[mgmueller]

Basically, I could call this thread "Apple iPad vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab".
Those are my 2 favorite tablets - and probably the 2 most successful ones for the moment.

I've found lots of reviews about both of them. For iPad, given that it's already available for 7 months, the reviews are kind of realistic, in my opinion. For Samsung Galaxy Tab, I still mainly read nonsense.

Before going into details, my personal ranking in advance.
After very careful consideration:
iPad = 8/10
Galaxy Tab = 6.5 /10
For Galaxy Tab, it was especially hard to rank. I love it. And for the last 6 weeks I've used it almost exclusively. It's got huge potential, but there are some annoyances as well. Fortunately, most of those issues are in the OS, so they might be solved with Android 2.3 or 3.0 rather quickly.

From my personal experience as a heavy user:

Uninstall & Refund:
That's a huge weakness of iOS/iTunes. You can't test most of the apps and you can't get any refund, just because you don't like the app.
On Android, you get a full refund. No questions asked. I don't mind, whether the refund period is 24 hours (what I've had so far) or 15 minutes (latest discussion). It's still a huge benefit. And usually I know within minutes, whether the app is what I wanted.

Stability:
A few days ago I've stated in another thread, iPad never did crash on me whereas this happens more or less every day with my Android units.
I have to be more specific about that.
There's no "blue screen of death" for neither unit. You never crash the entire system. In the worst case, a specific app hangs itself and you manually have to "kill" it.
This happens on iPad as well. I just kind of forgot about it, because I didn't use my iPad for maybe 2 months (mainly because of Samsung Galaxy Tab). And -and that's a huge plus for iPad- because you easily can close any app via the physical home button. On Galaxy Tab, although in general I prefer them, the capacitive buttons sometimes simply don't react for some seconds, when the app is stuck. Meaning: On Android, your entire system can "hang" for some seconds. On iPad, you just close the app whenever you want.

Keyboard:
In my opinion, by far the biggest weakness of iPad.
You've got a single keyboard, which in addition is extremely stupid.
It just doesn't learn.
I've read somewhere, it would be learning. But only in some specific apps.
On Android, you can choose tons of keyboards. I love using "Swype" for example. It perfectly learns. And whatever it learns can be used in every single app. You easily can add or delete from your personal dictionary. My email address for example only takes 4 letters, then I get the correct suggestion(s). There even are keyboards with shortcuts, as we had them 10 years ago (!!) on PocketPCs/Palm Pilots.

Desktops:
Folders did help on iPad. But still you can't do very much on iPad.
On Android, you can use widgets on your desktop for example.
You can have your programs in some kind of "Start/Programs" structure similar to Windows. In addition, you freely can arrange shortcuts on the desktop. You can add shortcuts to almost everything: Contacts, Maps, Apps, Playlists, ...

Appstore:
I'm very critical about both iTunes and Android market.
In my opinion, the over all quality is close to a disaster. Yes, most apps are less than $ 5. But for most, even that's already too much.
I'd rather have professional apps, developed by the "big ones", instead of having thousands of apps from hobby programmers.
There are exceptions of course. "Navigon" on iPhone4 for example a few weeks ago won in a (competent and professional) review agains "real" navigation systems. I happily pay the $ 50 premium for this kind of quality.
Anyway: In direct comparison, iTunes still is ahead. I guess, for any 5 titles in Android, you find about 7 to 10 similar apps in iTunes. The highlights on Android clearly demonstrate, it absolutely can compete with iOS. But there simply are more choices in iTunes.

Performance:
I can't really benchmark those units.
But my gut feeling says, iPad and Galaxy Tab are about even.
Both, in general, perform extremely well.
I find myself more and more annoyed by boot times, startup times, responsiveness and the likes on PC or Mac in comparison to these tablets.

Full screen of mobile phone apps:
The majority of apps in iTunes is designed for the smaller display of iPhone.
Same for Android.
On iPad, it's easy: Per se, the iPhone app starts in the original size, having huge borders around it. You can hit the "x2" button, and the app doubles in size. For some, the result is great - no pixelation at all. For most of the apps, it's a compromise in my opinion. It's workable, no doubt about that. Maybe 95% of those apps are totally usable. But lots of them simply look less appealing than "real" iPad apps.
On Galaxy Tab (I can't speak about Android in general, it's different for each manufacturer/unit), it's even worse without "hacks". Some apps double and look about the same as iPhone apps on iPad. Some apps don't work at all. Some apps zoom incorrectly...
BUT: There's a solution. The app "Spare Parts", legally available in the Android market, tweaks the OS. (I've read somewhere, the app even is just an extract from the original source from Samsung). The apps then don't just double, they scale perfectly. Same (or similar) can be done with a jailbreak on iPad. But tweaking Android to me seems less intrusive than jailbreaking iOS. And it's way easier to do. And the hitrate of working apps (I haven't tried the jailbreak tweak on iPad) seems to be bigger on Android.

I'll add some further details later on.
But for now, my conclusion:
Without the appstores, just comparing hardware, it would be way closer. Actually, I personally prefer Galaxy Tab because of its mobility. But what worth is a great hardware, if it lacks content? And here iPad shines. I simply find more content in iTunes than in Android. The gap is getting smaller. But for now, iPad is (not that much anymore, but still) ahead because of availability of applications.