I thought I'd also post this find here:

http://www.amazon.com/Caselogic-SLRC...659236&sr=8-37

This is a camera sling bag that would be great for general Tab carrying. Unfortunately, at $79, it's too expensive for my blood.

Now this is going to tick some people off (including myself, if I got mad about this sort of stuff):

http://www.androidcentral.com/t-mobi...ct-649-without

It seems that Tmobile has just released the price of the Galaxy Tab!

It's $649 off contract!

Ah, samsung, you and I could have had something beautiful! But I'm a man that sticks to his limits. Suddenly, the additional $49 has breached my maximum cost, and unless $599 is the price that I see, I'll have to forgo this little beaut.

Arrgh! I just talked myself into spending the extra $50! It fits me entirely too well to overlook. I still hope I can get it for less...

Amazon, don't let me down!

I am sure you would be able to get it online for less than the price tmobile sells it for.

I agree with you that it is a better device than Dell Streak and yet only slightly more expensive. The problem is Dell Streak is a real two in one device. You can use it easily as both a phone and an internet tablet. The Tab does much better than the Streak as an internet tablet but is far far less useful as a phone and very few will be able to succeed in using it as their only phone, especially given its portability (you won't be able to take it out clubbing for example). So I personally feel that tablets should be priced cheaper than today's smartphones because smartphones can do everything a tablet can do and more.

I certainly hope that it can be found for less! I'm with you: there's no real reason that these devices should be priced much higher than smartphones especially since the only enlarged parts are the screen and the battery -- and I seriously doubt that these would inflate the cost tremendously -- especially in that Samsung manufactures most of the hardware! The Galaxy S can be bought for $499, so $599 seems perfectly reasonable for the Tab. This is especially true considering the Tab significantly downgrades the camera, removes the short-supplied SAMOLED screen, and manufactures the device with a non-swapable battery.

From my position (ignorant though it may be), it doesn't seem that it's costing Samsung much more to develop the Tab. In earnest, I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually costing them less.

We're not the only ones that are miffed by the price. It seems that when the initial rumors that the Sprint Tab would cost $599, bloggers were happy to see that the price was reasonable and prepared to buy. When the latest $649 price rumor was released, almost all of the comments are negative. It seems that I'm not the only one with a $599 cut-off!

I sincerely hope that the final price of the Tab is lower than the speculated T-Mobile price, or at the very least, it can be found for less.

Bad news! I'm not sure if the Tab will fit in the Caselogic sling bag:


The problem is that the bag is split into two compartments, one for a camera, and one for lenses. The resulting compartments may be too small for the Tab.


I'm not wiling to part with $79 to test it out!

The hunt for the perfect Tab bag continues!

Gear! The latest release of Ubuntu looks really, really good!

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/n...nvironment.ars

What impresses me most is the Unity netbook interface that is packaged with the OS. Having used a 1024x600 netbook with Ubuntu, I can attest that vertical clearance matters! Unity implements a global window title-bar, and a side-launcher that leaves a very comfortable space for applications!



What's even better about this new setup is the fact that it should work (and work well) with the Galaxy Tab's resolution! Although the speeds are a little slow (it would be great if the Tab were running a Tegra T20 -- drool... lust...), it would still be ok for some less demanding apps. I may have to vnc afterall.....

Where's my Android X server already?!

Even at slow speeds, I would have access to a very familiar linux environment for some of my productivity. I'm just hoping that it's not *too* slow. When ARM chips match ATOM in terms of speed, I may have to upgrade the Tab.

Is it bad that I'm buying it knowing that I will be upgrading in a year??

If you're still interested in bluetooth earpieces and the tab, yesterday I had time to test.
Motorola H700: no go. Connects but audio stops immediately.
Nokia HS26W: no go. Connects but no audio at all.
My wife's Philips+Swarosky crappo: works flawlessly
(it's *her* tablet, actually).

So the thing is picky at connecting with bt headsets.

If I have time I'll try some a2dp later.

Thank you!

This is actually a point worth great consideration for me. I have a BT headset that I hope work with the Tab (Blueant Z9). I was also hoping to purchase a new BT headset, the (Plantronics Voyager Pro), for long-wearing comfort and quality, but if it's not supported well, it would be a waste of money. I certainly hope that there is a simple fix and/or these headsets get better support shortly.

It's curious that certain headsets would work but not others. If the devices are using HSP properly, then the Tab should be headset agnostic. Perhaps there's a protocol timing issue or some variation in transmission causing problems. I wonder if this is a problem with other Android phones...

How are you finding the Tab otherwise, having spent some more time with it?

Tim Bray had a pretty good blog about tablet sizes and usage scenarios, comparing the iPad which he has occasionally used, and the Galaxy Tab he has.