SAVE MONEY WITH GREEN ENERGY

The advantages and disadvantages of Solar Energy

Advantages

• Fuel source without limit
• Free main source is the sun
• Environment friendly, clean, do not contribute to global warming, acid rains or smog, helps the decrease of harmful green houses gas emissions
• You can use it for different purposes: vehicles running on solar power
• Renewable
• Give us a way to harness power in remote locations
• The development of new technologies allows us to store the collected solar power through solar power battery chargers.
• Cheaper than electricity heating
• It is produced where it is consumed
• Does not use fuel therefore does not contribute to the cost of the recovery and transportation of fuel or radioactive waste
• Become an official green business through Green Business Programs
• Solar power production is a silent process
• The equipment needs little maintenance
• Saving money on long term basis
• The equipment is easy to install, so why don't you try it yourself?

Disadvantages 

• Diffuse source – you need large number of solar panels to produce the needed electricity, from there you need a large land spot for this purpose
• There are locations in the world where this energy is collected efficiently.  But some of the locations are not with the appropriate sunlight.
• The initial cost of the solar panels are expensive investment,so it's better to save money and build it alone
• You can collect it only during the day
• Depends on the climate conditions

Recycling is Important

Recycling is one of the best ways for you to have a positive impact on the world in which we live. Recycling is important to both the natural environment and us. We must act fast as the amount of waste we create is increasing all the time.

The amount of rubbish we create is constantly increasing because:

• Increasing wealth means that people are buying more products and ultimately creating more waste.
• Increasing population means that there are more people on the planet to create waste.
• New packaging and technological products are being developed, much of these products contain materials that are not biodegradable.
• New lifestyle changes, such as eating fast food, means that we create additional waste that isn’t biodegradable.

 Environmental Importance

Recycling is very important as waste has a huge negative impact on the natural environment.

• Harmful chemicals and greenhouse gasses are released from rubbish in landfill sites. Recycling helps to reduce the pollution caused by waste.
• Habitat destruction and global warming are some the affects caused by deforestation. Recycling reduces the need for raw materials so that the rainforests can be preserved.
• Huge amounts of energy are used when making products from raw materials. Recycling requires much less energy and therefore helps to preserve natural resources.

 Importance To People

Recycling is essential to cities around the world and to the people living in them.

• No space for waste. Our landfill sites are filling up fast, by 2010, almost all landfills in the UK will be full.
• Reduce financial expenditure in the economy. Making products from raw materials costs much more than if they were made from recycled products.
• Preserve natural resources for future generations. Recycling reduces the need for raw materials; it also uses less energy, therefore preserving natural resources for the future.

Motorola Defy review

The Android landscape's certainly getting crowded, isn't it? We can still vividly remember the days when the T-Mobile G1 was the only game in town, and now here we are -- just two years later -- flush with options covering virtually every market segment from the ultra-high end to the ultra-low and everything in between. One niche market that's usually underserved, though, is the beat-the-crap-out-of-your-phone market. You know who you are: you work hard, you play hard, or you've just got an incurable case of butterfingers -- but whatever the case, you need a phone that you aren't breaking, bricking, melting, freezing, or otherwise destroying every few weeks.

It's not that rugged phones haven't existed, of course. Far from it: Nextel and Motorola practically invented (and thrived off of) the concept, and options like AT&T's Samsung Rugby and Verizon's Casio G'zOne series have been available for some time. By and large, though, it's been a field devoid of smartphones -- and these days, that's just not going to cut it. The kinds of people that need a phone that can take a few knocks don't necessarily want to buy them at the expense of power or capability anymore. On that note, Motorola's new Android-powered Defy for T-Mobile USA (and other carriers abroad) is one of the few to take a shot at elegantly combining environmental resistance with a no-compromise smartphone experience, featuring Blur atop Android 2.1 with a 5 megapixel autofocus cam, LED flash, 800MHz TI OMAP3610 core, and a 3.7-inch 854 x 480 display. In other words, on paper, it's no slouch -- but can it hang? Let's find out.

Motorola Defy review

The Defy's packaging is nothing to write home about -- but with the exception of the G2 and themyTouch 4G, no T-Mobile smartphone in recent memory has shipped in anything other than a standard sleeved box printed up with T-Mobile branding. Other than the phone, you get the usual goodies: a wired stereo headset, micro-USB cable, USB wall charger, and a Motorola BF5X battery good for 1500mAh of capacity. You also get a 2GB microSD card pre-installed -- odds are you're going to want to upgrade, though the card plus the nearly 2GB of internal storage might be enough for those that don't download a ton of apps and don't care to carry their entire music libraries with them. Then again, the Defy ships with Android 2.1 -- Motorola's among the worst of the major Android manufacturers at staying current right now -- so you won't be able to offload apps to your microSD card out of the box anyway.

Physically, the Defy is unusual in that it looks so... well, usual. Typically, ruggedized phones are overbuilt, over-engineered behemoths that are obviously designed to look tough, and that's just not the case with this one. For the overwhelming majority of potential buyers, we'd say that's a good thing. It feels neither unnecessarily heavy nor inappropriately light in the hand, and there's very little bezel beyond the screen -- a characteristic that tends to give phones a premium look. From the front, in fact, there's no hint whatsoever that this is a tough device -- all you see is the big, flat, glossy black surface indicative of a modern smartphone; it's on the sides and rear where you get your only hints that this thing might be able to take a splash or two. The sides are a smart-looking combination of black and white plastic, both of which feel really high-quality with a soft touch finish. The two bands of color are fused with a series of six small Torx screws (at least, they seem to be Torx to our untrained, non-mechanically-inclined eyes) -- and really, that's probably the Defy's single biggest hat-tip toward its rugged roots. The side-mounted micro-USB port and top-mounted 3.5mm headphone jack are both protected by covers (since holes are a weak spot when you're trying to waterproof a phone, obviously), though they differ in design; the jack gets a soft flap, while the USB port has a harder material cover that rotates out. The jack's flap is a little annoying to use if you listen to a lot of music on your phone -- and it could be nearly impossible to dislodge if you don't have fingernails -- but the USB cover is fine. Rounding out the side detail is a white volume rocker on the right side; we found it just a little difficult to find and press while on the phone, partly because it's quite short, but it's probably all in the name of water resistance. Not a big deal.

The rear cover seems to be made of the same soft touch material as the black strip on the side, and it's quite nice. The cover design and latching mechanism is a little unusual -- once again owing to the water resistance requirements -- and it's a little tricky to close correctly. There's a slider at the bottom that you slide to the right (with some difficulty) to unlatch, then the cover will basically spring open -- the latch is actively holding the cover tight. Inside, you'll find the battery along with the microSD card and SIM card underneath. If you look closely, you'll notice that there's a raised edge on the underside of the cover that slips inside a rubber gasket in the battery compartment to help keep water out, but you've got to be careful -- it's pretty easy to reinstall the cover in such a way that it's not latched fully, potentially allowing nasty substances inside. We actually found this out the hard way: one of our Defys died in a water test, and though we were able to recover the phone itself after being dried in rice overnight, the battery was toast. Obviously, it probably isn't your goal (nor Motorola's) to leave the Defy in water for any length of time, but you really wouldn't expect a gasket-sealed cover to be the breach point when the phone finally does succumb to your abuse. Motorola probably could've fixed this by adding metal contacts on the back and showing a warning on the screen when the cover isn't latched correctly (theStreak can't be turned on if the cover is missing, for instance), but perhaps not without raising the price a bit.

The display is, as you'd probably expect, fashioned from Gorilla Glass -- so it should hold up admirably against your careless (and non-malicious) handling. We didn't try too hard -- we've got souls, after all -- but we weren't able to scratch it in our casual testing. It's got good feel and good tactile response; we never found ourselves in a situation where we felt like the screen had missed a tap. Like many of Motorola's other Android devices, the Defy doesn't feature any fancy screen tech like IPS, SLCD, or AMOLED, so although it looks great straight-on, it starts to wash out about 30 degrees off-center in any direction. Most users won't be bothered by that, but it's something to keep in mind. Perhaps more importantly, we found that the screen stays readable outdoors, which is more than we can say for many AMOLED components.

So if we haven't made it clear, apart from a couple niggles, we really like the Defy's hardware -- it feels premium in a way you're probably not used to. It's a little off the beaten path, and we mean that in the best way possible. From a software perspective, it's more of a mixed bag. This is a Motoblur-enabled phone, featuring the UI customizations first introduced on the Droid X earlier this year. Here's the problem: we can honestly say with a straight face that we don't like Blur any more than we did when we first saw it on the CLIQ. When you take into account Android's improvements in social network integration in Eclair and Froyo, the concept of Blur makes less and less sense -- and we just always had the vague sense it was slowing us down, not making us more efficient in any way. Here's a prime example (and it's something we've seen on every Blur phone we've tested this year): when you first sign into your Blur account, the phone will start downloading Twitter messages you've "missed" since the last time you signed into Blur. And it'll keep downloading them... and downloading them... and downloading them, by the thousands, until it has caught up. What does this mean for you? It means you'll get a notification every few seconds that you've received 500 new tweets, and you'll keep getting them for quite a while if you haven't been on Blur recently. Obviously this isn't a problem for many users, but it's a microcosm of the basic usability misses Blur suffers from throughout.

The good news is that the Defy seems to perform admirably despite being saddled with Blur's nonsense. Though it would occasionally lag very badly for a moment -- seemingly without reason -- the phone performed smoothly and swiftly for the most part. We scored 782 in Quadrant, which is roughly on par with a 1GHz Hummingbird-powered Samsung Galaxy S and well ahead of both the Android 2.1-powered Nexus One and the original Droid... though it pales against the Nexus One, EVO 4G, and Droid X running Froyo. And therein lies one of our biggest beefs with this phone: it's shipping with Android 2.1, which is pretty insane these days, particularly in light of the fact that Gingerbread is just around the corner. We've no doubt we'd be getting better numbers with 2.2, but Motorola's spotty track record delivering timely updates worries us how long it's going to take to get there (much less to 2.3).

One high point among Motorola's many UI customizations is the multitouch soft keyboard. As on the Droid X and others, we adore it -- in fact, it's the only third-party Android soft keyboard that everyone seems to agree is superior to the stock one. When we reviewed the Droid X, we were thinking that part of our love for it could be attributed to the ease of typing on a giant 4.3-inch display, but happily, the experience actually translates very well to the Defy's much smaller screen. And if you're not into it, the phone also includes Swype -- which always works great for us -- in ROM.

In our experience, the Defy seems to have stellar battery life, which is relatively hard to come by among Android phones. Not only we were able to consistently make it comfortably through an entire day on a charge, but we were surprised to find that after putting the phone away with about 75 percent charge, it was still on with 21 percent remaining two days later. Granted, it spent most of that time in WiFi calling range (which disables the cellular radio), but many smartphones give up the ghost from 100 percent charge in less time, so we were pleased to see that. A low point, though, is charging a dead battery: like most Motorola smartphones, there's a pretty long delay between plug-in and when you're finally allowed to turn it on. The Defy reaches that point quicker than the Droid or Droid 2 do, but it's still annoying -- we can think of plenty of phones that can be powered up immediately when you start charging.

The shooters on most recent Blur-equipped phones have typically been lackluster 3 megapixel fixed-focus affairs, so it's refreshing to see the Defy join the ranks of the CLIQ, CLIQ XT, and Backflip with a proper 5 megapixel autofocus camera. For stills, the results are pretty good (on par with the Droid and Droid 2). White balance is sometimes off, but exposure and color balance are decent. Noise is managed well, and low-light performance only suffers from a slight lack of detail. Thankfully, this is somewhat alleviated by the presence of an LED flash. Video capture is smooth (clocking in at 30fps) and compares favorably to other VGA recorders. Audio is better than most Android devices, thanks to a smart choice of codec (AAC, as opposed to AMR). The camera interface is similar to other Android phones from Motorola. Most settings are easy to access, but some live buried deep within menus. There's no touch-to-focus and no 2-stage shutter key -- or any physical key at all, for that matter; we're guessing Motorola tried to minimize the number of possible entry points for water, and camera controls suffer as a result. The camera only focuses when the on-screen button is pressed, and the delay makes it easy to miss that special moment. The lack of physical controls means you can't take pictures under water (since the capacitive touchscreen is unresponsive when wet), but you can start recording video and then submerge the device. Just remember, it's only water resistant, not waterproof.

Motorola Defy camera samples

Wrap-up

At $99.99 on contract at launch, it'd be easy to write off the Defy as a forgettable midrange device -- after all, Motorola has yet to really prove its muster making decent Android phones that aren't high-end $200 monsters. Happily, this thing is genuinely good. Seriously! We're not going to pretend to like Blur -- we still don't -- but Moto seems to be getting better at making sure it doesn't ruin the phone completely (and we're guessing the fast OMAP3610 core helps, too). Additionally, the fact that we kept forgetting this is a genuinely rugged phone while using it really speaks to Motorola's efforts to keep mass market appeal in mind as they designed it. So hey, you know... if Blur finally sends you over the edge some day, don't expect a softball throw against the wall to end the Defy's life. That's a good thing, right?

Samsung Galaxy Tab review

The story of the Galaxy Tab has been quite a saga, to say the least. In fact, it was actually back in Maythat we first heard rumblings of Samsung's plans to unleash a 7-inch Android tablet much like its Galaxy S phones, but it was only after months of painful teasing -- including a cruel look at just its packaging onthe Engadget Show -- that Sammy finally unveiled the Galaxy Tab to the world at IFA. The Tab certainly packed the specs -- a 1GHz processor, full Flash support thanks to Android 2.2, dual cameras, support for up to 32GB of storage and WiFi / 3G connectivity -- to put other Android tablets to shame, and ourinitial hands-on with it only had us yearning for more. Without pricing and availability, however, the story was at a cliffhanger. Of course, those details trickled out over the next few months, and here in the US, Samsung finally announced that all four major US carriers would be getting Tabs to call their own.Verizon then finally took the lead in announcing pricing, and revealed that its Tab would hit contract-free for $600 -- Sprint followed with the same no-contract pricing along with a $400 two-year contract option. 

Indeed, it's been quite a long journey, but even after all of that, some of the major questions are still left unanswered. Does the Tab provide a more complete and polished experience than all the other Android tablets out there? How are Samsung's specially tailored apps? And ultimately, has a tablet finally hit the market that can rival Apple's iPad? We think it's about time we answer those questions and finally open what might be the most important chapter of the Galaxy Tab story -- the official Engadget review. We knew you'd agree, so join us after the break. 

Samsung Galaxy Tab (Sprint)

Hardware

It's getting increasingly hard for manufacturers to differentiate the look of these all-screen gadgets, but Samsung's done a commendable job distinguishing the Tab from the others with its contrasting front and back surfaces. The back of the rounded-off device is coated in white shiny plastic (whether it will remain ghost white over time remains to be seen), while the front consists of a familiar flush black bezel and glass screen. (Note: we were sent the Sprint version of the Tab and there may be slight aesthetic differences amongst the carrier versions.) The screen and bezel do appear less glossy than the iPad -- you'll still want to keep the Windex (or Brasso gadget polish) and chamois close by, though. Speaking of clean, that's exactly how we'd describe the rest of the design -- there are four touch buttons on the front side, a headphone jack on the top edge and a volume rocker, microSD card slot and power button on the right edge. However, we don't see why Samsung couldn't have made room for a micro-USB port -- you have to charge it and sideload content using Samsung's proprietary charging cable. 

To be honest, our real appreciation for the device's design comes more in terms of its form factor. Unsurprisingly, 7-inch tablets are much better for one-handed use than larger-screened ones (i.e. the 9.7-inch iPad or 11.6-inch ExoPC), and the 7.4 x 4.7-inch Galaxy Tab is no different. Steve Jobs may not think the size is optimal, but we loved being able to wrap our smaller hand around the 0.83-pound / 0.47-inch thick Tab when reading a book or hold it like a phone and use our thumbs to type on the on-screen keyboard. Sure, it's not as light or thin as the 0.53-pound / 0.33-inch Kindle or 0.48-pound / 0.4-inch Dell Streak, but it's still light enough to hold up in bed without fearing that you'll drop it on your face.

The overall build of the device is top-notch, and though it may appear to some like an enlarged Captivateor Fascinate, it feels more solid than those plasticy phones. We're not saying it's a rugged device by any standard -- although it does have a Corning Gorilla Glass screen -- but it does feel incredibly durable, and we didn't worry too much when it mistakenly fell off the couch. By the way, the Tab's smooth back causes it to slide off things every so often -- so we'd suggest keeping this little guy in a case or nabbing a stand for it. We do wish the Tab had a built-in kickstand like the Evo 4G and Archos 7. Think about it, Samsung.

Screen

The Tab doesn't have a Super AMOLED screen like its Galaxy S smartphone brothers, but the 1024 x 600-resolution LCD is still stunning. It's notably better than most other tablet screens we've seen of late, which, of course, means that the first thing we noticed was its stellar viewing angles. (You know us and our hang-up with viewing angles.) Tilting the screen off-axis doesn't cause color distortion and sharing it with a friend didn't require us to make any adjustments. 

The display itself is extremely bright and colors appear extremely crisp. While some have complained that it looks a bit oversaturated, you can adjust the color saturation in the display settings to your liking. As with the iPad, it's hard to make out what's on the glossy display in the sun, but when we took to shooting some video around New York City on a sunny day we were still able to make out all the controls. While the Tab's resolution isn't as high as the iPad's 1024 x 768-resolution IPS panel, the screen does have better pixel density, which translate to a crisper e-book and webpage reading experience than the iPad. (You know how some of us feel about pixel density.)

Just like the Galaxy S phones, the capacitive screen is extremely responsive, and as we said in our preview, easily matches the iPad in terms of sensitivity. Not once in the last few days of testing did we have an issue making selections with a light tap or scrolling down the length of a long page with a light flicks. Similarly, the four-way accelerometer is quite responsive in most applications (it tends to be slower in the browser) and quick to adjust when turned. As with the iPad using OS 4.2, there's no physical button for turning it off, but you can do so within the screen settings menu. The two speakers on the bottom of the tablet are noticeably louder than your average smartphone (okay, maybe save for theHTC Surround), but if you're planning to have the Tab rock out a party you'll want to connect a set of speakers. 

Software: TouchWiz and Android

As we've said throughout a number of our previous tablet reviews, that nice screen is only as good as the software that runs underneath it. And in the case of the Tab, the software is going to be extremely familiar to anyone that's ever used a Galaxy S phone with Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 Android layer. As you probably already know, we've never been particularly big fans of the cartoony design of the interface -- it just feels rather kiddie-like -- but it does provide some nice polish for average consumers and on a tablet it adds more to the generic Android smartphone experience. 

"Android isn't ready for tablets." Everyone's heard it, and while we'll get into some of that in the next few sections, the Tab's central UI -- the panes, app drawer, home screen, Swype keyboard -- lends itself nicely to the 7-inch screen. Similarly, the sightly re-skinned Android browser scales nicely to the 7-inch display. Is it just an enlarged version of Google's smartphone OS? Yes, but we've never seen anything wrong with that.

Samsung apps

On the other hand, that doesn't mean there aren't core parts of the OS that require tweaks to take advantage of the added screen real estate, and unlike the many others making Android tablets, Samsung has done more than just throw on the stock applications. Below is a rundown of the core apps Samsung has developed specifically for the Tab. 

EMail -- The core of the email app looks like those on the Galaxy S phones, but when you flip the display into landscape mode you get a Microsoft Outlook-like pane that displays your Inbox on the left and the messages on the right. We preferred managing and responding to mail in this app over the Gmail app, which is just the smartphone version. 

Calendar -- The calendar app is equally as attractive. In landscape mode you can adjust it so your calendar takes up the entire screen or with a similar two pane view that shows a listing of upcoming events. 

Messaging, Contacts -- These are pretty self-explanatory. Even though the Tab isn't technically a phone since all the US carriers have restricted its calling ability, you can use the messaging app to send SMS or MMS messages or e-mails to other contacts. Like the others, you've got a two pane view in landscape mode -- you can look at your contacts on the left side and message from the right.

Media Hub - This one has started to pop up on some Galaxy S phones as well, but the Tab is perhaps the best suited to take advantage of Samsung's new movie and TV store / player. At this point there's over 1,000 videos from MTV, Universal and Paramount, and while there is a decent selection of current titles -- we downloaded the Jersey Shore episode of South Park for $1.99 -- you'll come up empty when you start searching for older flicks. Nope, E.T nor Terminator, just to name a few, aren't available. Of course, everything here is DRM-protected so we had zero luck trying to drag it to our desktop. However, you will be able to log into your Media Hub account on up to five other Samsung devices to watch any previously purchased content. Media Hub isn't a bad over-the-air alternative, but at this point we'd recommend buying content through Amazon's Unbox and sideloading it for use on multiple devices.

Note: Samsung also has a Readers Hub app, which contains access to Kobo's e-book store and other reading content, but Sprint's decided not to preload it.

Galaxy Tab - Samsung apps

Market and third-party apps

The Tab also comes preloaded with a handful of third-party applications, including Facebook, Amazon's Kindle, and Qik. (There's a "Free Games" shortcut on the main screen which is nothing but a link to Gameloft's site. Uh, not cool, Samsung.) All of those scaled the 7-inch display quite well -- there weren't any formatting issues or pixelation -- however, that experience really depends on the app at the moment. For instance, Angry Birds looked beautiful on the larger screen. Seriously, it looks so incredibly awesome on the larger display that we spent the last four days replaying the game! Apps like Pandora, Facebook, Twitter, TweetDeck, YouTube also scale well, but other apps like USA Today, Engadget, Raging Thunder 2 Lite, and Speed Test don't. The latter apps are still usable, but you've got to deal with an incredibly large border of blank screen around them. 

Samsung claims that any app that abides by Google's coding and design standards should work just fine, but even the apps that do scale obviously weren't built or optimized for tablets, so the experience really is like having a larger smartphone. We don't need to tell you how many of these companies could build better tablet apps if given the right SDKs -- we've seen them all do it with the iPad. Of course, the iPad was in a better situation at its launch: Apple had rolled out development tools for creating larger screened apps and a few of them we already available in the iPad app store, but Google has provided no such direction yet. We've heard that engineers at the Googleplex are in fact working on optimizing apps for tablets with the Honeycomb release and possibly rolling out a separate section of the Market, but until that happens it really comes down to trial and error and living with smartphone-sized designed software on a larger display.

Galaxy Tab - third party apps

Browsing and Flash

For the most part, the browsing experience on the Tab is rock solid -- pages loaded quickly over WiFi and scrolling / zooming on most pages was snappy. When loading a few sites -- like this very technology site -- we did notice the scrolling to be a bit jittery and not as smooth as on the iPad. However, we do like that there's the ability to change the brightness within the browser. But, obviously, the Tab differs from that other tablet with its full Flash support. So, is it everything you've been waiting for? Thanks to its 1GHz processor, the experience isn't as slow as we've seen on other Android 2.2 devices, but we can't really say we took advantage of the feature all that much -- in fact we decided to disable it eventually to speed up browsing. 

Scaled-up smartphone apps and Flash compatibility alone don't create a well-rounded tablet platform -- it's going to take native apps for the Tab to be truly competitive.

While it's nice to be able to load videos within sites and not have to battle that blue lego block, we were repeatedly given the "this video is not optimized for mobile" message when we hit play. Overall, videos played just fine, but Flash definitely slowed down the rest of the browsing experience. What about other Flash heavy sites? Well, as you can see above, Hulu is a dead end -- we got the same error message even when we logged into our Hulu plus account in the browser.(Hulu, please release a Plus app for Android ASAP!) On that same vein, we had no issues loading a Flash game site like Canabalt, but because it was built for mouse and keyboard environments we couldn't figure out how to jump and avoid death by bricks. What does it all mean? The Tab's Flash capability is a nice fallback, but if you've been thinking it's the killer tablet app you should think again. Not to sound like Steve Jobs or anything, but scaled-up smartphone apps and Flash compatibility alone don't create a well-rounded tablet platform -- it's going to take native apps for the Tab to be truly competitive.

Camera(s)

The Tab's dual cameras are a big differentiator against the iPad, and we do have to say they both came in pretty handy over the last few days. We warn you: people will look at you oddly when you pull it out and take shots with its giant viewfinder! The 3 megapixel cam with LED flash on the back aren't going to replace your point and shoot, but it did take some decent still shots. There's a few samples in the gallery below: the flash was helpful when nabbing some stills on a darkly lit street and the outdoor pics are quite sharp. The camera interface consists of the standard Android controls, and per usual it handled auto-focus and white balance. Oddly, there's no macro mode, but the panoramic mode was great for taking wide-angle shots -- just make sure to hold it extremely steady to avoid blur. There is also a continuous mode, which will take a sequence of nine shots -- it took us a while to figure out that you've got to hold down the camera button to get it snapping. We should note that the panoramic and continuous modes are limited to taking 800 x 600-resolution photos.

Samsung Galaxy Tab sample camera shots and camera UI

It's a bit of a bummer that there's no HD video recording -- the Tab shoots at 720x480 -- but motion capture is quite smooth, and there were no stuttering issues like we've seen on Galaxy S phones. We should mention here that the Galaxy Tab requires you have a micro SD card inserted to use the camera, so it's a good thing Sprint tosses in a 16GB card. Oddly, we couldn't save anything to the 2GB of internal memory or access it when mounted to our Mac or PC. (If you're interested in the European version, our UK review unit has 16GB of internal storage, which is accessible when mounted.) 

The 1.3-megapixel front facing cam obviously doesn't take as crisp or detailed shots, but it's perfectly fine for video chatting, awkwardly posing with a friend, or checking your teeth for leftover lettuce. As you can see from the picture above, we were able to get a video call going using Qik over WiFi, although there was quite a lot of delay and in some cases a serious amount of pixelation. We did attempt to use Fring, but the app hasn't been optimized for the tablet yet, and we couldn't get two-way video calling working. Fring's audio was much better, however. 

Performance and battery life

Perhaps the best part about the Tab is that you don't have to worry about the sluggish performance we've seen on other Android and Windows tablets. The entire experience is snappy, and it kept up with us even when we had four or five applications open. Of course, there were times when it would freeze up -- notably when we had a game of Angry Birds running and we were attempting to test a 720p video -- but chances are you won't be taxing the 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor and 512MB of RAM that much. As we mentioned earlier, Flash videos within the browser took a few seconds to appear and did slow down the general browsing experience, but once we were able to hit the play button they ran smoothly. As we also mentioned, disabling Flash altogether speeds things up drastically. General video playback on the Tab was also quite smooth -- high quality YouTube videos and local 720p content played beautifully at full screen. Similarly, graphics heavy games like Raging Thunder 2 had no issues running and taking advantage of the accelerometer. If you're looking for how the Tab fares on Android benchmarks, it scored consistently over 14 MFLOPS in Linpack. 

So, how about that battery life? It's pretty good. After periodically surfing the web and reading on the Tab for about a day and a half with just 3G on, the battery is at about 20 percent. On our taxing video rundown test, which loops a standard definition video at about 65 percent brightness and 3G off, but WiFi on, the Tab's 4000mAh battery lasted for 6 hours and 9 minutes. That's around the same as some of the other Android tablet's we've tested, but not as long as the iPad's 9 hours and 33 minutes. 

Update: Well, this is a bit crazy. It was brought to our attention that the Tab cannot be charged via a laptop or desktop. And that is in fact the case -- when plugged into a USB socket the Tab will maintain its charge, but won't be recharged. 

3G speeds and pricing

We've been testing the Sprint version of the Tab in New York City and have been experiencing fairly standard upload and download speeds: download throughputs have averaged around 1,043kbps and the uplink around 521kbps. Of course, we're day dreaming that Samsung and Sprint are whipping up a 4G Tab as we speak, but for now you're stuck with 3G versions.

Sprint offers two 3G plans for the Tab: 2GB for $29.99 a month and a 5GB option for $59.99 a month, but is it worth attaching a 3G plan to this device? It certainly makes sense to have mobile broadband baked into the Tab, and the Sprint Hotspot feature, which adds an extra $29.99 a month, could be useful for connecting other gadgets to the interwebs. However, we've always had a hard time recommending netbooks that require a two-year contract, and tablets are a similar beast, which is why the $600 no contact version makes more sense in our minds. While it's more money to pay up front than the contract deal (the hardware is only $400 when you commit two years of your life to Sprint), we think it's a better option than committing to paying a minimum of $720 in data over two years. Compared to Apple's offering, the $600 price is actually $29 less than the 16GB / 3G version of the iPad. Those that don't need 3G connectivity whatsoever are better waiting for the WiFi version of the Tab, which we keephearing will arrive soon.

Wrap-up

After spending the last couple of days with the Galaxy Tab, we can confidently say it's the best Android tablet on the market. Now, that's not saying much given the state of the Android competition, but we can also assuredly say that the Tab is the first true competitor to Apple's iPad. Its crisp display, compact form factor, touch-friendly software and dual cameras undoubtedly have what it takes to win over the average tablet seeker. However, we still have some reservations right now. Google hasn't yet provided any direction on Android as a tablet platform, which means that the Tab is held back by lagging application support and software that doesn't fully take advantage of the extra screen real estate. Remember, that when the iPad launched many developers were already working on tablet specific apps and Apple had an iPad app store in place. Put simply, without that ecosystem and support from Google, Samsung is left to its own devices -- literally. Just today Samsung rolled out an emulator for the Tab that uses the Android SDK and the company says it's working with Google and plans to use future iterations of Android, so we'll have to see what happens -- but for now it looks like the saga of the Samsung Galaxy Tab still has several chapters to go.