[Steven Musil has a list of reasons why people (at select Best Buy locations) are returning the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57487895-37/malfunction-not-ipad-played-greater-role-in-galaxy-returns/). Let’s break down the list, shall we, from most common to least common reasons (according to Musil):
– Browser freezes
– Lack of screen sensitivity
– Poor WiFi
– Screen lagging
– Short battery life
– Inability to sync with a PC
– Honeycomb OS is difficult to use
– Wanted an iPad 2 instead
– Lack of support for Hulu, Netflix, Skype
– Poor speed and performance
Ten reasons, only one of which is: “this isn’t an iPad”. ((Anyone else find it odd that he specifies iPad 2, I wonder how many returned it for the new iPad, or a used iPad.))
Same list, same order, just changing the names of each item to the underlying cause:
– Bad software
– Bad hardware
– Bad hardware
– Bad software
– Bad hardware **and** software
– Bad software
– Bad software
– Bad purchase decision
– Bad software
– Bad hardware **and** software
So out of ten reasons to return the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, seven reasons (70%) can be attributed to Android. Forty percent is hardware. I think that says a lot about why Android tablets have been failing: Android is the weak point.
But that’s not all this tells us, because what is the baseline for these complaints. Is it that the tablets performs these tasks worse than their computers, or worse than another tablet? If another tablet, what tablet?
I would argue no one buys a tablet expecting it to match PC speed, so I assume that these complaints are in comparison to *another* tablet — the only one of which that makes sense is the iPad because the iPad is the only one with wide enough advertising for first time tablet buyers to be able to form some sort of a baseline for how a tablet should work.
What I am saying is that the majority of knocks against this tablet are software related and are probably in comparison to the iPad.