 vs 800X480), has increased some of the functionality of the Tab. For instance, I can remote desktop with a 800 X 600 desktop and scale it to fit the screen in portrait mode, which gives me plenty of room for the keyboard, mouse pointer, and function keys. So as a remote client, the Tab is fantastic -- having an unobstructed, full view of the remote desktop is a huge leap in productivity over what I was used to on the Evo, and that was actually the best handheld RDP experience at the time.
The increased size and resolution also works wonders for the keyboard, which is about the same size in portrait mode as it is on the Evo in landscape. I can type very quickly on the Tab using the Vlingo keyboard. The reason I use the Vlingo keyboard is that I don't really like Swype all that much, and both Swype and the Samsung keyboard are slow to react to finger taps. The Vlingo keyboard is actually the stock Android 2.1 keyboard, and it's very fast and responsive and this is the best two thumb typing experience I've encountered. Typing with both hands in landscape mode, while feasible, limits the amount of viewable screen and without a way to prop it up on an angle is a rather awkward experience.
I had wondered why in the world the GTab and the iPad had such large, prominent bezels rather than having screen from edge to edge. After a few minutes, I realized that you need a place for your thumb to grip the device, and it became clear why you needed the bezel. The size of the GTab is too big to hold it from edge to edge comfortably, although you can do it if you want to. It's easier to hold it like a fan. I very much like the ability to hold the GTab in one hand and scroll with the other. Not having to set down the device to use it makes it very portable -- for tying, one handed pecks for short stuff and a quick adjustment of the left hand to type with two thumbs for longer compositions. And speaking of portability, the GTab fits into my coat pocket. I'll have to figure out what to do when the weather gets warmer. But for me, the true portability of the GTab is what distinguishes it from the iPad. Outside of OS, your preference really boils down to a form factor issue. The iPad is a laptop replacement but isn't any smaller and slightly more wieldy. The GTab is like a PADD straight from the Enterprise-D deck. That form factor is good enough for the 24th century, and it works very well in the 21st century as well.
Videos on the GTab are beautiful. The native player can handle avi and mkv file extensions and the common codecs used for those files as well as AC3 audio. The only issue with the native player is that it does not bookmark your place, which is why I ended up using Rocklpayer anyway -- when you're watching shows during a commute that can be interrupted at any time, it's a nice feature to jump back in where you left off.
The battery life is tremendous compared to my Evo. After a series of file installations and large file transfers, the battery was down to 91% from a fully charged state. I think the Evo would have gone to 60% going through the same processes. Not having to deal with cell phone standby helps the battery a lot. It's also helpful that I can simply turn off the GTab when not in use since I still use my Evo for all my communications. After playing with the Tab for a few more hours, it was down to 83%. These numbers are tremendous if you stack them up against the Evo. Once I got home, I proceeded to transfer 3GB of video files over wireless using Webshare. The throughput was around 23mbps, a big increase over the 15mbps I get on my Evo. This took a major hit on my battery, as it dropped to 60% by the time the girls were in bed and I plopped down on the couch. I was on remote desktop continuously from 8:30pm to 1:30am and finally hit 3% and decided to recharge. In contrast, 5 hours of remote desktop on my Evo required a battery change. So for the Tab to do this at under 60% charge is quite remarkable. I will have to see how the Tab holds out without any charging during the day since I don't have any spares for the 2amp charger and 30 pin cable (the Evo reused all the same stuff as the Touch Pro 2, so I had spare batteries and chargers from day one).
The downside to this battery life is that the charging is quite slow. After it hit 3%, I turned it off and charged it. By 7:30, or 6 hours later, it was only at 2/3 charge. That's really just painfully slow. Another user I know says it only takes him a few hours to fully charge, so I'll have to do some troubleshooting and asking around the internets.
The other downsides:
The backlight on the capacitive buttons on the bottom of the unit times out in a matter of seconds, so if it's anywhere near dark, they're invisible almost immediately. There is no setting to change this.
You cannot have one value for screen timeout and another for screen lock like there is on the Evo, so you have to reenter a code every time the screen goes off. I just upped my screen timeout to 10 minutes and will see how that affects battery life. My Evo doesn't require security entry until after 15 minutes while the screen auto shuts off after 1 minute. As long as it's not off for more than 15 minutes, I don't have to enter a security code.
After using the Tab for 4 hours straight, it started to strain my arms and wrist. It's not heavy initially, but after a few hours you start to feel it. In retrospect, that might be more my problem than a Tab issue.
I was disappointed to find that Droid Comic Viewer would not display in full screen. That lasted a few minutes until I downloaded a different comic viewer that displayed in full screen and had all the bells and whistles I needed (and yes, also free). I haven't loaded a tons of apps on the GTab yet. So far, Droid Comic Viewer was the only app that didn't at least scale to full screen (Angry Birds is glorious on the GTab).
I cannot stress this enough -- the Sprint contract model is simply too expensive. If I were forced to get one, I'd buy the AT&T model off-contract and use it as Wifi only (the extra $50 nets you 14GB internal storgage memory rather than 16GB SD storage like the Sprint & Verizon models). But even then, there are products like the Viewsonic tab for $380 if you're doing Wifi only that are much more cost effective. The only reason the Galxay Tab was worthwhile for me was substantial the deal I was able to get through my corporate rep.
While the GTab is worthwhile for me simply because of its remote desktop capability, the multimedia features make it an attractive timekiller. I will have to play with it much more before I can really conclude whether or not it's a worthwhile purchase, but at this point, its most compelling feature is that it's really cool. On a purely functional level, 95% of what you would do with the GTab could be done on the Evo or Galaxy S or Droid X, just smaller. But then again, I own the Evo, so if you're still a Razr owner, perhaps a Galaxy Tab would prove to be much more than just bigger.
