The iPad started shipping in April, and since then it has basically had the tablet market to itself. Literally, in the six months after the iPad’s release, it didn’t have a single direct competitor. Dell launched the Streak shortly after the iPad, but the Streak was a 5” unit that was significantly smaller than the iPad. In the 7-11” tablet market, Apple has been the only real player.

But that all changed when Samsung launched its 7” Galaxy Tab last month. On paper, the Galaxy Tab is essentially a jumbo-sized implementation of the Galaxy S smartphone platform. You’re looking at the same A8-based 1 GHz Hummingbird processor and PowerVR SGX 540 graphics chip, the same 512MB RAM, the same lightweight plastic build, and pretty similar industrial design. The screen has been upsized, from the 4” WVGA unit in the Galaxy S to a 7” WSVGA panel. As the first Android-based slate to come from a major manufacturer, it’s a very important device, and not just to test Android’s viability as a tablet platform.

So in the first of our Android tablet reviews, we have Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. Read on to find out how it stacks up against the iPad and whether it can put a dent into Apple’s current domination of the tablet market.

Intrinsity is not a name immediately recognized by today's average consumer. However, keen followers of the application processor market recognize its claim to fame as the firm behind the Cortex-A8 implementations (called the Hummingbird) in the Apple A4 and Samsung Galaxy S.

Apple's acquisition of the semiconductor firm Intrinsity has been doing the rounds on the Internet since the beginning of April. With many former Intrinsity employees publicly disclosing their employment with Apple now, Apple's quarterly earnings report indicating business acquisitions for $325 million, and NYTimes confirming the acquisition from Apple's side, the only unknown quantity in the whole transaction seems to be the amount shelled out by Apple for the purchase. The acquisition wasn't entirely unexpected once it was realized that PA Semi had nothing to do with the A4, and Apple had plans for the A4 family much beyond the iPad.
 

Microprocessor Report's Tom Halfhill has an excellent piece on why Apple wanted Intrinsity, and suggests that the purchase price was around $121 million. Another group of industry insiders, however, believe that Apple may have actually got a far better deal by completing the asset acquisition for a much lesser amount. How did Apple manage to gobble up Intrinsity? What is the cause for people's varied estimates of the purchase price, and why would both Apple and Intrinsity want to keep the purchase price a secret? How would the acquisition play out for the two companies, considering the fact that Apple's two previous semiconductor acquisitions haven't been especially successful? More importantly, what would the acquisition mean for the rest of the players in the market? Read on to find out the winners and losers in this transaction.