If you’re in the market for a 7 inch slate, Samsung’s 7 inch Galaxy Tab is the undeniable leader in this area… but it’s definitely not the only device you should consider. Take, for instance, Enspet’s Identity Tab e201. This 7 inch device is nearly spec-for-spec identical to Samsung’s Tab, less a lower screen resolution, but it actually performs just as well and even beats the Galaxy Tab on some benchmarks. Have a look at the two in a head-to-head video below:

Testing testing. Galaxy Tab and Nokia n8 calling the Internet. Do not believe anything you read in this post.

Winter hit the suburbs of Vegas today as a hotel show went badly wrong. The Jagermaster hotel had to abort a simulation of ‘Winter Olympics’ as residents started complaining of reality distortion. As you can see in the images below, the normally colorful plastic houses were turned instantly into an almost real scene of German suburb life. One resident had this to say. ‘I can’t believe it. This stuff is really cold and dangerous. I will be contacting my lawyer.’

Free alcohol, entertainment and buffets for affected residents were being discussed by the local county council.

This is the 4th and last post in the CES moblogging equipment test. 4 posts in about one hour with the Nokia n8 and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Lets assume I’ve just stumbled across a new product at CES.  Here’s the microblog. . .

Yup! here it is! The new super UMPC  from the ABBC company. We’ve just tripped up Joanna Stern of Engaget to get here first and should be able to hold her down with one foot while we blog this. Ill have to be quick though because here comes that JKK guy with his camera.

4.8″ screen which we think is uber-capacative. Price in the $100 range they say and availability is yesterday for any order over 1000 pieces.

It feels light in the hand and could be the break-through device everyone is looking for. No word on operating system but the Windows 8 sticker under the battery kind of gives it away.

Joanna starting to cry loudly now so we’ll let her get on with her 1080p video. JKK and Gizmodo now having a fight too. Video of that coming later.

This has been the 3rd of my simulated CES posts from a low-light room somewhere underground in Germany. Time for one more quickie. . .

These pics were not taken with the moblogging kit,  itself but I am using them on the Galaxy Tab to write this post.

The image of the scales shows what I’m aiming for. That’s 1.3kg with four bits of kit and a bag!

Nokia n8 – To be used for photography and, possibly, video. Offline maps and of course, phone functionality is important here too. I won’t be letting the n8 use the wifi or 3g in order to preserve important phone functionality for later in the day.

Samsung Galaxy Tab – To be the mobile internet and text input device, location via Google latitude (for finding out where my friends are) and of course, Tweeting. II’ll be using the WordPress application for blogging, automatic comment notifications and comment spam control. Battery life should be good enough for all day (18hrs)

Battery pack and Mifi – Unfortunately I won’t have a local SIM to drop into the Tab so ill be strapping a Sprint Mifi to the battery pack to give me a roaming hotspot. My wife has the Mifi today so I’ve simulated it with a battery charger.

I won’t be relying 100% on this kit during CES as ill have my Netbook and camera in the hotel room but I do plan to at least go for one full day on this setup.

This has been the second of my CES test posts today with the n8 and Galaxy Tab. I’m standing and moving about my house. More coming up. . .

I’ve just started a one hour test of the mobile blogging gear I’m going to use at CES this year but just as I started to transfer the first photos (of my kit – 1.3kg!) I noticed the Google Maps was updated. This is an important update because it changes the way maps are rendered and introduces local caching. You’ll see in the image below that there’s not much you can control in terms of caching so only further testing will tell us how much of a map can be cached but the indications from Google were that a whole city is possible. This means that if you’re heading away and don’t want to use 3g or rely on Internet for the maps, you can cache them beforehand.

I’ll try and do some more testing on that while I’m at CES but for now, make sure you check your android phone for the Google Maps updates and let me know if you spot any major issues.

This has been the first of my CES kit test posts using only the N8 and Galaxy Tab.

The N8 arrived and I’ve paired it with the Tab. Photo taken, Bluetooth sent and now ready to be added to this post. Time, well under a few minutes. It’s working well so far!

Text written using WordPress application on Galaxy Tab.

People moan about WordPress on Android but for quick blog posts using the Tab, it’s working out well. Where all you need is a pic, a link and some text, I can’t thing of an easier process. Pic via Tab.

RIM has posted an official video on their BlackBerry YouTube channel and does a brief web browsing comparison with the PlayBook [tracking page] and iPad [tracking page] side-by-side. It’s good to see the PlayBook in the flesh rather than as a pre-rendered animation as it’s been seen up until now. Naturally, the BlackBerry PlayBook blows the iPad out of the water (otherwise they wouldn’t have shown it). But like a movie trailer, videos like this can make something look much better than it actually is. I’m not saying the PlayBook doesn’t appear to be performing well, but they were obviously selective about their tests. Check out the video below: