[Katie]

I'm planning on buying a tablet, and I'm trying to decide between a Galaxy Tab and the Blackberry Playbook. I'm planning on using the tablet for mainly web browsing (watching YouTube, listening to music online, playing Flash games, etc.) However, I also need to know if the Galaxy has a filesystem with folders for documents, music, pictures, like Windows Explorer and Mac Finder. Also, is it possible to download files from the Internet, such as mp3s, videos, or text documents, onto the Galaxy, or are you restricted to only downloading apps like you are on the iPad? Additionally, is the web browser's Flash capability sufficient for watching videos and listening to music, or is it spotty and slow?

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[akemai]

The newly-released gingerbread 2.3 update, albeit you got to upgrade it manually, is so far smooth and silky and much better than the choppy Android Froyo 2.2. Mind you, galaxy tab is the best tablet phones out there in the market (honeycomb tablets cannot do phone call), however the launcher program samsung uses (touchwiz - it's the home launcher everytime you see on samsung androids) takes up most of the pathetic 512mb-only RAM so easily, which makes you end up with low RAM. I am still struggling with the low RAM issue, however galaxy tab is the best tabletphone you can get already. HTC flyer is way to go although its gingerbread firmware should be able to phone call, but they destroy it (only sms texting is available OMG). I would upgrade to flyer if new ROMs that support GSM phonecalling is released, maybe it will still take some time to go.

BTW, your direction to 7 inch tablets is always a good one. I would never steer back to smaller inch phones as tablets are much more sturdy... yeah they feel sturdy. The viewing experience is exceptional.

Yeah, for all your woes you mentioned above, they are all viable upon opening the box, fingers-crossed. File system, definitely (since windows mobile they had it). Download files, even flash-disabled iPhones can do it, what about full-fledged flash-enabled HTML5-enabled android browsers (mind you if something cannot load, opera browsers always can load it. Get it as backup). Yes, the stock browser is the fastest to-date. You can watch online movies on it, and also on every other browsers you have downloaded from the market. Yes there are even apps that let you download or listen musics (MP3 music downloader), download or watch movies (MegaViewer Pro) in your own tablet, although illegitimately. I doubt with BB playbook you have those (dated may 29, 2011). Watching experience is all well that it replaces most part of laptop usage considerably.

[Katie]

So if there is a link in a web page to a file to download, could I just click on it to start the download and open the resulting file like on a regular computer, or would I have to install an app to have that capability?

[Rhort]

Katie, on 29 May 2011 - 02:34 AM, said:

So if there is a link in a web page to a file to download, could I just click on it to start the download and open the resulting file like on a regular computer, or would I have to install an app to have that capability?

If the file you're trying to download is a recognised Android-compatible file, then yes, you can download it in a similar way to how you would do it on a desktop, however, if you're downloading something that's not an Android-standard file, then you'll be better off with an app managing downloads; I myself use XWind, which is free, integrates seamlessly into all the browsers I use (six in total) and I've never come across anything it couldn't handle.