And I really don’t want to know what he’s doing.

I held back for a long time, and came close to finally buying a handheld when the Kindle Fire came out. But what convinced me to wait a few more months was the argument I’ve been making here, about full-featured versus hobbled Android implementations. The Kindle Fire practically screamed at me: It’s possible to make the hardware inexpensively enough to sell around $200, and it’s only a matter of time until somebody sells an equivalent tablet without any features removed. This Tab 2/7 was the first to hit that sweet spot, but it sure won’t be the last.

What a difference a few months makes, eh? You’re describing your Fire as inferior to my Tab, but that’s only because of the time that’s passed. The Fire was the “It Tablet” less than a year ago.

I’ve been thinking about the device size issue. It’s delightful to think that Star Trek came up with a system of categorizing these devices that we’re just now starting to see fully realized. Our desktop displays are equivalent to the “LCARS” flat panels on all the latter-day Treks. Then we saw communicators realized as cell phones. The latest thing is tablets working like handheld PADDs, and then there’s that middle category like the tricorders, occupied by both high-end smart phones and the 7″ class of tablet. It’s uncanny how people in the real now pick up these devices and instantly start looking like extras on Star Trek.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the Bluetooth Borg shambling along city streets and corporate corridors. Creepy.

That’s why I see the 10″ pads (funny, I first typed that as “padds”) in a different ecological niche than the 7″ tablets and big smartphones.

For me it’s definitely a portable device. I wear cargo pants now when I go out for my thrice-daily heart walks, with a pocket big enough for the Tab. I’m trying out pedometer apps that work with GPS to track my walks and plot them on a map. Way cool. Today I learned that you can get heart monitors that interface through bluetooth to Android/iPhone apps, and I’m interested. I’m gonna be full Borg myself before too long.

Maybe this is how a species starts down the cyborg path? One little app at a time.

There’s a definite place for the 10″ tablets, and that was where my attention first focused. Circumstances led me to the smaller category, but I can also imagine myself enjoying the tablet format, especially for things like video and upscale text like magazines. That’d be sweet. I’d say that if you don’t need portability, hell yeah, go for a big padd. There, did it again. Leaving it this time.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7″ has got to be the harbinger of a 10″ to come. Given how far down they’ve pushed the price in this generation–$249 for the 7″–I’d expect the 10″ for no more than $350. Or $349 even. I had a fairly high opinion of the brand going in, and I got what I expected. Give Samsung a couple of months and maybe they’ll have your big tablet.

The basic Kindles are a good product and I am sure the Nook is equally good

I had given a couple of standard Kindles as gifts but I hinted around that I wanted a Fire for the extra features and mainly the back light.

If I had a do over I would either get a full fledged Ipad or other tablet or if I didn’t want to spend the 4-500, I would get a regular Kindle Touch for about around 90 bucks. They are light as a feather a charge lasts for weeks and they have better book cataloging features than the Fire.

I do prefer back light since I never read outdoors but the Fire is heavy as hell, you can’t read a book without recharging and the limited android features are not worth the extra 100 bucks.

For another $300 an Ipad is well worth the money. Even if the Fire was full featured, the 7″ screen is not big enough imo to justify a product between a cell phone and a tablet.

P.S. I felt I should add this because I originally thought you had a full sized tablet (9.5 X 7.3) vs the 7X3 on the Fire and I assume also on your Galaxy. The major difference in the Fire and your Galaxy is no camera on the Fire, and a smaller HD, but all the android apps are available and cloud storage makes up for the smaller HD. Not to say your Galaxy isn’t way better than the Fire it definitely is better.

I have had an IPhone for a couple of years and I was very disappointed in the upgrade to the 7X3 screen. Internet browsing is better but the 7X3 is still too small to be a decent internet interface. I have been using the Fire for reading but I was reading books on the amazon app on my I phone and considering the weight of the Fire, I can’t even say it was worth the 200 bucks for the larger screen when the only advantage is turning fewer pages. I admit that the 7X3 is far better for watching movies than the IPhone.

I would probably have a better opinion of the 7X3 if I were using it on the go. I mostly use it at home and my IPhone is fine for away time. For the internet and other uses at home it is too easy for me to grab my laptop. The battery on the Fire sucks and on wireless it needs recharging in an hour or so.

Anyway I am still wanting a full sized tablet with the front and back cameras but not so much that I plan on buying anytime soon.

It’s ready to go out of the box, bowser. Well, I did have to charge the battery for a couple of hours. And go through some setup screens, though nothing you’d find daunting.

Built-in microphone, stereo speakers (admittedly tinny little things on one 0.4″ edge), a 3 megapixel camera on the back that uses the screen as a viewfinder, and a second camera on the front, facing you, that’s used for video conferencing and general narcissism. It has bluetooth and I have a bluetooth headset w/mic, which I use when listening to music/videos, and usually when talking on Skype.

Skype automatically uses either the built-in mic/speakers or the bluetooth headset if the latter is connected. It knew about the camera without me telling it, and there’s a button to select a video call or an audio-only call. Worked the very first time I tried it. Slicker’n deer guts on a doorknob.

The thing that’s fundamentally different about these Android and iOS (Apple) devices is that they’re more prepackaged and pre-engineered than we’re used to with conventional PCs. You don’t fiddle with hardware at all, and your fiddling with software is generally confined to downloading, installing, and running the canned apps. From what I’ve seen so far, you can expect things to work most of the time.

Older ones need to have speakers and a microphone hooked up to the jacks most computers come with. Speakers and microphones are cheap. There’s no need to get fancy with either.

Newer ones and laptops often come with these things built in. The Mac laptops have cameras, too for video chats. We attended a party in Minnesota via Skype last week.

I railed about the obsolescence of cell voice technology etc., without ever mentioning the Android answer: Lots of apps for VOIP, “Voice over IP”, internet telephony.

I already have a Skype account so I downloaded the Skype app. Works like a champ. Video calls are painless, though the other party complained that he was getting seasick when I picked up the Tab and started walking around while we talked.

Damn, also forgot the bluetooth. I already had a nice set of stereo bluetooth headphones, and with gigabytes of storage, the Tab makes one kickass MP3 player. I slip it into a big pocket on my cargo pants (why the 7″ formfactor will end up more popular than the awkward 10″, mark my words), slip on the wireless headphones, and walk a mile or two blissed out to Pink Floyd.

Yeah, I guess I am happy with my Tab.

“Like” is an oversimplification of a complicated perception, of course. But the total points come out positive.

I waited through the entire “Age of Smartphones” and the first few years of the “Age of Tablets” because what I saw didn’t excite me, at the visceral consumer level; and didn’t satisfy my cold intellectual requirements. Didn’t add up to a good use of my money.

The thing that galls me about smartphones is that they rub your nose in the obsolescence of cell phone technology while demanding that you maintain–pay for–separate voice and data plans. All you need is one data connection and a Net calling service like Skype. End of story. End of cell phones and a many-billion dollar business. Every smartphone is a conspiracy between a manufacturer and a cell service company to keep squeezing money out of an obsolete technology.

I’ll try to stay on track…I “like” Android in that I use and am comfortable with its parent, Linux, and philosophically like the concept of open-source software. This latest version of Android (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) looks solid, and the problems I’ve experienced all seem more likely caused by a bad app than a bad operating system.

The new gestural interface is a trip, and it’s rather fun to use. The Galaxy was my first experience with it, and I caught on right away. Just imagine a sheet of paper on the table, which you can shove around with your finger–that’s the new scrolling. Use two fingers, spreading apart, to signify zoom in; close the fingers to zoom out. Tap with your fingertip where you’d click a mouse. Pretty intuitive.

The specs say this device can track up to five fingers on the screen. I can’t wait to see the app that finds a use for that!

As I keep stressing, the Galaxy and iPad and other tablets are open general purpose devices. Androids are tethered to an app store run by Google, and there are thousands of apps available, lots free and “free” (ad supported). I’ve spent a lot of time downloading and trying apps, and it generally goes pretty smoothly. Occasionally an app crashes and I toss it in the trash can. No biggie.

The Galaxy Tab 2 has only wi-fi, no cell data plan, and that doesn’t seem to be a big constraint. I use it mostly at home anyway, where it automatically links to my wi-fi. When I’m out walking I find that there are open wi-fi hot spots everywhere I go (and I’m not counting residential wi-fi systems misconfigured to be open).

It has GPS, and that can be a trip. It seems to have stored maps so that even when I’m not connected to the net, it’ll show me where I’m standing. Some apps, like various wi-fi scanners, are “location aware”, meaning that they integrate with GPS and Google Maps, and, for example, the wi-fi scanners compile maps of wi-fi systems where I walk.

The Galaxy (like most) has a USB port, so if I ever want to pay $30/month for 2 gigabytes of 4G data, I can buy a $50 modem and plug into the cell data networks. I can have it all.

Unlike all the Apple devices, Androids support Flash. That is very important–you’re not cut off from petabytes of Flash video out there. I watch streaming videos from Amazon through their Flash interface, and it seems to work better than my desktop.

Oh, and did I mention that the Galaxy Tab 2 (7″ screen) costs $250? $50 more than an Amazon Kindle Fire ebook reader. It’s just out; I preordered and they shipped it Sunday as soon as it was released.

I’ve had it a week, and I can recommend it with a high degree of confidence that it won’t come back to haunt me.

Still what you want to hear, bowser?