Ever since the iPad shipped, I've been waiting impatiently for a comparable Android device to emerge – something of like shape, size and capacity, but from a more open ecosystem than the one Apple offers.
Like Apple, Google operates an Android App Store that it controls – if your app doesn't please Google, it doesn't go in the store. But unlike Apple, Google allows you to install apps from unofficial sources, meaning that you can download apps directly from their authors or buy them from stores that compete with (or complement) Google's store.
This is the kind of thing that's important to me. After all, a tablet without software is just an inconveniently fragile and poorly reflective mirror, so the thing I want to be sure of when I buy a device is that I don't have to implicitly trust one corporation's judgment about what software I should and shouldn't be using.
The introduction of the iPad sparked a series of Android tablet launches, and none of them had sufficiently impressive specs or form-factor to capture my desire, until Samsung announced its Galaxy Tab 10.1. Despite having one of the stupidest and most awkward product names in recent memory, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 boasted specifications that met or beat the iPad 2 on every axis, and came with the latest Android tablet OS, 3.1, preloaded.
So I asked a friend who was coming over from Chicago to buy one for me and bring it with him (the device isn't available in the UK until 4 August), and I greedily unwrapped it, charged it up, and got down to business with it. I've used it on my own at home and office, given it to my three-year-old to test, and taken it on a quick overseas trip, and at this stage, I'm prepared to venture a verdict: meh.
It's true that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 does all the basic stuff you'd like from an Android tablet, has a long-lived battery, weighs little, and has a good, sharp screen and two very good cameras – one facing you and one facing away. The camera is a delight – there's something really fun and right about using a big, 10.1in screen as a viewfinder, especially when shooting video, and the pictures are beautiful. By and large, the OS is easy and intuitive, and the software offerings from Google's Android store and its competitors are fine as they go.
But there are a few annoyances and a couple of dreadful flaws that make the Galaxy Tab 10.1 into a disappointment. First, and worst of all, there is the business of the USB connector. Apple's iOS devices famously use a long, flat proprietary connector that provides some easy cash for the company in the form of specialist cable sales, and locks competing devices out of using speaker-docks and other accessories. This is one of my gripes with Apple devices, and the use of standard, cheap, widely available mini-USB cables in Android phones (including the excellent Samsung Galaxy S, which I am delighted to own) is a major selling point for me.
But Samsung's tablets – for no discernible reason – use a custom tip that isn't any of the standard mini- or micro-USB ends. Instead, it's a wide, flat connector, like the one Apple uses, but of course, it's not compatible with Apple's cables, either. I've already lost mine, run down the battery and now I can't use the tablet again until I find another one. I passed through three airports recently, and none of them had a store that stocked them.
I have phone charger cables in my office, my travel bag, my backpack and beside the bed. The very last thing in the entire world that I need right now is to have to add another kind of USB cable to all those places. The decision to use a proprietary connector in a device whose major selling point is that it is non-proprietary is the stupidest thing about the Galaxy Tab 10.1 – even stupider than calling it the "Galaxy Tab 10.1."
Likewise disappointing was the decision to omit the microSD card slot on the Wi-Fi-only version of the tablet. The 3G-equipped models come with a built-in microSD reader (handy to have, especially if you need to load some data onto the device and you've mislaid the stupid proprietary cable). This is integrated into the Sim assembly used by the 3G devices, and rather than leaving the empty Sim assembly in place and leaving the card-reader intact, Samsung removed the whole thing.
Continuing on the theme of data-transfer, the new versions of Android have made fundamental changes to system by which devices talk to personal computers. Up until now, Android devices showed up on your desktop as standard USB storage, and you could move files off or onto them by dragging them around in your file-browser. This was straightfoward, fast and easy, but it did have one minor annoyance: when your Android's storage was mounted on your PC, it wasn't available to the Android device, meaning you couldn't work with the files on your Android at the same time as it was using the storage to play back movies or audio.
To fix this, Android borrowed MTP, a Microsoft technology developed for the Zune, which theoretically allows you to use your tablet's files even as you're using your PC to move files off or onto the in-built storage. It's a nice idea, and would represent a minor improvement to the Android experience, if it worked.
But it doesn't. When you plug your Galaxy Tab 10.1 into your PC, Android automatically launches a Samsung file-transfer app that takes up your whole screen. This communicates with a desktop app to allow you to transfer files – very, very slowly. And if you try to launch another Android app while the file-transfer is taking place, it severs communications with your PC, causing the file transfers to fail. In other words, the system that's supposed to let you use your Android while you transfer files requires that you not use your Android while you transfer files.
What's more, the adoption of MTP means that Android now requires a proprietary desktop app to effect simple file transfers – an app that is, if possible, even worse than iTunes, and represents no selling-point for those of us who want non-proprietary, "just-works" mobile devices.
Samsung really doesn't seem to have its head around the notion of Android's strength being its non-proprietary, open nature. They've preloaded the device with several Samsung apps that, insultingly, can't be deleted without "rooting" the device, a process that voids your warranty.
The 32GB, WiFi-only Galaxy Tab 10.1 will ship in the UK in August, at an unrevealed price, though Play.com lists it for pre-order at an insane £899 (the comparable iPad 2 costs £479.00 and I paid US$699 for my Galaxy Tab 10.1).
I'm not giving up on my search for a great Android tablet – I'm eyeing up the forthcoming Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet. I love Lenovo's ThinkPad laptops, and the ThinkPad Tablet comes with standard USB connectors, video out and an SD slot (it also has an optional stylus and carry-case with an integrated ThinkPad keyboard – my favourite keyboards in the world).