Suggestions for dealing with poor battery life?

I second the Acer Iconia Tab A510, for sure. Mine sees very heavy use -- full screen digital comic book reading, Netflix in the kitchen when cooking, hooked up to my entertainment system for gaming on the big screen, and when I'm at my desk I tend to use it as a second screen for email, Facebook/Twitter, PDF viewing, and IMing. I'd say I regularly put 6-8 hours of use into it on a normal day and I've not yet found myself running to the charger mid-task. As an aside, I've also dropped this thing on its head about a dozen times since I got it and its brains are notably non-scrambled. Acer builds great hardware, in my experience anyway, and Android is the way to go.

You may want to consider the Acer Iconia Tab A510, which has one of the better battery lives out there, rated at about 15 hours (although actual use is often a bit different than reviewed use). It came out in the spring of this year and also has 3G, which sounds like something you'd want, and uses Android OS like your Samsung. Acer's known for making pretty good electronics and their tablets have been pretty well reviewed. Of course your other option is to go 3rd gen iPad, which is generally a safe bet, although you'd get less battery life and it's slightly more expensive.