Working with emails is equivalent on the two tablets: Both use the large screen to provide common controls at all times, and when in landscape orientation, both let you see a selected email without opening it. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 displays mail as black text on a white background (as does the iPad 2), not as white text on a black background in the manner of Android smartphones. Thus, the messages are much more readable.

In both devices, you can reply, forward, mark as unread, delete, and move messages while reading them. You can also delete and move emails to folders from the message lists. On the iPad 2, you can easily delete individual messages from the email list: Swipe to the left or right and tap Delete. On the Galaxy Tab 10.1, you long-tap (that is, tap and hold) the message to get a menu of options such as Delete and Open.

The iPad 2's email display keeps a folder or message list on the left and the message preview on the right, whereas the Galaxy Tab 10.1's display works more like Mac OS X's Columns view: If you tap an account, its folders appear at left, while the list of messages for the selected folder appear at right. If you select a message, the message list moves into the left column, and the right column becomes the message preview window. The iPad approach is more predictable, and the Galaxy Tab approach more flexible. For example, it allows you to drag a message from the list into a folder, which you can't do on an iPad because you can't see the folder and message lists simultaneously.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 stumbles over not retaining the subfolder relationships in Exchange; instead, it displays all folders and subfolders in one big list. Well, not all -- some of my Exchange subfolders went missing. In IMAP accounts, you also get a big folders list, but at least the IMAP list displays the parent folder as part of the subfolder name -- such as InfoWorld/Newsletters and InfoWorld/Authors -- so that you have a clue to the original hierarchy. Also for IMAP accounts, the Galaxy Tab doesn't display your junk folders; you can't scan for misflagged emails as you would on the iPad.