That's the one I eventually used after trying two others.

Also, I forgot to say, the navigation on the tab is awesome too

I'm spoiled by the N900. This whole "rooting" business is outside my experience. I'm clear on the concept. It's the practicalities that are hazy.

I've seen dark warnings about rooting android devices, but I'm not clear on the issues. What's the downside of rooting an android device like the Galaxy Tab?

I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon. I know they tell you you're required to activate it in order to even turn it on.. and I kept getting an activation screen that would NEVER let me out. I managed to hold down the power button, get it into airplane mode.. reboot... back out of the activation (which otherwise will NEVER let you get to the Launcher desktop). Bam! That was done.

When I finally did drop to the desktop, though, the MENU and SEARCH buttons were disabled to prevent me from being able to use the tablet in any meaningful way and the web browser nagged at me saying that I'm browsing without ever having connected to Verizon. (They want you to connect at LEAST once before canceling that initial one month of service.)

So, I slid the notification bar down and connected to my wifi, went to the market, downloaded z4root... BAM! rooted it. Went back to the SETTINGS app icon in the application list, went in and ran the SETUP WIZARD... skipped the Verizon activation portion but did the rest and VOILA, the menu and search buttons were enabled (I'm guessing it thinks it's successfully activated by the end of the wizard).

I now have a fully working Galaxy Tab with my apps on it, rooted apps even and never had to connect to Verizon. I'm probably going to get Verizon to add this one to my service anyway, but I really had fun trying to work around their incredibly lame attempt at a captive audience for a device that you don't even get a break on even if you got a contract. It's not like that first month is free, even.

Hope that helps someone else, though.

What dark warnings? Are they any darker than getting su/sudo access on an N900?

For my part, I rather like it so far--but then I've had a Droid for nearly a year now, too, and loved it.

And HOLY CRAP games run INCREDIBLY faster on the Tab. Angry Birds runs smooooothly. My Droid is overclocked and runs better than most of my coworkers' Androids but this Tab feels slick slick slick! I've also noticed that it plays MKV files incredibly well! My Droid plays video audio through bluetooth perfectly with barely a noticeable delay but the Tab seems to have a more noticeable delay over bluetooth--it's bearable but noticeable.

Dan, that's AMAZING! I'm so excited for you! Way to go! I hope you really enjoy it.

Let us know how you're usage patters change as a result of having the device relative to your other devices and especially your expectations.

Great job on bypassing the Verizon registration! I bet that someone would really appreciate this information and you should submit it to a popular blog (eg. androidcentral) so that others will be able to do the same.

One thing that you may consider doing is running the one-click-lag-fix on the device. It's supposed to speed up disk IO significantly and prevent stutters that can happen on the hardware.

Other than that, let us know how it's going!

Well, I saw this coming....

The T-Mobile Galaxy Tab has been 'hacked' to make phone calls!


http://www.androidcentral.com/t-mobi...ke-phone-calls

I *knew* it was an artificially gimped feature. It would probably be easier for Samsung to manufacture/test/distribute a single board rather than variations on the same board. In other words to disable calling via software rather than hardware.

In any case, the TMo Tab can make calls!

Thanks. It works great for taking pictures of the home screen, but can be really frustrating in an app as it's impossible to tell whether the back button will or will not have had any effect before the picture is taken.

Good info! Please do share your grabs!

Just saw my first Tab in the flesh at Carphone Warehouse and tried it out for a few seconds. Was in a keyboard dock but I didn't bother trying the keyboard out as I know it is something I would never buy.

After seeing the Tab I am even more convinced that 7 inches is the perfect form factor for such a device and all the websites that have said there is no place for such a device have been drinking too much Apple Juice. I also feel Nokia missed a massive opportunity here and not sure how they went from leaders to followers and not just following but always a few steps behind.

The Tab is nice and portable without being so portable that the screen size is too small too fully enjoy web browsing, etc on it. Should be able to fit into most of my jeans pockets. Its size also makes it exactly what I need when I want to browse in bed at night or in the mornings. Now I just need someone to give me £479.

Also did not notice any of the lag that many sites have talked about. Seemed to run buttery smooth to me. I should caveat that by saying:

1. The Tab on display did not have live wallpaper. Not sure how much having that on hinders smoothness.


2. Coming from an N900 anything will seem super smooth and responsive to you. May not feel the same way for those who have been using iphones or android phones for ages.

Got my tab yesterday and it is sExy.......trying to get use to swype!

It's still no maemo 5.......the browser is weak!

Dual boot would rock!