After playing with my Tab for a a few things would like to give my mini review of a sort. Quite busy at the moment and want it as detailed as possible so will do it in 3 parts. Part 1 will contain screenshots of my desktops and a few comments. Part 2 sometime in thenext few days will set out my dislikes (which are very strong), Part 3 shortly after that will set out my likes.

So on to Part 1.

Have to say that even at this early stage I already love the device. With limited time with the device it has already sailed past my N900 as my most loved handheld ever. Will explain why in Part 3 and Part 2 will set out the short comings which prevent it from being the absolute perfect device. Some of the dislikes may possibly be things I would eventually find solutions for in the android market though.

By the way I am on my second Tab now. Had to return the first one because the screen stopped rotating after two days.

Have not yet had time to root the device. Been spending most of my time sorting out my contacts which I had to pull in from different sources. Now that I have switched fully to google contacts this should thankfully be a much less painful experience in the future. Will definitely need to do so and disable adverts though because I am using Rockplayer as my video player. Prefer the Samsung one but it has an annoying issue (see Part 2).

One really cool thing about the Tab is how easy it is to take screenshots. Went to google to find out how to take screen shots on android and discovered it was a painful process is you did not have a rooted device or Evo 4. But then went back to google search a second time and one of the results this time was taking screenshots on Galaxy Tab. Discovered it was as easy as going to desktop, holding back and pressing power button. Of course this method would not work to take pictures outside the desktop as pressing back would just take you back.

I am using the Go Launcher custom launcher. I was using Launcher Pro which I think popular concensus says is the best custom launcher. I was just about to pay $3 for the full version of Launcher Pro so I could resize widgets when I stumbled on Go Launcher.

For me Go Launcher is a far better launcher. Has everything the free version of Launcher Pro has and much more. And only thing missing from the paid version of Launcher Pro is the Launcher Pro widgets.

So what is so great about Go Launcher. It allows you to easily organise your apps into your own custom folders (see screenshot 4 below) and has some other neat customisations . Also has ability to set up and down gestures as short cuts. I have set swipe down to go to previews and swipe up to launch application launcher. Which means I do not need application launcher in the dockbar which has given me one extra space.

Go Launcher also has ability to have unlimited desktops (it seems - went up to 15 and was still able to add more). Launcher Pro only allows 7 desktops. However, I am sort of limited to 7 because:

1. Can't seem to find many great android widgets so only even filled up about 4 screens;
2. You cannot have different pictures for each wallpapar on Android. Need to download Multi Picture Live wallpaper but that only allows 7 different pictures (hence the black screen below).

Both of these will be discussed in the dislikes part of my review.

So on to screenshots.

Screenshot 1 is my homescreen. Dockbar has shortcuts to phone, conversation, email, dolphin hd browser (will check out the normal version as recommended by danramos but using hd version for now) and shortcut to the wife's contacts (great option which was horribly missing from N900 - see more on that in Part 3).

On the main part of the screen is a short cut to think office which is basically a free version of word, excel and powerpoint (fantastic). Also a short cut to the youversion Bible app, the android market, a folder with my favourite contacts (again something I desparately wanted on N900). Another cool thing about Go Launcher is that the folders created with it are transparent and so you can see little clip arts of the first four items in the folder. Love it.

Also have two photo frame widgets. These are both fixed frame. Tried some of the slide show widhets in the market and did not find any that worked well.

Finally there is a winamp widget. I think danramos speaks very highly of winamp and my nephew has loved it for several years. However, I am not a fan because it is a bit to dark, grey and dull for me. Like something bright and cheerful. The Samsung media player has this in abundance and I absolutely love the look. However, I cannot use it due to an issue with it (will be very very critical of Samsung about this in Part 2). Also the Samsung widget does not even have album art which I definitely want on my screen so still not even sure I would have used it anyway as I want album art on desktop widget. Tried double twist which is not as nice looking as the Samsung player but far better looking than winamp. However, after I moved my music to a different folder it no longer picks up my album details (including album art) so is now totally unusable.

Screen 2 I am still messing around with. Has some system controls (still working on these - especially the bottom one which I have not figured what the icons do other than the first two which are to switch on blue tooth and to make device visible. Assume the other two are some WinSCP type transfer tool. Also on this screen are short cuts to most used folders and a short cut to most used file.

Screenshot 3 is a course for frustration. On N900 was using sticky note applet which allowed me to have a transparent sticky note widget with option to add an unlimited number of pages. I put several of my favourite Bible passages on the widget and could read them from desktop. Have only found EZ Note widget as a sticky note that allows transparency. However, it does not have pages so can only take a limited number of passages. Also the widget is very small (phone size). Have resized with Go Launcher but most of the text keeps disappearing. So will have to just get rid of the widget. Still looking for a solution. Have a shortcut to the file with all the passages but much prefer a widget.

Screenshot 4 has all my apps arranged in folders thanks to Go Launcher. Think this is much needed given that there are so many apps in the android market. Having them well organised means you do not have to spend ages going through the app drawer searching for your apps. One thing I really did not like about Launcher Pro was that it disabled the Touch WIz setting which has apps in pages. Instead you just get one scrolling list which is far from ideal. Makes it more difficult to find apps that way. IOS, Samsung Touch Wiz and Meego all use pages and I think that is far far better. Go Launcher on ups on all these by not only having pages but allowing you to drop the apps into custom folders in the app drawer, making them even easier to find. You can then drop the folders on to the desktop.

Screenshot 5 has my calendar widget. Prefer the one on N900 because rather than writing birthday it had a cake icon which made the widget look much cleaner than this one.

Screenshot 6 (in post below due to Talk Maemo 5 file attachment limit) is my 8th desktop. Just uploaded here to highlight the annoyance of being limited to 7 custom wallpapers.

Will add a facebook widget to one of my desktops. The stock one only shows one persons update at a time (and you scroll right to see more) so is a bit too minimalist for me. There is a Samsung one which pulls in updates from different social websites but it seems to have completely disappeared from mine.