I have been looking forward to the appearance of the first Android slate tablet computers all summer. And I have great hopes for the new Galaxy Tab from Samsung, which was introduced at a major conference in Germany in early September but has yet to be released as a product. This new tablet definitely looks impressive, and recent announcements from Woodwing Software, maker of the leading magazine and newspaper e-publishing software for slate computers, promise that the e-magazine publishing that has been a showpiece of the iPad will migrate to this platform as well.

My hope is that Android slates will widen the adoption of this truly portable computing platform beyond the Apple faithful and will provide a viable alternative for people like myself, who for various reasons do not find the Apple iPad quite fits their needs. However, reports from the front – both from online reviewers and personal friends with Android smartphones – are less than sanguine. Washington Post review Ginny Mies, for instance, recently wrote a lukewarm review of the Nokia N8 that may be a warning of what to expect from Android slate computers. And ironically the problem is caused by what I regard as an Android strength compared to the iPad – Google’s hands-off policy concerning controlling the apps that can be run on Android systems.

The problem is that because neither Google nor the manufacturers control what goes on these platforms, the cellular carriers load them with software that they lock into the handhelds. This creates two problems. First, the carriers pick software to support a specific set of uses, and in particular to promote heavy use of their G3 and G4 data services. This means applications for downloading and running movies, TV shows, etc. This is fine if that is what you want to do with a portable computing device. Personally I prefer viewing that kind of entertainment on a larger screen. My idea of portable entertainment honestly is an e-book or perhaps e-magazine. And while I do want music with me, I already have an ideal solution for that – my classic iPod.

The second problem with these locked-in applications is that often they are basically free samples with limited functionality, so even if I did want them I would probably want to get the full-featured version instead. But, because the carriers do everything short of baking the applications they install into the motherboard to make them hard to remove, I end up with two versions of the same software, which at the least wastes limited resources and often creates annoying conflicts.

What I really want is a portable computing tool that is heavy in organizational and productivity applications, not entertainment. I specifically want a handheld that will manage all the details of my life such as appointments, contacts, and tasks, along with e-mail, of course, and the ability to search both for information on the Internet and, when I am traveling, for location-based services.

When I carried a Palm PDA I used more than 30 applications, and that was without fully integrated connectivity or GPS. I only gave that up when my Palm T-3 died, and Palm no longer provided a viable alternative that supported my uses. I still miss some of those apps, but unfortunately many aren’t available on Windows, which is why I am interested in Android.

So I remain hopeful that Samsung will market the Galaxy Tab through technology stores, without a lot of annoying software I do not want, rather than through cellular carriers. I have plenty of functionality to pack onto a handheld without help from a vendor marketing department.