Adventures with the Galaxy Tab – The Interviewers Notebook

One of the things I like to do when I’m at big events like The Fringe, BlogWorld, SXSW or the like is to try out a new bit of technology in the field. It’s all well and good reviewing in a sterile office, but throw something into the heat of battle with little choice but to make it work and you really find out what the strengths and limitations are.

So for this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, I’m testing out a Galaxy Tab 7 (which has been supplied by O2 for the month). I’ll put some thoughts about the device here during the month, and a longer write up will likely be on Dale & Company early in September.

Right now I’m doing a lot of audio interviews, and the Tab is sitting just to my side on the table, with all the press releases available from me to flip through (via a DropBox folder so I also have access on the trusty Nokia E7 as required). The bundled software on the Tab (which unfortunately can’t be uninstalled – it’s like Dell all over again) includes Think Free Office, which handles the viewing and editing of Office files, word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. With pinch to zoom, search the text functions and flick scrolling, it’s a pretty good combination. Okay I need to tap the screen and unlock it a few times, but that’s a quick swipe of the finger brings it back to life.

The size of the Tab is also less imposing than an iPad, which is the natural comparison, and that’s important to me. With more technology on show, it’s easy to scare the person I am interviewing, so a small audio microphone and a tiny screen are going to get me a better interview than a full lighting rig and Alienware laptop pinging away.

The Tab is well suited to being a reference screen while I work – more so than the 4″ screen on my smartphone.

I’m less impressed with the Google Calendar support. Given this is an Android device, I was hoping that the multiple calendars i have in Google would be synced in both directions, with multiple colours and filters. That’s not the case – sync appears to be in one direction only (Cloud to Tab) and  all the Google Calendars are the same colour, which really helps when I want to glance and go.

That was irony by the way, but the lack of sync from Tab to Cloud would be a bit of a blow if Google Calendar was my main diary. Having to wait till I got to a PC connection (or even worse, fall back to the browser) to modify entries is not a good place to be.

On the other hand I’ve never one worried about battery life. With 4000 mAh in capacity I’m glad I don’t, but it still demands a charge every night if I’ve left the “sync” and 3G data options running. If I was on an endurance run I think that two full days of work could be squeezed out of the Tab 7.

So far it’s been useful, albeit not as fun an experience as an iOS device. That’s to be expected as Android has always struck me as a little bit techy in implementing applications and principles. But that does appeal to me. Let’s see how I feel next week once “new and shiny” wears off and it becomes another tool in the digital box.