The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, in its current form, was born out of a response to Apple's sleek and thin iPad 2 tablet. The original Galaxy Tab 10.1, which hadn't reached market yet, just couldn't compete, so Samsung went back the drawing board and turned out this beauty of a tablet in record time. And this one can compete.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 features a large, wide-screen display that looks sharp and bright, and it rests inside a body that is incredibly thin and light. This 10-inch tablet weighs less than a number of smaller tablets on the market, yet it still packs a dual-core 1GHz processor and the latest version of Android 3.1 Honeycomb.

There still aren't very many tablet-specific Android apps, and those that exist are not that easy to find in the Android Market, but the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is still a desirable piece of kit.


Hardware

As is the case with all 10-inch tablets, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a large device. Its face measures 256.6mm x 172.9mm (10.1in x 6.8in), but the entire tablet is only 8.6mm (.3in) thick. Pair that with a low 565g (19.9oz) weight and you have a device that is much easier to wield than one might expect.

On top of that, the Tab's build quality is really good. The glossy back, which is white and silver on our unit, feels good on the finger tips, and all of the parts fit tightly together. The Tab also feels very strong in spite of its low profile design.

There are no buttons to be found on the front of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, only the 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display and the forward-facing 2 megapixel camera. When held horizontally, the volume and power controls are found on the left end of the top edge of the tablet, while the 3.5mm headphone jack is a bit over to the right. A stereo speaker port can be found on the left and right edges, one each, and the proprietary charging/data port can be found on the bottom edge.

Samsung installed a 3 megapixel camera with both autofocus and flash on the rear of the Tab 10.1. Apart from the Samsung logo in the middle of the rear cover, though, nothing else of note can be seen on the tablet's exterior.

The interior is home to an NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz processor and 16GB (or 32GB) of internal storage. I was testing the Wi-Fi only model, but 3G-capable models are expected soon.