Samsung tablet takes aim at iPad—with a pen

The tablet-computer market is like guerrilla warfare. One huge army—Apple—dominates the land, while a ragtag group of insurgents keeps raiding and probing, hoping to find some opening it can exploit.

With Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 10.1, the rebels have scored a small victory. It’s a tablet that does something that the iPad doesn’t do, and it does it well. This victory won’t win the war, though.

Available now in the U.S., the $499 tablet comes with a pen, or more precisely, a stylus. It doesn’t leave marks on paper, but the tablet’s screen responds to it. I found it a pleasure to use: It’s precise and responsive, and it glides easily across the screen.

There are styluses available for the iPad, but they’re not very good. The iPad’s screen can’t sense sharp objects, so any stylus has to be fairly blunt. Many of them have rubber tips, which resist being dragged across the screen.

The Galaxy Note has an additional layer in its screen, tuned to sense special, sharp-pointed pens through magnetism.

The Note is not the first iPad competitor to work with a stylus.

The HTC Flyer came out last year with the same ability, but several missteps limited its appeal. First, it was half the size of the iPad yet cost just as much, and that was without the pen. Second, there was no slot for the pen in the body of the tablet, making it easy to lose. The pen also was expensive, costing $80 to replace.

Samsung then built pen-sensitivity into the first Galaxy Note, a smart phone launched early this year.

Though well-received, the tablet had an odd size, with a 5-inch screen. That makes it very big for a smart phone but small for a tablet. With the Galaxy Note 10.1, Samsung is taking the pen squarely into iPad territory.

So, what can you do with the pen? Well, this is where the Samsung offensive starts faltering. There just isn’t that much the pen is useful for yet, because stylus-equipped tablets are so new.

You can jot down notes, or edit photos in an included version of Photoshop. You can scrawl personal notes to people and eMail them. Instead of using the on-screen keyboard, you can use handwriting and let the tablet interpret it. You can even enter web addresses this way.