With the bloggers writing to and fro about the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the AndroidHD blog has scored a long, long hands-on video test of the Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” tablet, slated to go on sale from Vodafone this spring:
If you’ve seen or used the Motorola Xoom, the demo won’t offer much new to you, as it’s the same Honeycomb OS.
Though this guy actually took the Tab 10.1 in his car to show Google Maps Navigation. Sweet! He also took it into the bathroom. Not so sweet.
When the dual-core, 1GHz processor-powered Galaxy Tab 10.1 was unveiled at Mobile World Congress one month ago, the tablet with the 1280 by 800 (WXGA) thin-film transistor display seemed destined to rival other Honeycomb tablets.
More broadly, these premium Honeycomb devices are positioned as Apple iPad challengers, but if you listen to early buzz about the Xoom, the Google hive needs to get its Android worker bees in line.
Global Equities analyst Trip Chowdry argues that Honeycomb is buggy and hard to use on the Xoom, which is reportedly seeing weak sales, largely from the $799 price tag.
If this is true, it seems the Honeycomb devices will compete in mediocrity with each other, while the iPad remains far and away the leader.
Analysts expect the iPad to help Apple to 80 percent market share in 2011. If Android tablets are that bad, who will grab the remaining 80 percent? The as-yet-unavailable RIM PlayBook or HP TouchPad.
Maybe Amazon.com will throw itself into the breach with an Android tablet this year, providing a super retail channel and brand to challenge the iPad 2.
Or maybe the Tab 10.1 will undercut the iPad 2 in price this year, but I doubt it.
Failing that, Apple will continue to defeat all comers.