I spent some time today playing with the Galaxy. If I didn't already have an ipad, I could live with this. The screen response was what I would call snappy. scrolling was not as smooth as the ipad. The cameras worked well and were of excellent quality. The map GPS worked well also. web pages with lots of content loaded quickly and displayed easier to read in the horizontal position.
The size of the Galaxy for actual use was such that it is much easier than the PDA phone, but not as easy as the ipad screen size, HOWEVER, if you typically wear a sport coat the Galaxy would carry easily on your inside pocket while the ipad is something you would still need to tote around. I liked that. I couldn't check out skype on it because that required an account but I'd bet it probably is slick as the rest of the Galaxy.
I thought the smaller keypad would be a problem but it wasn't I was able to type on it with two thumbs like a phone in vertical and in horizontal with one hand / one finger. The problem of horizontal, while a larger keyboard, it was not large enough to use two handed typing. The ipad is just big enough that if you have small hands you can type like a regular keyboard.
Sound quality was not good but if quality is required, wear earbuds or headphones!
The enthusiastic salesman asked for my impressions. I said the typical consumer line, I'm sure he is used to hearing. Too expensive! His answer surprised me. He said come back Friday and see what surprise we may have for you in that department. BTW- I was at the Verizon stand at BJ's. I asked him what people see in this vs. the ipad. He said the most impressive feature on the Galaxy is the video conferencing with the two cameras. I said, yes, a lot of people will find that important. He said many are buying two for that conferencing feature. Guess the economy ain't so bad after all.
The only technical trouble I ran into was with Google maps using the pinch and two finger zoom. IT froze the screen and updated ( clarified) about half the screen then locked up. I exited out of the app after waiting about 2 minutes with nothing happening then turned the Galaxy back on and tried it again. This time it went through squeeze and zoom over and over with no trouble. Also, like the ipad, not all apps and screens work with zoom and squeeze.
The screen on some apps works more like it switches to other views, while some move in tiny digital like steps. I saw the same stepping screen updating with the droid.
Having seen the Galaxy and played with it for about an hour, I agree with the title of the thread. This is a serious competitor to the ipad, even at the current price. I hope it gives Apple a real show of strength so Apple will, maybe, relax it's anti Flash problems and add the double cameras for ipad2.
