The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is amazing in two ways. It’s the first tablet that’s as immaterial as the iPad 2, in form and weight and feel. (In fact, it is slightly more so, by a gram and a millimetre.) That’s amazing. What’s more amazing, maybe, is the fact that’s amazing.
It’s not as rigid, not as sturdy or deliberately constructed – at least that’s the way it feels. That’s because the back is plastic, glossy and thin. Like the Motorola Xoom, it’s proportioned in a way that it’s really meant to be used in landscape – it’s too tall, too long in portrait mode. But it’s still the first Android tablet, the first non-iPad tablet to feel the way that tablets should feel. Every millimetre, every gram counts, and in the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the maths is beautiful.
More on this later. But even if it’s exactly the same as the Xoom and every other Android Honeycomb in terms of power, performance, features – this is the new Android tablet to buy. Because it’s the first one to feel right.