[Samsung Galaxy Tab Plus] marcolamy:
Hi all,

Maybe this is useful for some folks. I loved my original Galaxy Tab and have now upgrade to the Plus. For info, I'm using the devices in Asia (Malaysia, Singapore, China, Vietnam) mostly. The version I have is a 3G with calls enabled.

I use the Tab as my primary mobile phone. It is therefore essential that it fits into the back pocket of my jeans or pocket of my suit pants. I have paired it with a VoyagerPro+ Headset and this works perfectly for calls, audio (mono of course) and Skype. I'd say I'm a heavy user with 2-3 hours of calls a day and a fair bit of web surfing, sms and emailing.

What I loved about the Original:

Contrary to many of the reviews, I really enjoyed the fact that this was an oversized phone, not a pint sized tablet. I never felt there was anything wrong with Gingerbread as an OS on a screen of this size, in fact I really liked the experience. Icons were big, keyboards very useable particularly in Portrait and the whole thing had a solid, Tonka like feel to it. It was also really tough, having dropped it countless times, never without a problem. Another handy feature was the sim card slot; very easy to access as I often swap sims.

What I noticed immediately with the Plus:

Clearly this is a small tablet. You tend to hold it in landscape much more often. The resolution of the screen is the same, but all the icons and toggles are much smaller. This makes quick operation (e.g. whilst walking) quite difficult. If placed on a desk, this is not so much of an issue. The learning curve in moving to Honeycomb is quite steep and (personal matter of taste) the transition from home screen to home screen is a bit kitchy. The tablet feels thinner (though it's not...except at the edges)

What I am beginning to like with the Plus:

Though the operation of the device is more "delicate", i.e. more care needs to be taken about where your fingers tap, there are quite a few cool features to be had in Honeycomb. The widgets are superb. Some of the tablet tailored apps are also great, particularly Youtube notwithstanding that rotation of the screen immediately reloads the video (arrrghh!!!). It feels fast, and after a week I'm already noticing that the battery time is noticeably better. In some of the blogs, the Samsung apps which float above open apps have not really impressed the reviewers, but I have found that the dialer and the calculator are particularly useful, say if you're browsing a site and want to dial or check something.

What I miss about the Original Tab:

I hope that over time I'll have the same trust in the sturdiness of the Plus. Going back to the Original Tab, I feel the same sense as when I first bought it, namely that everything on the screen looked huge. It really feels like you were playing with Lego and now you're playing with Duplo :). One of my favorite apps (smart keyboard pro) doesn't play nicely with Honeycomb and so I have lost my multilingual inputs until I find a replacement.

Wrap-up:

It's a week in with the Tab Plus. I had the original for a year. Already, I know I would not want to go back to the original mostly because I enjoy the Honeycomb features, the speed and the longer battery life. I'm still not as fast at typing on the Plus, but hopefully this will improve over time.

For anyone looking to upgrade from the original, be aware that it is may not be the quantum leap you experienced when you first got the Galaxy Tab, but provided you can get used to the smaller icons & toggles it's a good upgrade.

Happy to take questions if anyone's interested.

Cheers,

Marc