Samsung Electronics’ galaxy is being turned upside down as pundits drool over its latest tablet PC, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and herald it as the only serious threat to Apple’s iPad 2, while critics lambaste the product’s dysfunctional operating system.
The Galaxy Tab got off to a great start on June 8 when it was unveiled in New York City, with 200 people lining up outside stores to check out its arsenal of weapons and see whether it could live up its creator’s promises. Samsung claims the tablet is lighter than the iPad 2, with a faster processing speed and longer battery life, but some critics have disputed the efficacy of the battery.
CNET was sufficiently impressed to cite the product as the potential prince waiting in the wings to dethrone Apple. Business Insider flagged its arrival with the description, “brilliant hardware that’s on par with the iPad 2,” but conceded that its Honeycomb operating system was “still a wreck.”
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal commented that, as the two rival tablets come with similar price tags, the Galaxy loses out because “its selection of fewer apps and weaker battery life put it at a disadvantage.”
The key stumbling block to the product’s success is proving to be Google’s Android system and its stodgy user interface, which Business Insider described as being “a pain to navigate.” “The Android Market is a mess,” it said when reviewing the product. “Honeycomb is the only thing holding Android-based tablets back.”
PC World wrote that it was nigh-on impossible to find a useful app among the several thousand available for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. In contrast, the iPad2 offers consumers a plethora of choices among its 90,000 apps.
Samsung hit back by reassuring consumers and pundits that the shortcomings of the OS will be resolved in the coming months. It stressed that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has only just hit the market and that, as such, a shortage of apps is inevitable at first.
“The Galaxy S was criticized for its lack of apps when it first hit stores, but we had almost made up the difference within one year,” said a Samsung spokesman. “We should be able to catch up with the iPad soon because we are procuring apps by forming alliances directly with developers.”
Apple has had over 12 months to build up its army of apps since the original iPad hit the market in April last year and has so far sold some 26 million units. The iPad 2 was first released in March of 2011, but it arrived in Korea at the end of April.
Samsung said it is now working with Google, which distributes its Android OS free of charge, to iron out all the kinks. The Korean electronics giant cannot fix the problems itself as it was not involved in developing the system in the first place.
“We are cooperating fully with Google to improve the OS. All of the problems being cited right now should be fixed within this year,” the Samsung spokesman said.
Source:http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/06/21/2011062100766.html
