AT&T will sell the Galaxy Tab for $650?

According to Engadget, AT&T has finally announced its pricing and availability for Samsung's Galaxy Tab Android tablet. AT&T carefully evaluated the prices announced by Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, and in an effort to be competitive, priced its version of the Galaxy Tab at $650, $50 more than anyone else. AT&T stores will make it available on November 21st. To be fair, AT&T customers can use the same no-contract 250MB/$15/month and 2GB/$25/month data plans that the company offers for the iPad. However, given that the reviews for the Galaxy Tab have been far from positive (even David Pogue, who perhaps gave it the most glowing major publication review, said that it's too expensive at $599), AT&T's price might not matter all that much.

U.S. Cellular, a regional wireless carrier based in the Chicago area, also announced pricing and availability: $399 for a two-year contract and $599 without contract. Data rates are 200MB/$14.99/month and 5GB/$54.99/month. U.S. Cellular stores will have the Galaxy Tab available for sale on November 19th.

My recommendation is to wait until Google formally releases the Gingerbread version of Android (which will officially support tablets), and Samsung (and others) start shipping tablets with Gingerbread installed early next year.