Mozilla has released the first Firefox 4 beta for Android, the organization’s best shot for mobile relevance. And that relevance could increase as Android tablets hit the market.

With the release, Firefox has a shot to be more of a mobile player. Today, Firefox really has little to no presence on the mobile front. Firefox isn’t available on Apple’s iPhone or Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. Android popularity is surging so Firefox could gain traction that way.

Firefox’s real chance for mobile stardom will be with the adoption of Android tablets. With tablets you’re less forgiving about the browsing experience. As Android tablets hit the market, Firefox could tag as companies like Samsung ramp up the Galaxy Tab.

The good news is that the Firefox 4 beta is “built on the same technology platform as Firefox for the desktop and optimized for browsing on a mobile phone,” according to a blog post.

That’s also the bad news. In my limited testing on a Motorola Droid X, Firefox 4 beta 1was solid, but I did suffer more than my share of crashes. Those crashes also occur on the desktop from time to time. CNET News’ Stephen Shankland has a thorough review and noted the crash problems on his gripe list.

But Firefox 4 for mobile is a beta so some hassles are to be expected.

Mozilla said:

A major focus of this release is to increase performance and responsiveness. Two of the big architecture changes are Electrolysis and Layers. Our alpha contained Electrolysis which allowed the browser interface to run in a separate process from the one rendering Web content, resulting in a much more responsive browser. This beta brings the Layers pieces which improve overall performance and in graphics areas such as scrolling, zooming and animations.

The performance of Firefox 4 beta 1 was ok, but didn’t strike me as a speed demon by any stretch. It’s likely that the speed will improve over time with new releases.

Firefox’s challenge is to bridge its desktop audience to the mobile front. Firefox users who happen to have an iPhone are likely using Safari. Other smartphone users may be accustomed to Opera. Fortunately for Mozilla, no mobile browser is perfect so it has room to elbow Firefox into the conversation.

Because of the iPad, 2010 will likely be remembered as a landmark year in computing. It will rank right up there with 1984 when the graphical user interface debuted to the masses in the first Macintosh, and 1995 when the launch of Windows 95 made PCs much easier to use at a time when a lot more people were about to buy computers to connect to the Internet.

However, as groundbreaking as the iPad is, its capabilities sometimes get exaggerated — not the least of which by Apple itself, which repeatedly refers to it as “magical” and “revolutionary.”

I’ve been using the iPad since launch day on April 3, trying lots of different apps and experimenting with lots of different scenarios. I have honestly had mixed feelings about the device throughout the experiment, switching back and forth between the amazement of holding a full screen of computing power in a single hand and yet frustrated over its awkwardness or inability to accomplish some of my most basic and important computing tasks such as writing an article (inserting links and images are painful at times) and navigating interactive websites that use Flash or some of the advanced Javascript and AJAX actions that make sites act more desktop apps.

Flash doesn’t work at all on the iPad and AJAX is supported but mouse interactions such as hover events don’t work since there’s no mouse pointer on the iPad and elements such as the drag-and-drop functionality for moving items in your Netflix queue, for example, often don’t work properly since they were not designed with a multi-touch UI in mind.

When people want to chat with me about technology, the iPad is naturally one of the hottest topics right now, but I’ve typically been evasive about it. I’ll mention a few of the things it does well or a couple of my favorite apps, but avoid giving a definitive opinion on it. That’s because I haven’t been completely sure what I think of the thing.

To my close friends and colleagues, I’ve been more candid. I’ve often said, “The iPad is only good for two things: Reading and Scrabble.”

Well, I’ve now come to some longer-term conclusions about the iPad and I have to say that my initial quip about the two things wasn’t too far off, although I’ve adjusted No. 2.

Hear me out on this one. Below is a further explanation of my two things.

1. Reading and viewing

The iPad often gets called a “consumption” device. But since it’s not really that useful as a music or video player, so I would narrow that definition even further and say the iPad is primarily a reading device.

The iPad isn’t great for long videos such as movies because it’s heavy and awkward to hold for long periods of time. If you have some kind of stand of it, then it’s great, but at that point you might as well have a laptop. It’s a similar story for using the iPad as a music player. It just feels big and bulky compared to using an iPod or a smartphone for music, podcasts, and audiobooks.

But, as a reader, the iPad is admittedly amazing because of its brilliant full color screen, touch-based interface, and long battery life. And when I say “reader” I mean reader in the broadest sense of the term. As you’d expect, it’s great for reading news, books, static web pages, emails, long PDFs, and business documents. (For just reading books, the Amazon Kindle is still superior, but for omnivorous readers the iPad is the new king.)