The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is one of the best tablets yet released.

Taking a lesson from the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and adding a few features beyond what the Apple iPad 2 offers, this thin, light and longer-lasting tablet is the best option around if you’re more interested in portability than in playing games and watching movies on a 10-inch screen.

The slightly smaller size is also a better fit for reading books, browsing the web and checking email.

Some might wonder why this model even exists. After all, there’s a slew of 7-inch tablets available, including the Acer Iconia Tab A100, the BlackBerry PlayBook and even the Cisco Cius, which is coming to the UK.

At its 8.9-inch size, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 fits somewhere between those ‘too small for movies’ 7-inch tabs and the larger ‘too big for everyday mobility’ 10-inch models. That makes the 8.9-inch size about right.