The Samsung Galaxy Tab – the Better Tablet Alternative?

2010 will be remembered by mobile gadget geeks as the year when two tablet computers slugged it out in the emerging tablet markets. The Apple iPad came out first and delighted even the harshest critics. But it had its shortcomings – no USB, no camera, no 3G video camera, no HDMI and no real multitasking OS.

Enter the Samsung Galaxy Tab, inheriting just about all the flagship features that made its Galaxy S smartphone the most popular Android handset todate but bringing it closer to tablet size without giving up on portable ease and pocketability. It’s the largest mobile phone in the market with a foot on the tablet genre.

Shaming the iPad

Better in many areas than the iPad, the Samsung Galaxy Tab enjoys a 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU with PowerVR SGX540 graphics accelerator and 512 MB RAM running the Android running the v2.2 Froyo. This puts it processing prowess at par with the Apple iPad. With a choice of 16GB or 32GB model, it has a microSD slot for up to 32GB to give it parity with the 64GB model of the iPad. Then there’s a 3.2 megapixel autofocus shooter with LED flash and D1 video recording at 30fps and a front-facing 1.3 camera for 2G videos calls the iPad does not have. Lastly, it has true multitasking support with the Android v2.2 Froyo OS.

Other Features

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is your quad band GSM with 3G/HSDPA/HSUPA handset with WiFi 802.11 b/g/n support, Bluetooth v3 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0. Its gorgeous display is a 7-inch TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen with multitouch and Swype, an accelerometer with 3-axis gyro sensor and a proximity sensor.

Other feature includes in-built GPS receiver with A-GPS and digital compass and a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack that’s also a TV-out jack. It comes bundled with Adobe Flash 10.1, Thinkfree Office and Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Picasa and Google talk integration. The best part is that Samsung Galaxy Tab contracts are available right now!

Tags: 3.2-megapixel, 7-inch-TFT, Android-2.2-Froyo, ARM-Cortex, Google-Android, Samsung, Samsung-Galaxy-Tab, tablets, Wi-Fi

The HTC Desire Z – Second Android QWERTY from HTC

The first Android full-QWERTY slider from the Taiwanese leader in smartphones was the HTC Dream released back in June 2009. Now you have a successor in the HTC Desire Z. A closer look and it’s really the HTC Desire that just grew a sliding QWERTY keyboard from the outside. Inside, it’s another story, though close.

Familiar Features

Like the earlier Desire, the Z comes with the same 3.7-inch Super LCD capacitive touchscreen with 480 x 800 resolution and 16 million colors, plus accelerometer and proximity sensors and the multitouch input feature. It could have been AMOLED just like the first batch of HTC Desire handsets, but HTC has already shifted to S-LCD in the later batches as Samsung failed to deliver the needed quantities of the screens.

Then there’s the same 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, geo tagging and face detection. But the HTC Desire Z one-ups the Desire with 720p video recording courtesy of its higher Android v2.2 Froyo. But an upgrade on the older Éclair in the Desire should fix that.

Other Desirable Features

Powered by a Qualcomm MSM 7230 CPU clocked at 800 MHz, a bit less endowed than the 1GHz Snapdragon on the first Desire, the HTC Desire Z enjoys the same plethora of radio and data connectivity options, starting with a quad band GMS/GPRS/EDGE on 2G and a dual band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA on 3G.

It comes with hotspot support from an upgraded WiFi 802.11 b/g/n with DLNA and local data connectivity like Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0. Other features include a stereo FM receiver with RDS, a 3.5mm audio jack, SatNav support with GPS, A-GPS and Digital Compass.

There’s a 1.5 GB onboard user memory with 512 MB RAM and up to 32GB microSD support. Its 1300 mAh Li-ion battery delivers 9.8 hours of call time on 2G, 6.6 hours on 3G with 430 hours on standby.  Some very attractive HTC Desire Z contracts have already emerged and the handset is expected to hit shelves in late October.

Tags: 5-megapixel, Android-2.2-Froyo, Google-Android, HTC, HTC-Desire-Z, qualcomm, QWERTY, social-networking, Wi-Fi