The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is currently the pick of the bunch when it comes to Android tablets, but one of its few weaknesses was the lack of the latest version of the OS. Not any more. It’s received its update, so we thought we’d do an update of our own.

You can read about our first encounter with Android 4 – or Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) – in our Samsung Galaxy Nexus review. We were impressed with it, but had a couple of concerns, chiefly concerning the use of soft buttons and the potential waste of valuable screen real estate. That, fortunately, is a non-issue on tablets. We’re already used to it on Honeycomb tablets, and it takes up a negligible amount of room on a 10.1in tablet such as the Prime.

Initially things don’t look that different, but a few minutes of browsing around really brings home the main advantage of the new OS: the Prime was already pretty responsive, but Android 4 takes that to the next level. It feels even more immediate than before, sweeping from desktop to desktop with the sort of smoothness typically associated with Apple products. Launching and scrolling menus feels buttery smooth, and there’s barely a judder or hesitation to be found.

In more practical terms, this translates to faster and more predictable behaviour in complicated websites. During our day-long test working with tablets, we found sites such as WordPress were barely usable on a tablet, whether iOS- or Android-based. With this ICS update, in most cases there’s zero typing lag and no irritating keyboard buffer run-on. One exception to this rule we found was Zoho Writer, which still feels sluggish in use.

Results in various benchmarks back up this impression. In our own in-house HTML test, which times the loading of 28 web pages, the Prime took an impressive 8.9 seconds, only a little behind the iPad 2’s 7.7 seconds. By comparison, with Android 3.2 on board, the Prime took 17.6 seconds.

Moving on to SunSpider, and oddly the position is reversed. On Android 3.2, the Prime  scored a scorching 1,796ms; with Android 4 on board it slipped to 2,340ms. Just for the hell of it, we also headed of to the BrowserMark website to see how the Prime would fare: it scored 116,360. Alas, we didn’t get the opportunity to test in BrowserMark under Android 3.2, but the general consensus in other reviews is that it scores around 100,000. Another victory for Android 4.

We also retested battery life, but this is one area that appears to be unchanged. With our standard looping video test and the tablet in battery saver mode, the Prime lasted for 9hrs 49mins – that’s roughly the same as the 10hrs 8mins time we achieved under Android 3.2.

Screenshots

Android 4 doesn’t just boost performance. It also brings with it an overhauled user interface and a load of new settings and features. The lock screen has the new Android 4 font, but also a change in functionality: the lock icon can be dragged to the right to unlock the tablet, or to the left to unlock and launch the camera. Small beer, but every little helps.

Once you’re into the UI proper, more small changes become apparent. In the top-right corner, the + symbol has now disappeared. This used to launch the customisation screen – where shortcuts, apps, widgets and wallpapers could be dragged onto any of the five Honeycomb desktops. That screen has gone, with widgets moving to the app drawer (see below) and the wallpaper menu accessed via a long press on the desktop.

You may also have noticed a small black square filled with app icons in the bottom-right corner. That’s a folder. As with the phone version of Android 4, folders are created by dragging one app icon onto another on the desktop, then giving it a name.

Here’s the new app launcher screen, complete with widget preview. As with Honeycomb, you swipe left and right to navigate, and there’s a new fade-in animation: as the current page of apps exits stage  left, rather than scrolling in from the right the new page of apps fades in from behind. Frivolous, but neat.

Another small change is the ability to tidy up the recent apps list. Pop up the list in the normal manner and you’ll see that the individual thumbnails can be removed with a quick swipe of the finger.  Note, that  process also removes the app from Anroid’s cached processes list, effectively killing the app completely. You can see the effects by visiting the App section of the settings screen, where you can now switch between a view of running apps and cached processes.

Speaking of which, this is the new settings screen, which looks similar to Honeycomb’s but sees a reorganisation of sorts. The list to the left is now broken up into sub-headed sections: Wireless & networks, Device, Personal and System. It’s a little easier to find your way around as a result, although it took us a while to get used to it.

There is also a handful of new options and tools hidden away in the various settings screens. Above is the new data usage screen, which gives an overview of how much data you’re consuming overall, plus a breakdown of data usage on an app by app basis. There’s the option to encrypt your tablet – apps and all – to improve security, as well as the ability to remove the lock screen if you so wish.

In terms of the core apps there are more tweaks, but nothing hugely dramatic. The Gallery app now looks a little neater, with thumbnails tidily tesselated together instead of surrounded by acres of wasted black space.  A long press on any photo or album allows photos to be shared as before, but with slightly changed options – a one-click shortcut to the  last service used is handily displayed next to the sharing dropdown.

While we’re on the subject of photos, the camera app has seen a dramatic overhaul. Much more of the screen is now given over to the viewfinder; the shutter button is surrounded by a zoom control, and there’s an extra option in the bottom-right corner for shooting panoramic photos.

Elsewhere, the changes are a little more sedate. Aside from a slight redesign, the Gmail app looks largely the same as before, and the same holds true for the email app used for POP3, IMAP and Exchange accounts. There’s still no sign of search (sigh), although you can at least browse your Outlook folders.

The Calendar, meanwhile adds a new Agenda view, listing upcoming meetings in a vertically scrolling list to the left and details in a larger pane on the right.

As far as the browser is concerned, it’s more minor tweaks. As you can see from this screenshot, there’s a new section – Accessibility – in the settings menu, which allows you to fiddle with text scaling, the amount the page zooms when the screen is double-tapped, and the minimum font size. Elsewhere, there’s a new ‘Fast Scroller’ setting, which brings up a scroll bar when the edge of a page is tapped. In a bonus for 3G tablet owners, there’s the option to switch off Google’s search result preloading, potentially saving a bob or two on data.

Finally, the keyboard sees a slight usability improvement. The look is a little cleaner, fitting in with the whole Ice Cream Sandwich ethos, but more importantly, each key is now a few pixels taller, making it a touch easier to type onscreen. The new keyboard is on the left in the above screenshot; the old Honeycomb one is on the right.

Verdict

Overall, Ice Cream Sandwich is an excellent update that turns a great tablet into an even better one. I’m sure there are more new features to find, but hopefully this gives a flavour of what to expect when the OS update starts to roll in aboard shiny new quad-core tablets over the coming months.

Tablets have come in many shape and forms at this year’s CES, but there’s only one that’s made us go “wow”. And that tablet is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7.

It is, quite simply, drop dead gorgeous. Of course we can reel off the specs – it’s 7.9mm thin and weighs 340g  – but that doesn’t do it justice. When you pick it up for the first time your arm jumps up too quickly; it expects to be lifting something heavier.

The Tab’s 7.9mm thickness is truly remarkable too. If anything, it looks even thinner in the flesh.

This might lead cynics to think the Tab 7.7 is too fragile, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. A firm backing gives it a solid feel, and that’s backed up by a high quality finish; every bit as good as the iPad.

That lightness also means you can hold it for long periods without your arms growing tired (one of the iPad’s few flaws), and that you can chuck it into a bag without worrying about the extra weight.

Battery life sounds respectable too: Samsung claims ten hours of continuous video playback. Obviously we’d like more, but compromises have to be made to keep the weight and size down.

The Galaxy Tab 7.7 also boasts a terrific screen. Sony may have fallen out of love with OLED technology, but Samsung’s AMOLED screens produce eye-popping colours compared to the LCDs most people will be used to.

Then there’s the resolution. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to see 1,280 x 800 pixels in a 7.7in screen when seemingly all the phones announced at CES boast “HD” displays, but it works beautifully at this size. That means the interface is crisp and detailed, and helps photos and videos look great.

Naturally it’s quick to respond to commands. There is, after all, a 1.4GHz dual-core processor inside, and 1GB of RAM helps keep the OS flying along.

But this is one of the disappointments: Android OS 3.2 powers the Tab, and while we can hope/expect an Android 4 update, bitter experience has taught us never to assume.

One of the reasons for using 3.2 is that Samsung has heavily customised the interface with its “TouchWiz” design (and yes, the person who came up with the name TouchWiz should indeed be shot).

The only aspect of it we prefer over vanilla Android 3.2 Honeycomb is the “Mini Apps” tray, which gives quick access to “background” apps such as the task manager, calendar and music player.

We also like Samsung Apps. This is a so-called recommendation engine that essentially filters apps suitable for Honeycomb. Admittedly this feels like a kludge – surely such filtering should be Google’s job – but it’s very useful until the Android Market becomes easier to browse for tablet users.

We don’t think many people will be dumping their cameras and camcorders for the Tab’s built-in 3-megapixel camera, but it’s there with an LED flash and does support 720p recording. A 2-megapixel camera on the front is present for video calls too.

On the subject of calls, this first version of the Tab is going to be released in tandem with Verizon Wireless in the US, and there’s a 4G chip inside. There are no details for a similar 3G partnership in the UK yet, but we’re pretty confident discussions will be taking place.

Nor do we know how much the Galaxy Tab 7.7 will cost, but it’s notable that this first release only includes 16GB of storage; no doubt this is to keep a lid on the price. You can add up to 32GB more via the microSD card slot.

The final neat feature we should mention is the infrared port. This turns the Tab into a universal remote control, which may sound frivolous but is exactly the sort of thing people will end up using every day.

With Samsung already releasing some nice extra accessories – a keyboard dock, multimedia dock, a USB adapter that allows you to connect printers/mice/keyboards, and an HDMI adapter – it should be obvious why we think the Galaxy Tab 7.7 is the pick of the CES tablets.

Let’s just hope it lives up to our expectations when we eventually get one to test for ourselves.

Fast forward, and I spot my first iPad: on the Tube, its user oblivious to the envious gawping of fellow travellers. For me, it had a similar effect, heralding the arrival of another exciting, innovative type of product.

That’s not the only parallel between netbooks and tablets but, as far as I can see, others aren’t nearly so positive. The netbook’s story has been a sad one: that initial flurry of excitement withered by staid products, precious little evolution and a stagnant market.

Look beneath the iPad – which is still a premium product – and the tablet market could suffer from many of the same problems.

The signs are already there: the market is flooded with a host of shoddy, near-identical products from established tech brands, no-name newcomers and bandwagon-riding outsiders, and innovation is hard to find.

Look under the hood of almost every tablet and you’ll find similar components, with cheaper models boasting obsolete hardware that’s not good enough to run Angry Birds, let alone the more demanding software currently being churned out by eager developers. Uninspiring design dominates the exterior, with cheap iPhone and iPad ripoffs dominating the market.

Almost all of them run Android and, in almost all cases, they disappoint the user with a litany of problems: build quality is often poor, screens are grainy or, even worse, made with unresponsive resistive technology. Plenty don’t have access to the Android Market, instead using an awful third-party store or making do without any legitimate way to install new software.

It’s a familiar story for those who’ve followed the netbook market: shoddy build quality and screens were found across dozens of devices, and a lack of hardware innovation meant they were also of limited use – and soon overshadowed by low-powered laptops.

There’s still hope for tablets. Apple’s forging its own wildly successful path but, away from iOS, only a handful of manufacturers, such as Sony and Samsung, are forging ahead with innovative products. Microsoft, meanwhile, is placing plenty of stock in Windows 8.

Will that be enough to help tablets avoid the same fate of netbooks? It’s still a growing market – tablets have just overtaken netbook sales for the first time – but there’s a big chance it could head in the wrong direction if more people buy, and are disappointed by, sub-standard products. Perhaps Sony exec Mike Abary was right back in 2008: a “race to the bottom” might seem tempting but, in the long run, it does more harm than good.

The announcement of the new Amazon Kindles caused all manner of excitement in the PC Pro office this week, until we realised Amazon actually had no plans to release the most exciting products in the UK. What a let-down. Still, that does at least give other manufacturers a chance to steal a march, and that appears to be exactly what Sony has done with its new Reader Wi-Fi, of which we have an early sample.

The first thing to notice when you pick up the Reader Wi-Fi is how light it is. It tipped our scales at just 162g, which makes the current Kindle look positively portly. With no keyboard it’s small enough to slip into an inside jacket pocket, and although it does feel a touch plasticky, it’s well made and the soft-touch plastic rear gives you a nice grippy surface to hold onto.

The screen is 6in across with a resolution of 600 x 800, and you get 1.4GB of usable memory expandable via a microSD slot, plus an infrared touchscreen just like the US-only Kindle Touch. This means you can sweep your finger right to left to turn a page, make handwritten notes and annotations with the supplied plastic stylus, and highlight text effortlessly (more on this later). For Sony, though, that’s nothing new. Where this device differs from its predecessors is in the inclusion of an 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter.

Once logged into your network using the onscreen keyboard, it offers direct access to the Sony ebook store, and through that a free subsection of Google Books, plus selected local libraries via the Overdrive eLibrary system. The latter provides time-limited DRM-based loans and, while the selection isn’t anywhere near as broad as the Kindle Store, the books are free.

Alas, the service isn’t yet up and running (and won’t be until the end of October), so we can’t pass judgement on its implementation in the device itself. We can only hope it rivals the gloriously simply system in the Kindle. But the good news is that you no longer need to rely on Sony’s Reader software to get content, which can only be a good thing.

The device’s onboard WebKit browser is fully functional and, in conjunction with the sensitive touchscreen, works surprisingly well. It’ll never rival a tablet for ease of use, but for accessing free ebook sites such as the Gutenberg Project, and even checking the odd email, it’s perfectly functional – and miles better than the Kindle’s browser. Even inertial scrolling and pinch-to-zoom operations function, although you may find the constant screen refresh sends you cross-eyed after a while.

Elsewhere, the Reader Wi-Fi exhibits similar strengths and weaknesses to previous Sony readers. It’s a superlative PDF-reading device. The multitouch capabilities of the screen mean even complex pages can be manipulated quickly and simply, and there are all manner of other ways of reading pages. You can set a custom crop to make pages with large borders more readable. In Navigate Page mode, the reader can be set to zoom right into the first column on a page, then follow the flow of text down then up and across when you hit the next button, instead of simply navigating to the following page.

Text can also be “reflowed” or stripped out so it fits the screen exactly. You can make handwritten annotations and highlight text for downloading via the Sony Reader software. A long press of the finger on a word, meanwhile, displays not only a dictionary definition at the bottom of the screen, but also pops up five buttons. These allow you to make a highlight the word, make a quick note and search the text, or carry out a keyword search in Google or Wikipedia.

And, although we can’t speak for the forthcoming Kindles, against the current model the Sony Reader Wi-Fi holds its own in terms of screen refresh speed and readability. Epub pages flip by in a single second, and as the screen uses the same E-Ink Pearl panel, contrast is largely the same as well. If anything the Kindle’s screen demonstrates a touch more contrast and crispness, but there’s very little in it. We took a macro photograph of each screen using identical lighting, shutter, aperture, ISO and white balance settings, then measured the black and “white” levels of each using Photoshop’s eyedropper tool. The result was a contrast ratio of 2.48:1 for the Kindle and 2.36:1 for the Sony.

The Sony Reader Wi-Fi is clearly a capable device; we can see that even without the benefit of being able to use the store on the device. It’s quick, readable and can handle PDF files in a much more intuitive and satisfactory way than the current Kindle – plus it’s incredibly light. The problem is with the price: at £130 we can’t see it competing with either current or future Kindles. We’ll have a full review when the services go live.

Apple and Samsung’s recent spat over patents and design has made plenty of headlines, but a new arrival in the PC Pro Labs has reminded us that some devices take more “inspiration” from the iPhone than others.

Pictured above and below is Apple’s iPhone 4, sat atop of Pierre Cardin’s 7in tablet. Need I say any more.

So, what do you think – will Apple attack this rival with the sort of vigour that’s normally reserved for Samsung, or will the lawyers let this one go?

That price undercuts pretty much every Honeycomb tablet and iPad currently on the market, so we were keen to see how the tablet itself stacked up. When Fusion Garage CEO, Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan, came in for an interview he was keen to show it off too.

The Grid10 makes a pretty good first impression. It isn’t the sleekest tablet in the world – it’s considerably thicker than an iPad 2 or a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at 14mm from font to back, but it is handsome enough and at 689g not too heavy. The rear panel is made from curved, brushed aluminium, and the edges and corners have a smart, chiseled look to them. These frame what looks to be a decent screen: a 10in unit with a 1,366 x 768 resolution – a few more pixels than most other tablets of its size can muster.

Under the sharp-suited exterior is a prettty standard feature set, though: a dual-core, 1GHz  Nvidia Tegra 2 processor is backed by 512MB of RAM, 16GB of storage, Wi-Fi (the 3G version is launching at the same time), GPS and a single, front-facing 1.3-megapixel video call camera. Plus there’s a reasonable selection of ports: Micro USB for synchronisation, Micro HDMI and a microSD slot for memory expansion.

The GridOS desktop

If that doesn’t get your juices flowing, then the interface just might. The Grid10 sports Fusion Garage’s proprietary GridOS (based on the Android 2.2 Kernel), and it looks very different to your average tablet OS.

The key to this is the main home screen: instead of having multiple horizontally-scrolling desktops, GridOS has just one, giant multi-directional scrolling space, around which are scattered themed clusters of apps – games, media, Amazon and so on. The clusters are essentially groups of square icons arranged loosely in a grid-like structure, and each icon is  shortcut to an app or settings screen. Check out the video below for a full demo of all the Grid 10’s features.

As you’d expect the desktop can be customised at will, the clusters can also be expanded and collapsed with a tap of the finger, while a thumbnail window at the top right of the screen gives you a quick overview, and can be tapped to reveal various options, such as changing the desktop wallpaper.

Meanwhile, running along the top of the screen is a thin toolbar hosting displaying volume controls, remaining battery life, connectivity status icons and a clock.

Gestures and navigation

With navigation, GridOS makes further departures from the tablet norm. Scrolling the desktop around is achieved simply enough – by dragging a single finger around – and so is manipulating web pages: pinch-to-zoom and single-finger panning is again the order of the day.

But, since there are no buttons nor any persistent on-screen controls for back or home, GridOS relies on a handful of special gestures for these core tasks. A two-fingered swipe from the right edge of the screen takes you back a stage; two fingers dragged from the top of the screen dumps you back in the home screen; and a two-fingered swipe from the left edge brings up the multi-tasking area of the OS, dubbed Heart Beat.

In the browser, meanwhile, menus and so on are launched with a quick swipe up from the bottom left corner of the screen. The browser is otherwise completely free of clutter. Interestingly, highlighting keywords in the text of a web page brings up a context menu allowing you to carry out various actions – a web search or, if the word is a film title, say, a link to buy the DVD.

Apps and the app store

The first thing to note is that the Grid10 will not ship with Android Market, and will never do so. It’s also missing all the standard Google apps you might expect on an Android-based tablet, and instead of Google search, features Microsoft’s Bing service.

That’s disappointing, but it isn’t all bad news. The Grid10 will run all Android apps natively, and instead of the Market, will come with Amazon’s app store pre-installed – the  first device in the UK to do so. We’ll have to hold judgement on this until we can actually use it, but it should at the very least tie the whole experience of downloading apps, music and video together more successfully than Google’s offering currently does.

Fusion Garage also has its own app store, though if past experience of proprietary app stores is anything to go by, you won’t be visiting it very often.

Performance and verdict

Fusion Garage was keen to stress during the demonstration that the software isn’t quite final, and we can see why. For while the core desktop scrolling operations, and web page scrolling and zooming responded smoothly to the touch of our demonstrator, other aspects were laggy and slow.

The “motion picture class animations”, as Rathakrishnan was keen to refer to them (transition animations between screens to you and me), took an age to respond, lists of messages scrolled arthritically up and down and context menus to a moment or two to appear. Those two-fingered gestures seemed to misfire with worrying frequency too: during the demonstrations, Rathakrishnan had to repeat gestures that weren’t recognised on several different occasions.

The quality of the screen isn’t great. Head on it looked bright enough for viewing indoors, but it isn’t in the same class as the iPad 2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. And horizontal viewing angles were dreadful: we spent large parts of the demonstration craning our necks around in an attempt to see what Rathakrishnan was demonstrating to us, and even then had trouble seeing what was going on.

And, while it may grow on us once we’ve had the opportunity to live with it for a while, we’re not convinced the GridOS is particularly intuitive. The big desktop may seem like a good idea, and it certainly looks pretty, but we can foresee it becoming rather confusing and unwieldy once it’s laden with a few more apps.

That said, Fusion Garage’s latest offering does have a certain charm to it and, with the market crying out for a tablet under £300 that actually works, it may have hit upon a recipe for success with the Grid10. Our opinion may change when we get our mitts on a fully-fledged review sample, but for now the outlook is reasonably bright.

While it gets harder and harder for manufacturers to differentiate their slates from the identikit masses, Toshiba’s done a great job of giving its AT200 a little personality of its own. The unfussy design looks plain yet elegant; a strip of black running along the tablet’s flat 7.7mm edges, arresting only when it reaches the ports on the tablet’s flank.

Those ports include micro-USB, microSD and Micro HDMI, although it’s worth noting that the AT200 can’t be charged via the USB connection, only via the docking connector on the underside.

The on button, volume controls and orientation lock, meanwhile, are almost camouflaged – hidden by the black strip binding the AT200’s edges.

It comes as little surprise that the  AT200 feels as feather-light in the hand as the 558g weight might suggest, but it also exudes an air of solidity. There’s no give or flex in the casing, and the brushed aluminium back adds a frisson of class to the proceedings.

The demo unit we got our hands on was running a temporary build of Android 3.2, so lacked any of the Toshiba-specific apps that will be included on the final retail models. However, performance was spritely thanks to the dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor and 1GB of RAM inside.

Elsewhere, there are few surprises. The 10.1in 1,280 x 800 screen looked bright and crisp, and we didn’t get a chance to properly test the 5-megapixel front-facing and 2 megapixel rear-facing cameras. All the usual tablet gadgetry is present and correct, however, with a 3D accelerometer, gyrometer, electronic compass and GPS. Wireless networking includes single-band 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0 and optional 3G.

Toshiba’s been unusually specific about its battery tests, too, and with the screen set to 60cd/m2 (we presume that’s its dimmest setting) the AT200 manages eight hours of video playback or eight hours of usage divided into 65% web browsing over Wi-Fi, 10% video playback and 25% left on standby.

16GB and 32GB models will be the first to market later this year, with 64GB and 3G versions following soon after. As ever, Toshiba’s promised to make sure we get one of the first AT200’s to strut off the factory floor, so keep your eyes peeled for the PC Pro review.

The hardware

The 372g Tablet P measures 26mm thick and 180mm long. That’s a bit chunkier than the latest breed of slip-thin phones, but the thick-set, curvy figure fits comfortably in the hand. And, while we’d struggle to squeeze it in our jeans pockets, it’s still far more pocketable than any of the current breed of Android 3.2 tablets.

Push the Tablet P flat, though, and the two 1,024 x 480 5.5in displays combine to form a 7in, 1,024 x 960 resolution display. Despite the several millimetres of bezel in between, it works well and ensures that navigating Android 3.2 never feels unduly cramped.

The Tablet P’s novel dual-screen design makes it possible to use it in a variety of ways. Set it on the desk like a miniature laptop, and while the top screen displays video, pictures or text, the bottom screen can assume a variety of roles. While playing a video or music, it displays playback controls, elsewhere offering a gallery view or an on-screen keyboard.

The design really comes to life once you fire up one of the included PS One titles. Where the Tablet S floats its gaming controls at the sides of the screen, the Tablet P relegates them to the lower screen, which feels far more natural; more like a traditional portable gaming device, such as Nintendo’s DS.

Sony’s Reader Store reveals another trick: tilt the Tablet P round so that you’re holding it like a book, and text flows down each screen to mimic individual pages. The narrow 480 pixel resolution of each screen leaves the pages looking a touch narrow, though, and we’ll be interested to see how it copes with diagram-filled textbooks and the like.

Swiping left or right smoothly scrolls from page to page, while highlighting text allows you to search through books or refer to Wikipedia for rapid reference. With the Reader Store reaching the UK at the end of October, it’s a feature that’ll live or die on the pricing and selection of books on offer.

Specifications

The Tablet P’s tiny body doesn’t leave much room for a battery, but Sony claims that the P will survive 120 hours in standby, and up to 6 hours of web browsing via WiFi.

And though the Tablet P shares the same Tegra 2 processor as the Tablet S, its standard specifications are a little different. There’s only one model (part code SGPT212) which comes with 3G, a rather stingy 4GB of onboard memory and a 2GB microSD card. Those looking to carry around heaps of music and movies will need to invest in larger microSD media.

Though the Tablet P’s novelty factor will have gadget fiends salivating, the pricing may dampen their enthusiasm: at £479, we can’t help thinking that Sony is being just a touch optimistic.

As the name suggests, the new baby of Samsung’s tablet range sports a 7.7in, 1,280 x 800 pixel screen. It’s not just any old display, though: Samsung has squeezed in a Super AMOLED Plus panel, and the eye-popping vibrancy of the thing just has to be seen to be believed.

Even under the viciously bright spot lighting in Samsung’s (still half-built) hall, the Galaxy Tab 7.7’s display looked glorious. Colours are super-saturated – so much so, that it doesn’t feel like you’re looking at a screen at all.

Reach out and touch the tiny tablet, though, and it’s beautifully petite. Measuring just 7.89mm thick, the gently curved edges felt great in our giant hands, and it feels just as barely-there as the 335g weight suggests.

As you’d rightfully hope given the dual-core 1.4GHz processor inside (we’re waiting on confirmation of the actual architecture) the Tab feels pretty alert in use. We did experience the odd hitch here and there while surfing the web, but we’d be more inclined to blame the variable quality of IFA’s wireless airwaves than the tablet itself.

Indeed, delve through a copy of the Washington Post with the supplied newspaper reader, and there’s no lag at all while zipping around the front page and zooming in and out.

The tweaked home screen gives the little Galaxy Tab a touch of individuality, and Samsung’s keen to make a big splash on its four Hubs. The Game, Music, Readers and Social Hubs are pretty self-explanatory, but the Social Hub appears to be by far the most useful, aggregating email, contacts, calendar and friends across multiple social networks, it’s the perfect addition to such a temptingly portable tablet.

In fact, the only issue we noticed during our time with the Tab 7.7 was that its metal back became noticeably warm to the touch. After around 15 minutes of surfing the web, it was warm enough to start making our hands feeling fairly sweaty: obviously, squeezing a dual-core 1.4Ghz processor into such a tiny chassis has its downsides.

Still, the Galaxy Tab 7.7’s specifications are nothing to complain about. The presence of 5GHz 802.11n is a welcome – especially so given the congested state of today’s 2.4Ghz spectrum – and as channel bonding is supported, streaming or transferring gigabytes of music or movies will be swift and speedy.

There’s nothing lacking elsewhere: GPS and Bluetooth 3.0 make the grade, and the 3-megapixel front-facing camera is partnered with a 2-megapixel one at the rear. And, in contrast to some of the competition, Android 3.2 is installed as standard.

In fact, there’s only one major problem that Samsung has to deal with, and that’s the Galaxy Tab 7.7’s likeness to a shrunken iPad. Going by the message in the picture below, our German chums might have to wait patiently until the Galaxy Tab 7.7 finally arrives on Amazon.de.

We can understand if the mere thought of a Windows 7 tablet is enough to set alarm bells ringing, but Samsung’s Series 7 700T marks the company’s first attempt to revitalise the genre.

Though bulkier than your average Android slate – as you’d rightly expect given the 11.6in, 1,366 x 768 display – the 700T feels surprisingly manageable in the hand. Measuring 12.9mm thick and weighing in at just 970g, this is as lightweight as Windows tablets come. The brushed metal back gives the 700T a classy feel, and the sturdy build means there’s precious little flex – compared to most Windows tablets, the Samsung is in a different league.

Performance

It took just a couple of prods at the screen to gauge that it’s incredibly responsive. With the same Core i5-2467M processor as found in Samsung’s Series 9 laptop, that perhaps comes as little surprise, but it’s all the more noticeable on a tablet. In tandem with the 64GB SSD and 4GB of RAM, every touch brings an almost instant response. Zooming in and out of photos in Windows Photo Viewer is smooth, and applications load with appreciable haste.

Samsung has also added its own touch-friendly home screen to Windows 7. Icons tile across the screen in a layout reminiscent of an Android tablet, while all the essential details such as Wi-Fi connections, a clock and calendar entries are positioned on a hideable sidebar on the left-hand side.

The early sample we saw didn’t have the final software suite installed, but our contact also suggested that Samsung is looking at integrating Swype’s novel keyboard into final production models.

Physical features

Whether it’s at home or in the office, on the tube or on the train, Samsung’s 700T majors on versatility. With a Bluetooth keyboard, stylus and a docking station bundled as standard, it’s easy to go from scribbling down notes to chewing through office applications.

Back at a desk, the docking station packs in Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, a full-sized USB 2 port and a headphone output, and, for longer trips, it’s also small and light enough to pop in a bag.

The 700T itself packs in front and rear-facing cameras, a gyroscope, accelerometer and GPS as standard. Connectivity includes a full-sized USB port, Micro HDMI and a MicroSD slot, as well as an easily accessible SIM slot for the optional 3G. Wireless connectivity includes 802.11n and Bluetooth.

Battery life is the big unknown, and here Samsung claims 6.6 hours. Our Samsung contact claimed actual usage time will be nearer three or four hours with Wi-Fi and more strenuous usage, although we’ll hold off judgement until we can test it ourselves.

Price

With an 11.6in capacitive screen, a powerful Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD, not to mention the bundled docking station, the asking price of £999 doesn’t look too unreasonable. We’re still waiting on confirmation of the price of the 3G version.

With review units available in the coming weeks, look out for the forthcoming full review in PC Pro.