Laptop Thoughts: Figure Fudging and Fake Fans: When Will They Ever Learn

"When I got there, I found that the 10.1″ Tabs out on tables were the older, relatively portly version announced last month at Mobile World Congress. The new 10.1-incher (and its 8.9″ sibling) were inside glass cases, and they weren't powered on. I also discovered that my friend Fritz Nelson of InformationWeek had beat me to the booth-and he told me that he was trying to get Samsung to give him a Tab he could hold and judge."

Samsung appears to have created another PR nightmare for itself. It appears that the new Galaxy Tabs which are supposed to be thinner than the new iPads are actually a bit thicker. Additionally, interviews with actual users of the Tabs turn out to be staged. Is there anything wrong with that? Not normally, but when these are touted as being real-life users with no indication that they are staged, the line gets a bit blurred in my opinion. Why not just let the technology speak for itself? By all accounts the new Galaxy Tab devices are pretty decent, but they don't need negative PR before they even hit the market.

So, Samsung, if you're listening, just get the hardware out there and let it speak for itself. It's going to succeed or fail based on its own merits and no amount of pre-release trickery is going to help sales. In fact, you could end up hurting yourselves even more if you're not careful.