GOOD NEWS!
http://www.oled-display.net/samsung-...sories-located
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdNqC3XepLI

Mind you, it's old news--but it sounds like you might have missed that before.

I was thinking that it would be far easier to work with a spreadsheet as well using a keyboard. But I'm curious to what makes the experience so terrible.

Deb: Have you tried online solutions like google docs or zoho?

Funny thing is Apple will probably release a 7 inch tablet. Then Steve will have some magical things to say about how 7 inches is great.

Capt'n Corrupt I take what you are saying about the tab being competitively priced with smart phones. However, I think smart phones are much more necessary. If you have a tablet you still need a phone. If you have a smart phone then you don't really need a tablet though it would be nice to have one. For that reason I would expect tablets to be cheaper than smartphones.

However, the main issue is that it is priced the same as what is going to be the most popular tablet for sure and which is bigger. It puts Samsung in a boat if they decide to release a 10 inch tablet. Will they really sell it at the same price as the 7 inch Tab? The options are:

(a) their 10 inch tablet will be more expensive than ipad (which is crazy);
(b) they would have to drop the price of the 7 inch and sell the 10 inch at the current price of the 7 inch;
(c) they price both the 7 inch and 10 inch the same.

(b) seems most likely. (a) and (b) both prove that the size of the internet tablet should affect the price which I certainly think should be the case. (c) proves otherwise but I find (c) to be most unlikely ( and (a) would be suicidal).

New video about blackberry playbook. There will be 64gb version. Guy in the video brags about how fast the device will be.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/19/b...d-to-a-5-300m/

Word of warning the video is as boring as all the blackberrys that have been released.

For instance, it is not possible (or I couldn't see how) to select a range of cells to copy them, in order to paste them in an extendend range. I can't cope with the idea to copy one cell and paste the same formula in 30 other cells, one by one.

Docs to go (I got the paid for version) also didn't allow me to select a cell as an argument for a formula, and had to manually insert its coordinates through the keyboard. Thinkfree allowed it, but on the other hand when I inserted something like =C5+D5 and clicked return, there was no calculation and the input stayed there, treated as a string instead that as a formula (but I hadn't inserted any apex before the equal sign). Maybe I had to use an insert function menu instead than the = char, but then I was too annoyed and closed the thing.

Furthermore, you find all the special chars = ( ) ; : and alphanumerics in different sections of the virtual keyboard, so inserting a formula needs a lot of fiddling.

Today I tried to compose the same spreadsheet (a simple work hour recording monthly archive) on my N900 with gnumeric, and the experience was absolutely pleasant and flawless for one that is accustomed to using a spreadsheet on a desktop machine.

I think that the gui of spreadsheets or - more generically - of productivity apps should make full use of multitouch, e.g. to select cells ranges or move cells. By now, both docstogo and thinkfree remind me the way they're used on S60 or other thumbs-only interfaces, and they need much too fiddling with menus to be productive.

Otherwise, maybe using an external hw kbd could be useful, but I haven't tested it yet.

This is a very good point. And I agree with you on all points of reasoning.

I think that this particular industry segment is young and this is classical economics at play. As competition ramps up -- not only between device manufacturers, but also carriers -- prices will inevitably fall. I think both Apple and Samsung have priced their devices at a profit maximizing point based on speculated demand and (lack) of competition and the rate of production (and many other metrics that I/we are not aware of). These prices are not commodity and I assure you that they are inflated above the costs of the hardware. But as these variables change, so will the prices if these companies wish to remain competitive; which I would bet the farm, they will remain.

I think it's a bit too early to speculate on pricing decisions, though your three options are well categorized, and I suspect that b) is also likely. But time will tell what this looks like, and that's based on quite a lot of unforeseeable factors (from my vantage anyway).

But I don't think that lowering the price puts Samsung in a tough position. It's *really* easy to lower prices. What's difficult is raising them without turning people off.

In all likelihood, you're right, the Tab isn't a viable smartphone replacement, and me comparing the price/specs in this regard is somewhat pointless, though useful to me and perhaps a few others.

I *do* however speculate that portable 3G tablets will have many thinking very differently about high-powered smartphones. While I don't think that smartphones are going away, I see having 'good-enough' smartphones -- inexpensive handsets with basic features -- becoming much more popular. I can see users reverting to $200 handsets that they can tweet from, take photos, take calls, etc, but use their portable Tablets for serious interaction. I speculate that a sizable portion of the market may fall into this model.

Interestingly, I can see Nokia profiting heavily from this switch, as well as Android devices as they are poised to capitalize on low cost, low performance devices.

In this case, a slightly more expensive tablet may not be balked at.

There's also the increase in carrier competition, that already has interesting effects on the ways that plans are structured. With multiple devices on the horizon, I see carriers adopting shared plans (multiple sims, one account) to consolidate usage. This will also make 3G tablets more attractive.

But this is all speculation.

Ah! I understand the problem more clearly now. It seems as though ThinkOffice could improve it's interface quite a bit. Perhaps even having a specialized keyboard for cell-entry would be good.

Here's hoping that there are other options in the future! Here's also hoping that it's far more usable with a BT keyboard.

Just a thought, not ideal:

I know in Excel and Gnumeric, in the upper left, there is a "name" box. It usually contains the cell you are in "A1". You can type in that box "A1:F1" to select A1, B1, C1, D1, E1, and F1. Don't know if that applies to Thinkfree or Docs to Go, but it might be worth checking.

German vodafone 16gb Tab pricing has been revealed.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/19/s...0-if-bought-w/

And Samsung's pricing seems to be getting more and more silly. The 16gb Tab apparently cost €30 more than the 32gb ipad.

Something that has me concerned is that I've read that Honeycomb is just about finalized and manufacturers will be getting it shortly. This is the 'tablet' version of the Android OS. But the Tab may not be getting this for two reasons:

1) It was stated that the Tab would be getting Gingerbread by Samsung Execs, but not honeycomb.
2) It seems that there's a 720p spec requirement for Honeycomb that Tabs don't fit in with 1024x600 res.

And just like that, I'm going to have to avoid the Tab! It's a quality product, to be sure, but I would have hoped that it would be well supported into the future. However, it looks as if it will be obsoleted almost before it's released!

At the very least, I'm forced into a wait-and-see position.