review

Photos by Veronica Oggy

When the original Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 was introduced, it was hardly proof the iPad had much to worry about from the 7-inch Android market. Not because of the its 7-inch display, however, which actually turned out to be a much nicer experience than cheerleaders of Apple’s view would have you believe. If the new Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus accomplishes one task successfully, it’s proving once again a 7-inch slate is an undeniably ideal size for the majority of everyday, on-the-go tasks, and with Honeycomb 3.2 and beefed up insides, Samsung’s new 7-inch experience could be your next tablet.

Right out the gate it’s clear this is the best Android tablet I’ve used– While pretty much the same experience on the slightly scaled up Galaxy Tab 10.1 feels inferior to the iPad, the 7.0 Plus seems to stand on its own. It’s also never been more clear how much Apple needs a product in the 7-inch category, and that’s saying a lot for the short amount of time I’ve spent with the device.

Design:

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We’ve been playing with Sony’s Xperia PLAY, from Verizon for the better part of a month now. The PLAY is available on Verizon for $99 (and free on Amazon), after seeing a price slashed from $199 just a few weeks ago.

The PLAY is running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with a pretty thick overlay, a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 4-inch multi-touch display, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, VGA front-facing camera, and preloaded PLAY software.  Also included are controls to play games. Is this the gaming phone the world needs? Read on after the break for our full review.

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It seems like each day doesn’t pass without Google redesigning one of their products to match the Google+ look. While Google redesigned News yesterday, Place Pages have now been added to the list. The redesign matches the overall Google+ look so there’s not much explaining there, but the way Google now handles reviews is worth noting.

As TechCrunch reports rather than stealing reviews from sources like TripAdvisor and CitySearch, Google now uses reviews form its users. The business above originally had 1,110 reviews but is now down to 171 reviews after the redesign. Google notes:

Based on careful thought about the future direction of Place pages, and feedback we’ve heard over the past few months, review snippets from other web sources have now been removed from Place pages. Rating and review counts reflect only those that’ve been written by fellow Google users, and as part of our continued commitment to helping you find what you want on the web, we’re continuing to provide links to other review sites so you can get a comprehensive view of locations across the globe.

We’ve also heard there was some legal input into this as Yelp and others were crying foul to the Justice Dept.