It's easy to slap a new 4G radio in there and they've already put the effort into making the wifi version, so these aren't too surprising. Samsung did announce that they've already been working on the Tab 2. It'll come soon enough.

Funny thing is that despite all these new tablets having better specs than the Tab they will (with the exception of the Motorola if it is heavily backed by Google) probably have nowhere the type of sales success the Tab has had. By the time they come out there will be so many competing tablets whilst the Tab has had virtually no android competition (just ios) and has had no true competitor in the 7 inch range. Seems Samsung did the right thing getting out a quality product running android 2.2 rather than doing what all the other competitors have done and waited for Honeycomb and then faced stiff competition from other android manufacturers, ipad 2 and blackberry playbook.

Not to mention that it also gives them far more experience in Android development on a big screen, too, and seeing what works and doesn't work. They may still end up putting out the better tablet later just because they decided to rush the Galaxy Tab today and spent that time honing what will end up being the Galaxy Tab 2 based on customer feedback and the general buzz around the current device.

WHOO! I just saw this posted in the "Droid Fans" group on facebook:

It was accompanied by a screenshot of the 'about' screen in Cyanogen 7 showing that it's running Android 2.3.1. Man, if only the Tab could be fully owned so we can run Cyanogen. > : ) At least I also have a Droid, so I can run these community builds. Man, talk about future-proofing. How're those updates coming along for the N900? :P

Here's an extensive preview of Honeycomb done by a head googler:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqn9ikoQf_U
http://www.droiddog.com/android-blog...rizon-presser/

What do you think?

I think it looks 'ok', here's why:

The UI styling is novel, but feels cold and needlessly busy. This is a minor gripe, I'm sure, but it seems to lack that soft-touch that makes a good thing great. For example, I like the 3D desktop transitions, but hate the borders. It would also be nicer if the effect was more pronounced. I also like the bottom bar, but the button designs, size, and placement is poor at best. Again, a small tweak that could have made a large difference. The transition between applications also feels very on-off. It would be nice if there was a slide transition rather than simply flashing a different application on the screen (eg. when the gmail app called maps).

I love some of the new apps. The Gmail app looks great and extremely useful. I really like the youtube application. It shows the 3D wall, and I'm hoping that OpenGL was used in its construction, which would imply fluid graphics and good battery usage, especially for the 1280x800 screen in the demo. One thing I don't like about the youtube app is that it loads video images only when they are on the screen. It would have been far nicer if the app loaded many images in advance to avoid the 'empty-frame' effect. Other than that it looks really nice.

Google talk looks amazing! The video framerate is superb and performance you would fully expect on a desktop. With Google Talk and a Google tablet, the idea of usable web-communication comes closer to reality rather than needing a contact list to share device brands or share software. Perhaps 2011 will be the year that Video calls become ubiquitous.

I *still* prefer the multi-tasking scheme that Android uses rather than the
'implied' multi-tasking schema used by the playbook or more traditional desktops. The benefit is that you don't have to 'close' applications, which is an innovation that palmOS introduced in the mid-90s brought and that I absolutely love. The playbook's demo seems to have wowed the crowd by running quake and a 1080p video, but this use-case can only result in battery drain, and making it necessary for the user to regulate this (app management) making it more complicated to use than an Android system.

In the end, my main gripes are with the UI styling not the capability. It's an OS after all, and android is certainly capable enough for any modern task. Thankfully, Android is theme-able and I bet that 3.0 should be as well. As it stands, the look is very vanilla and rough around the edges (IMHO).

I'm still betting that GPU acceleration is missing across the entire UI. There were earmarks of this lack across the demo. Ugh..

Honeycomb's front page kind of reminds me of the Meego for Tablets demo we saw last year. Except unlike Meego it is not vaporware. It looks a bit on the dull side at the moment but I am sure when you put in your wallpaper and other customisations it comes to life.

You're probably right. I'd also like to see how ADW/LauncherPro could improve this.

My fingers are crossed for Honeycomb on the Tab! It seems like a lot of great functionality that would play well on the 7" screen.

Talking about the Meego Tablet edition - I really liked the "Panels" view of Meego - which you could switch back to the apps view.

And each Panel could hold category specific lists of apps and notifications.
In fact the Panel view is something that Eden is similar to - on the Notion Inc. (Eden is the UI that Notion Ink built on top of Android).

But the Honeycomb is indeed a nice interface - though even I have some mixed feelings about it. Cant really put my finger on it.

Here's an interview with Matias Duarte, the director of user experience on the Android team:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/07/e...-honeycomb-tab

What's interesting listening to him speak, is that he seems to be entrenched in the psychology of how a user uses a system rather than the actual styling and building this on an already established system. This is very interesting.

He seems like a smart dude and there's hidden meaning behind his words -- he has an insight that most people don't.

I now believe that the OS will have added usability, despite the styling, and thoughtful touches based on this interview alone. It seems that he pays attention to detail, and honeycomb is his first major effort at turning the boat around.

I suspect that Android would benefit GREATLY from a 'director of interface design'. The key components are there, but there needs to be somebody that applies the final polish to the system, or commands designers to do so.

Having done quite a bit of graphic design in the past, I can honestly say that I could easily improve Android's look and feel given a month of intensive work. And if I had pull, I would be able to mandate things like transitions, use of colours, etc.

changing topic...
But I love that the OS is evolving. Here's hoping that the next wave of applications are Windows/Linux desktop defectors looking to reach a new userbase.

I would love to be able to use this system in a more productive way.