Many electronic companies, sensing the popularity of tablets among the masses, and also buoyed by the tremendous success of iPad by Apple, have made their entry felt in this segment. Samsung has already tasted success in the form of its tablet PC called Galaxy Tab. The latest to join the bandwagon of electronic companies making tabs is Acer that has created flutter with its sensational new slate called Aspire ICONIA Tab A500. People find many similarities in the hardware of these two tablets. However, there are many differences also that need to be highlighted to enable first time buyers make right selection depending upon their requirements.
Samsung Galaxy Tab
Samsung had been planning for quite some time to enter the tablet segment to provide competition to iPad. The Tab finally arrived in November 2010 loaded with features that took many by surprise. It is an Android device running on Android 2.2 OS, has dual cameras, is Wi-Fi with Bluetooth and 3G, has massive internal storage capacity of 32 GB and provides full Adobe Flash support to make web browsing smooth and seamless.
Galaxy is a 7 inch tab and the overall dimensions are 7.4 x 4.7 x 0.47 inches. It is thus smaller in comparison to iPad and is lighter too at just 0.83 pounds. In fact, many find it to be a very handy and compact slate in comparison to ones that are dominating the field with a size of 10 inches. However, Samsung is today matching others as it is making tabs in three display sizes that are 7, 8.9, and 10.1 inches respectively. The display has a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels with LCD technology. The screen, though it is highly capacitive touch screen, is not super AMOLED like other smartphones from Samsung is very responsive.
It is Samsung’s user interface called Touchwiz that makes using this tab a very enriching experience. Apart from apps that one can download from Android’s app store, Samsung has also developed some apps especially for Galaxy Tab such as media hub. Calendar, messaging, contacts etc. Movie hub allows more than a thousand movie titles to the user.
Super fast 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and 512 MB of RAM ensures that multitasking and browsing is a breeze on this tab. It has a 3 MP camera at the back and a 1.3 Mp camera at the front that allows video chatting. In short, it is a solid device that is one of the best Android base tabs available in the market.
Acer Aspire ICONIA Tab A500
Giant electronics company Acer has created a lot of buzz with its latest offering in the tablet segment. Aspire ICONIA Tab A500 is the first tablet that runs on Android’s specially designed OS for tablets, Honeycomb 3.0. Indeed, with a bright display of 10.1” (1280X800 pixels) and a powerful processor that is 1 GHz dual core Nvidia Tegra 250 SoC, A500 has the potential to challenge the supremacy of iPad 2 while pushing other leading tablets in the market. The tablet is good enough for multitasking and does not slow down even while playing HD videos at 1080p. With the added attraction of games like Need for Speed and Let’s Golf being preinstalled, A500 is certainly going to be a preferred choice of the gamers.
With 1 GB of RAM and an internal storage capacity of 16 GB (32 GB model is in the pipeline) that can be expanded up to 32 GB using micro SD cards, running applications or downloading huge files is a smooth and seamless operation. For those who like to take photos and videos, there is a 5 MP camera with auto focus and flash at the back with a 2 MP camera in front to allow for video chatting.
For connectivity, the tab is Wi-Fi with Bluetooth. It is GPS enabled and makes sharing of audio and video files with friends fun.
As far as differences between these two high quality tablets are concerned, the first notable difference is in their sizes.
• Whereas Galaxy Tab has a 7 inch display at a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, it is 10.1 inches at a resolution of 1200 x 800 pixels in A500. There are two new Galaxy Tab at 8.9 inches and 10.1 inches too, similarly Acer Iconia Tab available in 7 inches too.
• RAM in Galaxy tab is 512 MB, but it is 1 GB in A500.
• Aspire scores in terms of cameras also with both rear and front cameras at higher resolution than Galaxy Tab.
• While both are Android devices, galaxy is a little outdated running on Android 2.2, whereas Aspire runs on a specially made OS called Honeycomb by Google for Tablets. The new two Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy 10.1 run Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).