My one-day experience with Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (GT-P7500)

This morning, I woke up fairly late, around 8.15 a.m. This morning was also the launching date of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 by Celcom, to be precise, at 9.00 am.

As I had no agenda for the whole morning, I thought it might be a good idea to while away my time by making a trip to the Celcom Office at Kempas. Well, I was curious to find out who actually camped outside the roadshow venue as suggested by the Lowyat website. It said, “If you are planning to purchase the tablet especially for those who are going to camp at the selected roadshow venues, we hope this video will be able to keep you occupied and excited for your big day tomorrow. Enjoy!.”

Nevertheless, I told myself I would buy one if I happened to be one of first fifty people as the offered price of RM999.00 was very attractive. However, I did not habour too much hope as I could not be that lucky to be one of the early birds. As a matter of fact, I had no intention to purchase; just made up excuse to buy one.

I arrived at Kempas office around 8.48 a.m., much to my surprise, there were not many early birds and definitely no campers to be seen. There were ample parking lots.

I did not make any head count, anywhere the line in front of the entrance to the Celcom Office could not be more than fifty people. Suddenly, the Murphy’s Law works. It seemed that I was destined to buy one even though I simply made above excuse to be here. So, I lined up in the queue.

The door opened sharp at 9.00 a.m. Again, I told myself that I hoped I was not the first fifty early birds so I had reason not to purchase one. Well, I was “lucky” to be given this card, meaning I was offered to buy the tablet at RM999.00.

Around 10.30 a.m., the process of ownership transfer was completed. Celcom did not accept my Maybank Amex , so I could not enjoy the extra discount which came with using Amex Card on Saturday and Sunday. If Celcom accepted my Amex, I stood to gain another discount of about RM75.00, sufficient to pay for one-month fee which is RM68.00.

Now, the followings are my personal take after one-day hands-on usage.

Pro

1. It has a convenient button to do a screen capture.

Do you know which one ?

2. ….

3. …. ( I do not seem to be able to find anything worth while to be listed here.)

Con

1. It is not so easy to navigate /use even though I am very familiar with Android 2.3.

2. The flash does not work within the browser. The Celcom website keeps asking for the latest flash to be installed.

Installing the latest Flash Player does not help.

3. The “Opera” does not display Chinese characters properly.

4. Movie does play within Facebook.

5. No slot for external “SD Card”, so you are stuck at 16G.

5. No direct HDMI output.

6. Playback on Youtube is not that smooth.

7. Skype can not do video call.

8. I better not to list any more…….

Readers must be wondering why I am so reluctant to procure another tablet as this new toy is my fourth one.

Last year, I bought iPad which is now more than a year old and it is still going strong.

Last year, I also bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab PT1000 even though I wanted to buy an iPhone4.

This year, I bought iPad2 online .

To day, I bought Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

I am not a fanboy of Apple but I must say that Galaxy Tab 10.1 leaves much to be desired. Do you have such short comings with iPad, it is categorical no. If you talk about user experience, the Samsung Galaxy Tab cannot hold a candle to iPad. If it were not offered at a reduced price, I would not have bought it in the first place.

Possibly the reason for the shorter queue at the Celcom Office.

So, what I am going to use my Galaxy Tab for ?

It serves as a very expensive radio. At this moment, it is running on TuneIn Radio app.

P.S.

No FREE Samsung premium items as promised . ( I only got a cleaning clothes. Is it a premium item ? )