If you need to know what’s really important in a tablet design, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve done a LOT of research. In this article I pull all that knowledge together in a huge list of tablet improvements, based on the good old Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Also read: things to consider when designing or buying a tablet-style device.  Acheckist for a quality handheld internet tablet.

The iPad and Galaxy Tab were great, great examples of early consumer tablets in the market and for me the quality and mobility of the Galaxy Tab meant that it worked well in my family of devices. I’ve used it for over 3 years and in in the early monthf of ownership I compiled a list of issues and improvements. The list applies to other tablets too so if you’re designing or buying tablets for the market, this is the sort of list you should already have on your whiteboard. If not, take this one and make it better.

The list is over 50 items long and is split into three sections. Changes that could be made to the current Galaxy Tab are listed first and this is a good place to scan through if you’re looking to buy a Galaxy Tab. The second section includes what I would call reasonable hardware expectations for second-gen or late 2011 high-quality tablet. I don’t expect all of these features to be included but it’s a list of possible improvements. The third section is a little way-out there and includes hardware changes that may not be possible this year or could be too niche. I did have a section including third party software but that list got very long indeed and is not really relevant here.

IMPORTANT: There’s more to be added to this list and a great discussion about tablets to be had here. Chip-in with your thoughts too. You’ll have ideas that no-one has through of yet so don’t be afraid to dump them in the comments below. If it’s not too wild (lets keep it within a 2-year timeframe) i’ll add it to the list and credit you.

Software and experience changes

1. Web browser.  Faster, mouse/finger over. Higher quality. Plugins. Password sync. Common gestures.
2. Better protection of UI experience under load. (Run UI in separate core? Possible hardware change required for that.)
3. Improve UI physics. Response rate needs to be 20ms or less. (I believe from my audio work in the past that 20ms is where delays become noticeable. I could be wrong but you know what I’m getting at right?) Try a drum-machine programme, It’s impossible. (Android 2.3 bring in features that can improve this through the use of the NDK)
4. DLNA improvements. (Receivers and senders need to improve compatibility.)
5. Protect the audio playback from stutters in multitasking scenarios. Critical. (How about a ‘dedicated’ mode where the application is brought to ‘realtime’ status, in effect, like iOS does.
6. Vastly improved audio library features. playlist import/export, cross-fading, id3 tag editing, jukebox mode, cover retrieval, radio streams, integration with Last.fm amd similar services. Much quicker media scanning.
7. Easier way to auto-organise applications list. Sort-by: most used, alphabetical, recently added, categorise (based on market categorisation) Apps list is as important as an audio catalogue. Genres, personal ratings on client should feed back to Market.There are a ton of improvements that can be made here.
8. Samsung apps style improvements. Lose the wood-grain effect or allow theaming! Some feature improvements are also possible.
9. More video content to buy / stream. Major issue outside the U.S.
10. Full BT 3.0 (wifi TX support, near-field pairing)
11. Longer battery life (of course!) Important – battery save mode that schedules network usage. Significant improvements will require hardware changes.
12. More tablet / pro apps to be included via the Samsung catalogue
13. Better gallery with sort, date search, rename, tagging, face detection etc. Stock Gallery is very limited.
14. Better printing support. Google Cloud Print service should fix this.
15. Apt-x codec support over BT A2DP. (Or some other HQ wireless audio transmission capability)
16. SMS remote kill feature
17. Compatibility with camera applications
18. Timed profiles, turn to silence.
19. Improve speed of re-scanning WiFi access points. Can be extremely slow in some situations.
20. Occasionally boot-up time can run into 2 minutes or more. This needs to be improved
21. Hot-swap SIM cards (where applicable)
22. Slippery when dry. The smooth, easy wipe finish needs a couple of high-friction areas for book-reading
23. AC3 and DTS soundtrack handling. (Down-sampling to 2-channel and pass-through for HDMI)
24. Lower the lowest screen brightness (for in-bed, next-to-partner usage.)

Essential Hardware changes:

1. Longer charger cable (and micro-usb port)
2. Camera Quality: Glass lens, better sensor, continuous AF when recording video. Lens cover.  Flash options.  HD recording.
3. Camera shutter release button
4. Fm receiver + transmitter
5. USB OTG support for external storage, keyboard, mouse, other peripherals (midi, dvb-t, external cam)
6. Better GPS.  Sensitivity, speed.
7. Analogue video out built-in. Is that old-school? E.G. VGA, S-Video, Composite
8. HDMI-out port.
9. Storage improvements. Speed of core storage needs improving. 32GB, 64GB option.
10. Indicator lamps – multiple for use with different applications. Programmable colour.
11. indicators and alerts need to feed to paired Android phones.
12. Replaceable battery
13. Kick-stand
14. SDXC card compatibility
15. Higher quality screen (at same or lower power utilisation.)

For the ultimate tablet:

1. Digital radio reception.  DAB (Update: and other standards)
2. Digital TV reception. DVB (Update: and other standards)
3. Digitiser for graphics and handwriting input.
4. HQ audio recording. External mic over BT? Array mics.
5. Near field payments support (Probably best on a phone tho)
6. Daylight readable screen (transflective)
7. Quick Fingerprint reader for security.
8. Midi support (be a midi sequencer/controller)
9. HQ Audio synthesiser and audio effect support in hardware. (for use as effects unit)
10. Built-in mini projector
11. Remote mini handset accessory for using tablet as a phone. (Over BT with address book, dialling, voice dialling, CLI
12. Screen extension (slide-able, removable)
13. PVR facility and dock. (hardware video encoding – 720p)
14. Wi-Di and wireless audio over Wifi
15. Rear panel controls and gestures area.
16. Glasses-free 3D (plus content)

…and lastly. Lets have a penta-boot system with Windows, Android, MeeGo, Ubuntu and WebOS!

Update: Reader contributions

• Better device security including encryption of sensitive information (BryanB – via comment below)
• Good design and implementation of user interface frameworks and the design/implementation of the applications. Really poorly coded application user interfaces can use all the CPU available. [Chippy: I think that’s really part of the Android framework though.] (Sam – via comment)
• Samsung Keyboard Editor – (Max – via comment)
• A hinged back cover with a kick-stand that would allow easy battery replacement, SSD upgrades, and safe storage of extra SDHC cards. (jjsjjsva via comment) [Chippy: I love that SDHC storage area idea. That’s a winner!]

Falling leaves, an Indian Summer and a brand new HP WebOS tablet. That’s the scene we could be seeing if the information coming via Engadget is correct. HP will have two WebOS tablets available in 7 and 9-inch variants called Opal and Topaz.

While we expected the HP WebOS Tablet project to hit in 2011, September seems a long way away and falls behind the early Honeycomb Android, further iOS and possible MeeGo tablets. The timing will give HP a chance to ramp up the developer community so we’re expecting SDKs to be out before summer. In order to attract those developers though, something special needs to be announced. WebOS and product renders just won’t be enough.

On that topic, I have a theory that I first mentioned in Dec 2010. [For the record – You know if it happens I’m going to be Mr Told-You-So! ] It’s based purely on the need to battle against Android and iOS that HP, Intel and Nokia could get together on this.

Qt has already been ported to WebOS, it made it to the WebOS 2.0 build and it makes the perfect layer for Symbian, MeeGo and WebOS to join forces in attracting critical development interested. Without that developer interest, what chance do these products have? Partnerships could be taken one step further too with Intel providing early Medfield samples and with Nokia providing Qt skills for the WebOS SDKs. Take it one step further and WebOS could actually be built on top of MeeGo. There’s nothing stopping HP doing this, even outside a partnership.

How about Intel and Nokia helping to combine Ares, the WebOS SDK, and QT as a multi-product SDK? I think developers would be very happy indeed. It will be just another SDK like the .net, AIR and JAVA environments that already exist. Intels AppUp back-end could be unified with the other applications stores too and combined (especially with tricks like Intel Insider that I hope make the jump to Atom) there’s a better chance of negotiating major video, tv, book, game and music deals. Wi-Di technology could also be a USP.

I’m not a professional software developer and I know that a lot of these thoughts are idealistic and totally ignore the difficult tasks of cutting deals but I can see that Qt could be one very important pivot-point and with three major brands behind a single core OS, MebOS?, there’s a better chance that the dev community could be ramped up quickly. I also love the idea of a Cute-Devices brand. Without a partnership of some sort, will Symbian, MeeGo and WebOS survive?

If there’s one thing that gets me going it’s a mobile device with  great audio features. I love music discovery, mobility and quality. The fewer wires, the better.  The Creative ZiiO 7 and 10 inch devices have just such a feature and having tested it at CES I can say that I’m now a fan of APT-X and I want to integrate an Android tablet into my lounge Hi-Fi as soon as possible. I’m not sure the Creative ZiiO tablets are the hardware I’d use though.

APT-X is a brand of licensed codec that can be used over the A2DP Bluetooth profile to provide CD-Quality output. The default A2DP profile (SBC) falls short of that, and it’s noticeable. Obviously APT-X is an optional, licensed codec and you won’t find it on many Bluetooth implementations but I’m hoping it feeds its way into more stacks as soon as possible.

The ZiiO Tablets themselves are somewhat sub-par. The screen is dull, includes resistive touch, there’s no Google Market and while the device might be cased in rugged plastic, it looks and feels low-quality. I wrote about them previously and even then, when information was thin on the ground, the standout feature was APT-X.  The  price of €249 for the 7 inch version is reasonable for a Cortex A8 device and Creative have added some nice A/V software but without the Google market and with the screen issues, you might be disappointed. The UK sales page is here. Admittedly, the 10 inch version (€350) does look better and when it gets an Android 2.2 upgrade, might be worth taking a second look, as long as you don’t mind a resistive touchscreen.

I tested the ZiiO 7 with the Creative WP-300 headphones that also support APT-X. The quality and comfort surprised me. The quality also carries on through the Creative Speakers and this is obviously the key feature. There’s a unique selling point here and it’s all to do with music around the home. I like that idea but I hope Creative bump up the quality of those tablets to match what I heard. Maybe products based on the SiVO Digital Home Platform (announced at CES) will be better.

Interestingly, I tested the WP-300 headphones with the Galaxy Tab while I was on the stand and I thought the quality was good despite not supporting APT-X.  (At least as far as I know.) I’ve never spent $90 on a pair of headphones before but they sounded so good that I’m very tempted. If the Galaxy Tab gets APT-X support in it’s next firmware, I’ll be pushing the button for sure.

More in the gallery.

In terms of build quality, the Enspert E301 stood out from the other tablets at CES. It’s from the company that brought you the Inbrics M1 (and used to be called ‘Identity.’) The Inbrics M1 never reached EU or US markets so let’s hope this one does better. With cellular data planned for the device, we think they stand a better chance this time round and based on what we’ve seen, this is up there with the best of the non-Honeycomb tablets.

Full specs are in the database but here’ are a few highlights:

• Samsung SP5C110 1Ghz Cortex A8 with PowerVR 540 graphics
• Digital TV receivers planned
• 3G/4G recievers planned
• 5.0MP Auto-focus camera
• Launch planned for ‘back-to-school’ 2011

It’s the last point that worries us somewhat. By Q3 2011, this device needs Honeycomb!

More images in the Gallery

This overview video goes over the main features of the device. (From CES 2011)

I was just having a little chat with Zinio yesterday. They’re the people that put magazines online (and are part of the Galaxy Tab ‘Readers Hub application) bit as I tested the latest update on Android, I spotted something. I didn’t know this 7″ tablet that seemed to be performing quite well. A look at the back surprised me somewhat as I’d just come from the Viewsonic stand. I have no real info as there was a reluctance to let me mess around with the device. . . which tells me something, right? Keep an eye out for a new Viewsonic 7″ tablet soon. Anyone spot any similarities with other branded devices?

Oh. BTW, Zinio now re-flows text on the Tab making it much easier to use. Thanks for everything Zinio.

I’ve got bad news for many of you that were very interested in the Ocosmos OCS1K slider ultra mobile PC today. The slider version has now been dropped (Official. It won’t be produced.) in favour of the mini tablet version you see in the middle above. For a company that tries to promote its own multiway pad input solution, I guess this isn’t surprising.

Specs are shown above and the only thing I can add is that the battery should be bigger in the new version leading to longer battery life. If you look at the Oaktrail figures so far and the size of the device you’re probably looking at 4-5hrs of usable battery life.I can’t see how they could really squeeze much more out of it in real-world scenarios.

Here’s a video from the very noisy Showstoppers event last night.

Acer have a reputation in the netbook world – they push prices down. I wonder if that’s going to be the case for the Picasso Tablet?

Based on Tegra2 with what looks like 16GB of storage and a capacitive touchscreen it has 2011-potential; Just like the Dell Streak 7. As we get nearer to Honeycomb, more and more people will be trying to make sure they buy a device that is well positioned for the important software upgrade. Tegra 2 is turning out to be just that ticket.

The on-screen buttons will catch some out with Android 2.x but Honeycomb might actually make that issue redundant. Weight is a little on the chunky side but the finish and style seem to be very good. There’s also a good range of ports.

My hands-on is in the video below.

As promised, here’s the video over view of the Viliv X7 Android Tablet.
Key feature here is the big, 21wh battery and of course, that good quality Viliv engineering. They are ‘targeting’ $399 with 3G but we’ll have to re-visit that nearler launch in March/April