Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Review

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Review Summary:

The Tab 10.1 features excellent hardware and design, and Honeycomb 3.1 also impresses. Still, limited app selection is this Android tablet's glaring drawback.

Pros

• Thin and light as they come
• Honeycomb 3.1 easy to use
• Great keyboard and text entry

Cons

• Weak app selection at launch
• Wi-Fi dependent
• Limited streaming video options with Honeycomb

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Full Review

 

I’ve been wanting to get my hands on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 since first reading about it last winter. At that time, I wanted to get a tablet and the iPad was clearly the best option. Since the camera aspects of the iPad 2 weren’t all that important to me and the delivery of the new model wasn’t all that predictable before it was official, I went with a 16GB iPad.

The iPad, like any device, has its good and bad points. Would the Galaxy Tab 10.1 be an improvement? How would Android compare with iOS? And what about app support?

For a start, the Tab and iPad are more alike than different: both have similar touch-oriented interfaces, both are cool, versatile, highly capable devices.

BUILD & DESIGN

The Tab is a sleek device. Samsung has set the new standard, for the moment, with the same thinness but slightly lighter weight than the Apple iPad 2. Like its rival, it is generally fast and feels responsive. Controls are unobtrusive. A small on/off button protrudes from the upper left bezel, with a larger loud/soft button next to it. Just right of center on the top bezel is a headphone jack. Speaker openings are on the left and right sides, near the top, and the USB connector is bottom center. Like the iPad, you can charge the Tab from your computer as well as with the included wall charger (iPad uses an adapter for wall charging).

The Galaxy Tab is set up for landscape use with optional docks to hold it upright in the landscape position, thanks to the position of the proprietary pin connector. The on/off button similarly orients you toward landscape use. Of course, the display rotates as you rotate the device (or can be locked in any position), but landscape is the default. The tablet is slightly wider and less high than the iPad 2 in landscape mode (10.1 x 6.9-inch vs. 9.5 x 7.3-inch).

It's also flatter, so you can incline the tablet on a book or similar object when typing on the softkeys to give a decent typing angle. The curvier back of the iPad can rock side to side. My add-on rigid cover for the iPad solves that, but adds more weight and bulk.

One of the bigger challenges you’re likely to face with the Tab is what to do after you press the “on” button and the screen saver comes up. The default view includes what Samsung calls a pattern to unlock the screen saver. Let’s just say it’s not exactly intuitive and is not covered until page 9 of the manual. You can switch to a password or pin for unlocking the screen. Small potatoes, but annoying.

Once you’ve unlocked it, the Tab gives you a very attractive, readable screen. When it comes to horizontal scrolling, the Tab goes for the wraparound look that’s even extended to some of it's app interfaces, notably YouTube, that have large numbers of tiles to choose from. I don’t see any big advantage either way.

The Tab requires an external HDMI adapter to connect via the loan proprietary input to a TV or monitor. And it also lacks an SD card. For any device that you might want to occasionally do something storage-intensive with (like watch a full-HD rented movie), removable storage would be better than having to buy extra RAM for an occasional need. Also, with no standard USB input, it’s impossible to take advantage of Honeycomb 3.1’s USB hosting feature that enables external keyboard, mice, and gamepads. Of course, Samsung is happy to sell you a pin-connector-to-USB adapter (similar to the iPad Camera Connection Kit) for an extra $20.

On the networking front, I was not impressed with the Wi-Fi performance of the Tab. It was acceptable, but even under good but not great signal strength, I got more interruptions than I would have expected. It's always tricky to assess network performance, but I got that consistent impression. And, as this is a Wi-Fi only device, there’s no alternative to use 4G when Wi-Fi is weak.

Bluetooth, however, worked well in my limited test of using my Apple wireless keyboard. The Tab had no trouble recognizing and connecting, and performance was fine.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 specs:

• Android Honeycomb (3.1)
• 10.1-inch diagonal widescreen HD WXGA (1280 x 800) TFT capactive touchscreen
• NVIDIA Dual Core Tegra 2, 1GHz
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB or 32GB internal memory
• Front-facing 2-megapixel, rear-facing 3-megapixel webcams
• Wi-Fi 2.4GHz - 5GHz, Bluetooth 2.1
• 3.5mm audio jack, proprietary pin connector
• 7,000mAh battery
• 10.1 x 6.9 x .34 inches
• 1.2 lbs
• Ships with pin connector to USB adapter, charge adapter, headphones 
• Price at Launch: $499.99 (16GB), $599.99 (32GB)

Screen and SpeakersScreen display is excellent at 1280 x 800 resolution, which outdoes the iPad 2’s 1024 x 768.  I wasn’t able to compare it forbrightness to the iPad 2, but it seems brighter to me than the original iPad. For example, I was able to read the Kindle app in sunlight on the Tab more readily than the iPad (neither were as good as reading off of an actual Kindle itself, of course). Color balance seemed natural enough, actually pretty amazing for a device of this size and weight when you consider where full-size TVs were only a few years ago.

Touch sensitivity was good. If you’ve used an Apple device, this will feel very similar. Swiping is here to stay, let’s hope.

The built-in speakers along the side won’t impress anyone with their bass extension, but they are clear and loud enough for a small room. Prolonged music listening at more than background level would probably be irritatingly trebly, but sufficient for at least short videos or podcasts.

PERFORMANCE

As hardware, the Tab is very competitive with either of the iPads. There are two things to consider: the Honeycomb Google Android 3.1 operating system and the applications offered in the Android Market.

Honeycomb has some features I prefer over iOS when it comes to text entry.

The soft keyboard generates a buzz when you hit a letter, which I preferred over the audible response from the iPad. The soft keyboard felt better proportioned, with that little bit of extra width that the Tab enjoys over the iPad.

A humble but vital improvement is the presence of a cursor. iPhones and iPads make it hard to insert text in text. You have to hold your finger against the screen until a magnifying glass with a cursor in it appears and then try to move it to the place you want. Lots can go wrong and it’s time consuming. On the Tab, once you have typed something and you touch the text area, generally a green arrow appears at the point of last typing and you can move that and otherwise manipulate it to select text.

You can turn on Android’s XT9 predictive text feature, which offers you choices for word completion or corrections as you type. I generally hate this sort of feature, but Android is better than either iOS or Microsoft Office here and XT9 might actually be useful in the long run.

Android also makes it easy to organize your screens. Moving apps around on a screen or from one screen to another is easier, and so is removing them. I couldn’t find any mention of a folders concept for apps, though, which would have been useful. There are folders for data files, however.

Organizing the iPad sometimes requires the use of iTunes. Android has no such external program, and that’s generally a plus. The Tab shows up in Windows, at least, as an external drive (with XP you’ll need to download a driver to do that) and you can just copy files to it. The included Download app seems to be the equivalent of Windows Explorer, but I couldn’t find all the files I had downloaded. I suspect that if you load up files that are not supported by any of your apps, you may have difficulties. That seems like a non-issue - what would you do with them anyway? But knowing exactly what file formats are supported by all your apps isn’t all that simple, and this just adds to the confusion.

I do like that the Tab accepts more file formats for audio and video than Apple devices. For example, although they’re not officially supported, I was able to play .flac audio files on the Tab as well as Windows Media files.

So, at the operating system level, Android is a winner by at least a nose.

At the application level, it’s a different story. Samsung does a good job of packaging the basics on the Tab. You get calendar, contacts, email, browser, QuickOffice and various media players. They all work well enough. Connecting to an Exchange server or your personal email works well, with some parts of that process easier and others harder than with iOS devices. So call that a draw.

But when it comes to apps, no contest. Apple wins hands down. Google needs to do a better job of getting more high-quality apps into their Market.

The Android Market has some of everyone's favorite apps; Evernote, Facebook, Kindle and so on. But it doesn’t have Flipboard, Hulu, Comcast Xfinity and many more. One of my favorite airplane apps, the commercial Scrabble game, is also not in the Android Market. Some of the ones it does have are really phone apps, like TV.com, which shows postage stamp videos on the tablet.

In fact, streaming video is the big loser on the Tab, ironic considering it has such an excellent screen. Despite its Flash support, your streaming choices are largely limited to YouTube and movie rentals through the online Andriod Market (at launch, the Wi-Fi Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn't support movie rentals in the Android Market application). You’ll likely find that trying to stream full screen, full-res video over the Wi-Fi link is only enjoyable when you have the highest quality connection. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn’t do 3G or 4G, so we couldn’t evaluate whether video was more reliable on 4G.

Benchmarks

The Samsung Galaxy Tab  10.1 battery lasted 4 hours and 39 minutes while streaming video with Wi-Fi on and the screen set to maximum brightness. These are near the most demanding conditions one could apply to a tablet, and the Galaxy Tab display is exceptionally bright. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 should easily survive the day with average use and the screen brightness toned down.

Quadrant measures CPU, 3D, and memory performance. Higher numbers are better.

Sunspider is a Javascript benchmark for measuring browser performance. Lower numbers are better.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 falls toward the top of the pack in terms of browser performance tested against other recently released tablets, though all perform well overall. General performance is measured as being the weakest when compared with other Honeycomb/Gingerbread tablets (the HTC Flyer runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread with an HTC custom skin), but it still far surpasses general Android smartphone performance. On the whole, we found the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to offer a smooth and snappy experience, the Wi-Fi issues alluded to earlier aside.

 CONCLUSION

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a state-of-the-art tablet. As Samsung’s second entry into this market and first Honeycomb tablet, it’s an impressive device and a good platform to build on.

Whether it’s for you will depend mostly on your application and connectivity needs. Yes, Apple has many more apps, but it all comes down to which ones you need or want. The Tab also is more versatile in media formats it supports, which should give pause to those who are buying it mostly as an entertainment device.

If you’re a road warrior buying it as a laptop alternative, the Tab has the edge on usability when it comes to text entry, if you can find the apps you need for work. But the basic set of calendar, email, contacts, browser and QuickOffice (maybe augmented by Google Apps, Evernote or similar options) will make the Tab a good choice for many road warriors, provided that Wi-Fi is going to do it for them.

If you’re an Apple loyalist, iPad’s common features with the iPhone and general compatibility with the Apple world likely outweigh any minor feature advantages the Tab has. If you’re a Windows or Linux person, not so much. iTunes on Windows is not the greatest and makes managing the iPad cumbersome compared to the Tab.

Lastly, if you’re going to want to use this often where Wi-Fi is not available, forget it.

Back to my original thought: if I was buying my first tablet today, would I go for the iPad 2 or the Tab? I’d have to say the iPad 2, despite my preference for some of the ergonomics of the Tab. The app advantage tilts it for me.

Pros Thin and light as they come Honeycomb 3.1 easy to use Great keyboard and text entry

Cons Weak app selection at launch Wi-Fi dependent Limited streaming video options with Honeycomb