To date, Samsung’s Galaxy tab appears to be the most real offering of an Android-based Tablet PC product. While the CES 2011 back in January  was seeing a ton of ambitious new tablet product announcements, the Galaxy Tab has been available for purchase since November 2010. The Tablet is in fact largely responsible for the 22% market share of android based tablet computers. The other 78 % go to, well, Apple with its OS on the iPad.

The 7-inch tablet fits surprisingly well in a small hand and lends itself perfectly for one-handed use.

Since its release, Samsung has been seeing quite some consumer interest (depends on who you are asking) and sales have been “quite smooth” not “quite small” according to some company execs. In fact, the company has sold more than 2 million Galaxy Tabs since launch, the return rate has been a whopping 13%-16%, despite great reviews. One of the reasons for that could be that the rumours are already swirling on the end-of-year release of the “Galaxy Tablet 2″. It is now official that the company will be announcing the new device at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on February 13th 2011.

For those who don’t care about the potentially better product of the future – much like anybody still buying iPads, while the new iPad 2 is a sure thing to hit the stores in about 2moths – here comes our own review of the Galaxy Tab.

Hardware

At the heart of the device is a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor with 512 MB RAM and powerful SGX540 GPU. With 16 GB internal storage and a maximum of 32 GB additionally available on MicroSD, you’re definitely in for some great multimedia experience.

At first glance, the device has a fairly rugged, but not heavy feel to it. The South Korean manufacturer for consumer electronics certainly displays great skill at making gadgets desirable without totally emulating the competition. The 7-inch tablet fits surprisingly well in a small hand and lends itself perfectly  for one-handed use.

The screen (Gorilla Glass!) is framed with a black bezel and contributes to the device’s overall “clean” look and feel. The LCD screen has a resolution of 1024 x 600, a bit less than the iPad (1024 x 768 IPS). The viewing angles seem great, we can tilt the device with no noticeable image or color distortion. Hello family trips!

It sports 4 touch buttons on its front side, a headphone jack on the top and a volume controller, microSD card slot, power button on the right edge and a proprietary charger with speakers on the bottom. The speakers will not instantly make you the DJ at any party but you still have a shot by connecting the tablet to external speakers. There is no MicroUSB port that could be used for charging the device, it probably wouldn’t provide enough power to sufficiently charge the Galaxy Tab.

One of the impressive features of the Galaxy Tab is that it can be used as a 3G Hot Spot and will provide wifi for up to 5 devices! Imagine you are stuck at a hotel where you need your laptop and your smart phone to feed of the same network. Neat!

The Tablet comes with a dual camera setup: The 1.3-megapixel front facing cam and the one on the back with a 3 Megapixel resolution and LED flash. This is where the Galaxy Tab strikes it big against the iPad – that is, until the iPad 2 comes out.

The rear camera does a decent job as a casual replacement for your point-and-shoot and the flash does a good job in a poorly lit alley. People around you might be looking at you funny when you pull out an oversizes pocket camera though.

It also shoots video, unfortunately not in HD but in 720×480, with no stuttering problems. The setup is generally perfect for video chats rather than filming the next blockbuster flick.

The keyboard stretches across the 7 Inches of screen real-estate and takes some getting used to. You might at first find the keys too short and wide at first, especially if you are coming from a portrait-mode keyboard on a different device.The good news: the Galaxy Tab supports Bluetooth keyboards and includes a keyboard dock.

Software

The Galaxy Tab comes preloaded with Android 2.2 and support for Flash Player 10.1. I won’t have to outline in detail what advantage that means over the hardware coming out of Cupertino.
The so called “TouchWiz” user interface adapts well to the Tab and looks the same as the Galaxy S with the addition of extra real-estate that prevents you fingers from accidentally loading the wrong application.

As with any other device in competitive markets, the product lives and dies with its applications. Apple clearly set the standard with its app store and keeps marching ahead of the crowd.
However, Samsung already provides a variety of native apps for the device and developers have taken to adapting the yet 4-inch-optimized Android applications to a 7-inch screen in favour of a better user experience on the Galaxy Tab. The efforts are already paying of in form of multiple applications like Contacts, Calendar, and Memo that display 2 panes of information.Your email for example can be viewed in a 2 column layout and makes everything appear more organized. Putting the Tab in landscape mode enhances the experience.

Bottom Line

The Samsung Galaxy Tab plays in a league of its own. While sitting between a smartphone and 1o-inch tablet, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab delivers a sound Android experience and is one of the first commercial uses of Google’s mobile operating system. The device feels solid and mature and offers a swiss-knife experience for the most part. The fact that it is offered by the 4 big U.S. carriers shows that Samsung has done something right and continues to be a force to be reckoned with.