For those of you who are waiting for a big brand to come up with a challenger to the iPad, the wait is over. The Samsung Galaxy Tab now offers a legitimate iPad alternative, complete with all the quality assurances and customer support of a major global brand. While it features a 7-inch display - smaller than the iPad's 9.2-inch screen - the Galaxy Tab does have a lot in common with its predecessor. Both are very slim, powered by a 1GHz applications processor, have a dedicated graphics chip, offer plenty of applications to download through their operating systems, support multiple ways to connect to the internet, and play all your movies and music. One big difference is that the Galaxy Tab, like Dell's 5-inch Streak, also supports voice calls, so it can be used as a handset. Of course, Android supports multi-tasking, which means that you get to have multiple homescreens, with windows that can be customised with widgets for different applications, so the latest updates from Facebook or Twitter can be viewed without opening the application itself. And yes, Android comes with support for Flash, so you can see more websites. You also get two cameras, a 3-megapixel digital camera with an LED flash on the back and a forward-facing 1.3-megapixel unit for video calls. The Galaxy Tab comes with 16GB of memory, but - unlike the iPad - also has a microSD card slot. All these extras however, make the Galaxy Tab more costly at HK$5,688. Pros: built in cameras, memory card expansion, supports Flash, multi-tasking, can make voice calls Cons: smaller screen than the iPad, expensive
