Apple iPad vs Samsung Galaxy Tab 750

I’ve been a happy owner of the original Apple iPad for more than a year now. It’s an awesome tablet and everyone in the house is completely happy with it.

But, how does it compare with the competition one year later?

Sadly, not so good. The new Samsung Galaxy tab comes chock-full of interesting features, and I can’t wait to get my hands on them in person and try it out for myself.

Here’s a small slide show of tech specs that I took from the Samsung website:

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//Samsung Galaxy Tab 750 features a 10.1 inch WXGA multi touch TFT LCD display, 3 MP rear camera with autofocus and LED Flash, 2 MP front facing camera for video calls, 720p video, 1 GB RAM, 16/32 GB internal memory, Samsung TouchWiz UX, Multi format audio/video player, Accelerometer, Ambient Light sensor, Gyroscope and digital compass.//

At first glance, nothing seems all that novel. All these features are present in some form or the other in the Apple iPad 2 as well.

Sure, the camera and video camera feature in the Galaxy tab seem superior, but I know that I am not planning on using it much. Hmm…maybe, if there are some awesome movie editing apps that I can download for free, then maybe 😉

What I do like about the Samsung Galaxy tab features are some basic things:

• USB support – Syncing data, videos, and photos between my iPad and my iPhone is such a pain because of the lack of a USB port on my iPad. I need to first connect to a laptop, download data there, and then sync from the laptop to the iPad/iPhone. Cumbersome at best, and impossible when you are on the move. But, I do hope when Samsung says USB support, it means that they have a USB port, which I suspect not, unfortunately :(.
• Adobe Flash Support – Another sore point when it comes to the iPad.
• Android Marketplace – Which I hope is more simplified than the iTunes user experience. I hate the amount of space iTunes occupies, the UI sucks, and iOS updates are killer :(.

So, will the Android OS v 3.1 (Honeycomb) experience on the Samsung Galaxy tab be any better? My husband K uses an Android phone – the Nexus One. Google pushes updates directly to his smart phone as they see fit, which is great in terms of usability. But, I also have to admit that compared to iOS on my iPhone 4, the Android on Nexus One is much more slow and sluggish. Of course, a lot depends on the hardware, memory, and disk space of the device.

And what about the price?

I saw the Samsung Galaxy tab with 16 GB offered for 34,999 on flipkart. Wait a minute, that can’t be right! I was counting on some competitive costing.

For this price, I may as well buy the Apple iPad 2 right? The Apple 16GB WIFI costs about Rs.29500, and the 16GB 3G version costs about Rs.36900. Something must be off here…

I then went straight to priceof mobiles.com , a site I always turn to when I want to do quick spec comparisons between competing products, and plugged in my data here.

Hmm…there is not that much differentiating the 2 products. So, if I want to upgrade, what would I choose? The known tablet (Apple iPad 2) where I am already comfortable with the look and feel, and the quality, or the unknown Samsung Galaxy? Or do I wait for more options (Apple iPad 3)?

I suspect I will be able to answer this question after the Samsung Galaxy tab Indibloggers convention that I am attending this Saturday. It’s an invitation to bloggers to come and get introduced to the Samsung Galaxy tab 750 and get your questions answered directly from the folks at Samsung.

I know one of my major questions will be about the support for an e-reading tool like Apple’s iBooks. I enjoy using iBooks, and would definitely want something similar in the next tab I buy. I definitely also need to play around with the product some and hopefully get some user reviews from friends to see which way I”ll eventually go.

What about you? If you had to choose, which way are you inclined to go?

Btw, if you want more information about the Samsung Galaxy tab 750, check out the below webcast: