New Gadget 2011

Samsung's new Galaxy Tab Adapter adds a USB port to your ten-inch tablet. Just like Apple's camera connection kit, it hooks into the 30-pin connector and provides a USB port. Unlike Apple's connector, it will let you hook up pretty much any kind of USB device, including but not limited to �keyboards, mice, thumb drives,� according to Samsung's blurb.

Mice? Yup. The pitch continues �Insert a USB mouse or keyboard to improve enterprise efficiency at the office or at home.� I did a little digging and it turns out that if you hook up a mouse to the Tab (via USB or Bluetooth), a mouse pointer will appear on the screen.

This could actually prove pretty handy. Whenever I use my iPad along with a Bluetooth keyboard, it's jarring to have to reach up and touch the screen for editing. While I know that Apple will never, ever add a mouse pointer to iOS, I can appreciate that the feature would be useful on occasion.

The dongle is designed only for the Tab 10.1. The seven-inch Tab already has its own USB port, so you don't need this anyway. $20.

Galaxy Tab Adapter USB