Sharp's 5.5-inch and 10.8-inch Galapagos
are something to covet. Sharp's got the Android-powered e-reading
tablets heavily on display here at CEATEC, meaning of course we jumped
at the chance to try it ourselves. The interface is a bit sluggish, as
is pinch-to-zoom on the browser. That said, pages (like our darling
Engadget) displayed in full and were crisp, as were the supplied
magazine examples (Newsweek, GQ -- all in Japanese, naturally). Flash
10 is supported, although we didn't get a chance to try it. The missing
trackball on the 10.8-inch model wasn't much of a concern, as it was
all but redundant on the 5.5-incher. Looks promising now, but with its
US launch not expected until sometime in 2011, no telling what the
competition might look like by then.
