Both devices try to autodetect your settings wherever possible, though the iPad is much better at handling non-vanilla settings. Setting up Exchange access on both devices was simple. Unlike with Android smartphones, the Android 3 "Honeycomb" OS in the Galaxy Tab supports on-device encryption (though setup is a pain, as I describe later), so it easily connected to our corporate server and passed its . I particularly liked how the Galaxy Tab let me know specifically what permissions I was granting IT over the device -- details the iPad does not provide.

But the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was unable to set up access to my IMAP email account, unlike the iPad 2 and most other Android devices I've tested. It doesn't support the authentication method for outgoing mail that my ISP uses, so it refused to set up access to the email even for getting messages. Unlike the iPad, the Galaxy Tab doesn't let you set up an incomplete or "incorrect" account, so it's all or nothing. I got nothing.

I had similar issues trying to set up a separate POP email account, with the outgoing server being the obstacle. In this case, the SMTP server uses common settings, unlike my IMAP ISP provider, so it should have worked. I suspect this is an Android 3.1 issue, as I was able to set up these accounts using Android 3.0 on a . Google is checking into this issue but had no answers by press time; once the cause is clear.

The good news is that my Exchange email, contacts, and calendars flowed into the Galaxy Tab 10.1's apps, and its Email app allowed me to access and send my messages. I also was able to set up a Yahoo email address -- the Galaxy Tab even detected the settings automatically -- and use that for non-Exchange testing.

For Exchange, IMAP, and POP, the iPad 2 had no trouble at all setting up the email accounts. It all worked on the iPad.