I’m a regular of my iPad and used my Galaxy Tab a few times before concluding that it sucks. As such, I keep an eye on the waves of new and updated tablets that crash, in varying levels of completeness, onto our shores almost daily.
I like the Galaxy Tab’s pocket-appropriate size
The two new tablets I’ve been most interested learning about are the new Motorola Xoom, because it comes with Honeycomb, the tablet-centric version 3.0 of Google’s Android OS, and the iPad 2, because, well, it comes from Apple.
Now that I’ve seen both, I’m a little underwhelmed. There are things to like about both devices, but I’m not going to buy either one. Here’s why.
But the iPad is more elegant and has better apps.
The Xoom looks really nice, and Honeycomb is a significant improvement over the current versions of Android. But it’s too expensive, too big (I really like the smaller size of the Galaxy Tab) and, inexplicably, it has to be sent back to the manufacturer in a few months to be updated to the new 4G network. Maybe it would have been better to wait a little longer and release a mature product. There’s simply no way I’m going to buy some device, put all my stuff on it, become dependent on it, and then mail it somewhere to be upgraded.
The iPad 2 has some nice new features, like a faster chip and cameras, but it only added one item from my wish list. I view it as a minor step in the upgrade path, and expect the next version, likely to be out next year, to have more material improvements to offer. Like a better display, wireless syncing, etc.
So for the time being, I’m going to keep on using the tablets I have and wait for a more compelling reason to upgrade.
Newsome.Org 