Enable Google Market on your Galaxy Tab

Well I have got my Galaxy Tab (P1000), I bought it from Dubai and it wasn't cheap.  But I assure you that its worth it.  Someone well known said a few weeks back that 7" tablets are DOA (which means dead on arrival), this someone doesn't know what he's talking about.  After using my Tab I can tell you that his words are totally worthless.

The device is simply amazing, its lightweight and feels good in the hand.  The screen size is great for gaming, reading and browsing.  Though the device has its problems, it needs a lot of tweaking still to get it perfect.  Maybe with the release of Gingerbread (Android v2.3 supposedly designed for tablets), things will be much more smoother.  One major problem was the absence of the Google Market, but I guess that this should be attributed to Samsung rather than Google's Android.  Without the Market the device is not usable properly.  I looked and looked and found out the below procedure that solved the problem.

WARNING: This procedure will erase all your installed apps and data as it will perform a factory reset

• In the phone app dial *#06# and note down the IMEI number. Note the first 15 digits and disregard the / and the digits after that.  Alternatively you can find the IMEI in Settings/About phone/Status
• Dial *#272*IMEI#
• From the resulting menu, choose the second option labelled "XSG" and click install
• The tab will reboot and market will be installed with a shortcut on the desktop

The market might crash initially but should work fine after that. Try clearing data and rebooting if you have problems at first.  Also make sure you are logged into gTalk.

I'm not sure why Samsung chose not to install the Market on the UAE (or the Middle East?) version, I believe its probably a bug from the Froyo 2.2 update, but I can be mistaken.

One more thing, it might be a good idea to initially insert a SIM card and update the Samsung Apps.

Note: I have rooted my Tab but I don't think its a must to try the above procedure.