I’m an Android guy. Let’s get that out of the way first. I have never owned an Apple device of any kind. My first smartphone was/is a HTC/Google Nexus One, and I think it’s great. I actually bought it contract free directly from Google since I was so sure I would love it. I was right.
I love that I am not beholden to a carrier for my Android OS updates. I love that my phone is so tightly integrated into the Google services I use, which is a lot of them. I love that the Android App Marketplace doesn’t sit on app approvals just because they’re submitted by a competitor. I’m looking at you, Apple.
I love that I can watch MLB TV on my phone. I love that I can watch Netflix on my phone. Nevermind that the screen is so small that you would have to be desperate for entertainment to watch either one on the phone. The only thing my phone was missing was an e-reading experience that I could live with. It required a bigger screen for that. So I’ve always known that if I was ever in the market for an e-reader, I’d most likely make it a tablet, because I wanted the versatility of a device that does much more than e-reading.
So when it came time to decide what tablet device to buy, you’d be surprised to hear that I gave the iPad serious thought. It has the e-reading apps. It has the video. And it has most of the Google apps available, finally. But I couldn’t get past my dislike of the Apple experience (an opinion based totally on hearsay, I’ll grant), despite the fact that it works well.
So I bought a Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1 instead. With the Honeycomb release of the Android OS, I’d have the latest and greatest of what I already know I love. And it is a great OS.
On my phone, I’d find myself tagging emails and twitter posts for later reading on our laptop, since the phone’s screen was just to small to enjoy websites that are not optimized for mobile browsers. I’d wait to read emails for the same reasons.
The Galaxy Tab has solved those issues. Now I can read any email, and surf to any site, without waiting. The browser experience is sufficiently enjoyable no matter what the site’s administrators have done regarding mobile browsers. And e-reading is a pleasure. I don’t object to the tablet’s weight, which is heavier than most dedicated e-readers, because it’s less weight than many of the books I read. Summing that all up, I can say that Android is a great experience on this tablet device.
And it would be better if it were an iPad.
Why, you ask? Thanks for asking.
It’s a simple equation, really. It is missing some abilities, as of this writing, that exist already on the iPad, and also exist on my Nexus One phone. It doesn’t allow me to view MLB TV, and it doesn’t have a Netflix app. Oh, and there is no Facebook app. I guess they figure the site is good enough on the larger tablet screen.
Let me repeat: It is missing three abilities that I have on my phone already. And two of those features exist on the iPad.
Now I know Facebook is working on Tablet apps already. That will come to both the iPad and Android tablets soon. And I hope Netflix will be coming soon. Perhaps MLB TV will come, but I will be unlikely to subscribe to that again in future baseball seasons. That’s fodder for another long-ish blog post on another day.
So I find myself in a position to which I am unaccustomed. I am making excuses for an inferior experience, and hoping for the best yet to come. My experience on my Nexus One is one of smug superiority over my iPhone wielding friends, as I enjoyed full integration to the Google services I use so heavily, while they waited while Apple all but pocket-vetoed the Google Voice app for iPhone.
I will not be taking back my Galaxy Tab, since I like it so much. And I keep hoping Netflix streaming comes to this device soon, since it is the way I consume all my TV when I’m not watching baseball.
If I had it to do over again… I’d probably get the iPad. And I’d hate every second of my Netflix viewing, e-reading, web surfing, MLB TV watching, Apple experience. Or not.
