Samsung are coming out with new tablets soon which means their original one, the seven-inch Galaxy Tab, is heading for the discount shelf. Asda has it on offer now for £299. Not long ago it was selling for £499. I picked up mine with a free 16 gb memory card a couple of months ago for £399. This thing is a bargain.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-7927" title="samsung_galaxy_tab_4" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/samsung_galaxy_tab_4.jpg" alt="" width="540" height="391" />

Why do I have this and the original iPad too? Because people at Bouchercon <em>forced</em> me to buy an iPad. And I quite like it around the apartment or in the hotel when I'm travelling. The trouble is it's big and heavy. Yes, the iPad 2 won't be as heavy but it will be as big. What I really need when I'm outside is something much more portable -- and one you can stick an ordinary phone sim card in too.

Enter the Galaxy Tab.<!--more-->I've used this on a number of trips now. Unlike the iPad I can genuinely leave the laptop at home. Because it takes a sim card -- Tesco's £10 a month data offer will do nicely -- I'm always online, either through the data connection or wifi. My sim is Vodafone too so I can add on their Data Traveller option -- £10 a month for roaming in specific countries. With that in Florence I got 25mb a day (and a lot of stupid unnecessary texts from Vodafone but that's another story). I could wander round, take photos (very good camera), check web sites and maps, and store notes directly into Evernote. The thing slipped easily into the inside pocket of my winter jacket. When the weather's warmer it can just pop into a small shoulder bag.

Geeks will moan that is used an old version of Android, 2.2 (shortly to be upgraded to 2.3). The newer tablets all use a later version, specifically aimed at tablets not phones, call Gingerbread. I've no idea what Gingerbread is like but 2.2 works just fine on the Tab for me. It's the same as the system on my HTC phone (and the apps I bought for the HTC phone also work on the Tab too usually since they are tied to your Google account, not your device).

What apps do I use? Well, Kindle, which is much better at this page size for me than on the iPad, very close to the Kindle hardware itself but in colour. Evernote, naturally. Mail,  photos, Hootsuite and Facebook. I wouldn't use it much for writing anything of length -- the screen is too small. The iPad is definitely better for that, not that I use it much that way. Rail Planner is fantastic for rail journeys, and I am hooked on Tripit for managing longer trips. Google's Places and Map are always useful (in Florence I could get a quick check on restaurants close to me, with directions and reviews too). That data connection and the portability of this little thing meant that I just use it an awful lot more than I do the big, bulky and wifi-only iPad. Yes, I know I could buy the iPad with a sim card in it too, but the price is just silly for that, particularly if you go abroad a bit.

Oh, and it's a phone, at least in Europe (this is switched off in the US for some daft reason I gather). You can take and make voice calls using it as a speakerphone or plug in an earphone/mike set that comes with it and talk like that. It is a very good phone too, picking up weak Vodafone signals where an ordinary phone doesn't. And the battery life seems incredible, as long as the iPad from what I can see -- ten hours or more on a single charge.

&nbsp;