Style and handling summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
Small yet comfortingly solid, the Galaxy Tab is eminently portable, and its Android 2.2 OS can be customised to enable any shortcuts you'd like.
User friendliness summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
A mostly smooth user experience is thwarted by some awkward features and it's not as easy as it should be to set up social network and email accounts
Feature set summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
An amazing set of features includes high-speed internet, high-quality DivX support, video calls and a full HTML browser
Performance summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
The device offers a speedy, smooth experience, although the screen didn't always reorient itself as quickly as it should when it was turned, and scrolling was intermittently jerky when we were online
Battery power summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
We were rewarded with more than seven hours use with 3G, Wi-Fi and light video playback
Full Review and Specification for the Samsung Galaxy Tab
As we lead up to Christmas, Android tablets are here, there and everywhere, but the most heralded arrival is that of the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Its five months since the market welcomed the arrival of the Apple iPad, and now here comes the Galaxy Tab, boasting a far greater set of features and the Android 2.2 operating system. Samsung is well-known for its top-notch hardware, and the Galaxy Tab is no exception - but how does it fare when it comes to software, one of Samsung's weaknesses?
Looking good
This full touch handset has a total of four touch-sensitive buttons - one each for home, menu, back and the always handy search - all set in a shiny black bezel. Turn the device over to gaze on the white plastic back, which has been shaped ergonomically so that its edges are slimmer. It's easy to hold the Galaxy Tab in one hand, while you use the other to craft messages or navigate. This one design touch puts the Tab streets ahead of the iPad, and makes it simple to use when you're out and about.
On the front of the tablet, you'll find a 1.3-meapixel camera, designed for making video calls, along with a 3-megapixel version on the back for taking snaps. The sides are where you'll find the SIM slot, power button, volume rocker and microSD slot, and audiophiles will be glad to know there's a 3.5mm audio jack on the top.
The display -an LCD TFT version - is not resistant to greasy fingerprints, although we have seen worse. The gorilla glass makes it more resistant to knocks, and the whole tablet feels well made and solid. The screen is 7in (compare that with the iPad's 9.7in display), but then the whole device is about half the size of an iPad (it's comparable in dimensions to a paperback book). Storage-wise, you're looking at a 16GB or 32GB version, with expandable memory taking it up another 32GB, so it beats the top-tier iPad.
The 1GHz processor with 512MB of RAM allows the smooth running of multiple programs, although we did encounter the occasional lag.
Back to basics
The Samsung Galaxy Tab has the latest version of Android - Froyo (2.2) - which gets it off to a good start. Samsung has decided to include its TouchWiz interface, which has a subtle skin that ups the number of customisable screens from three to five, as well as a number of widgets.
We were impressed with the responsive capacitive touch-screen, and the accuracy of the keyboard - but we did find it a little sluggish at times when we swiped between homescreens. The display is also a touch slow when it comes to reorienting itself from portrait to landscape when you turn the device around.
Connections include HSDPA internet and Wi-Fi - and the OS also allows the Galaxy Tab to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, so you can connect other devices through it. Text messages and voice calls are made over the 2G network. If you want to make phone calls though, be aware that you will need to buy a proper headset, as there is no mic on the Galaxy Tab. This means it will not replace your main phone, although we found its SMS feature a very handy addition to an internet/media device.
Unlike some of its competitors, the Galaxy Tab does allow you to make video calls - choose to make them over 2G, or over 3G with a VOIP app such as Skype. If you're video calling over 2G, the recipient of your call with need a phone that supports them - apart from that, it's a simple process.
As you'd expect nowadays, the Galaxy Tab's contacts book offers social networking facilities, syncing to MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. It's not as easy as it could be to set up accounts, though. You have to go into the Settings application, then select Accounts before you start. If you're a bit of a tinkerer with your gadgets, this won't bother you, but it would have been nice to have been presented with a setup menu on loading the device for the first time - like that seen on HTC's Android phones.
However, get that done and you'll be rewarded with an aggregated list, where you can see friends' profile pictures, along with social network updates and a stream of feeds from the Updates and Feeds widgets, which are preloaded.
The Galaxy Tab also offers a number of handy contact shortcuts, which can be placed on your homescreen. Direct Call and Direct Message can be set up for your favourite contacts, and new entries can be automatically updated thanks to live folders such as Facebook Phone Numbers.
Get the message
One of the unusual features of Android devices is that they don't offer a universal inbox - all mail can be streamed together, except Gmail, which sits alone. The Galaxy Tab is no exception - you'll find Gmail appears as it does on your desktop, except it is in landscape mode, while your other mail accounts will show in a two-column interface, which has been optimised for the tablet; your inbox displays on the left, and the selected email on the right. It works far better on the widescreen, and you'll find that even your texts are shown in the same way. We're hoping the feature will be added to Gmail by Google sooner rather than later.
Apart from this, the email features work well - you'll see instant alerts for webmail and Microsoft exchange mail. The notifications appear right at the top of the display, and you can drag this down to go to any new events or to see all alerts.
We're also big fans of Swype. This very nifty new virtual keyboard allows you to write just by dragging your finger from letter to letter. The Tab is one of only a few devices to feature Swype. We were amazed by the accuracy of its predictive setting, and we were speedily typing away after a few goes. And it works even better because the device is just a little bit too wide to type as you would on a Smartphone with two thumbs.
Sound and vision
The screen has a resolution of 1024 x 600, so does not offer the totally clear resolution of the Super AMOLED display of its smartphone stablemate the Galaxy S. There's a bit of a blur on text and icons (but it is still clearer than the screen on the iPad), but as always with Samsung displays, brightness and colour is top-notch. The Galaxy Tab can support all kinds of video formats - MPEG4, DivX ad H.264 among them - and it means you are able to watch most video, whether they are ripped from a DVD or downloaded. The most important format is DivX, as it is more and more being used for compress high-quality video on the net, so that should mean that video-wise, the Tab has been futureproofed for some time.
It is possible to drag and drop music and films onto the tablet from your PC, but it's a shame the process isn't that simple. To sync media files and back up your contacts, you'll need to download Samsung Kies onto your computer.
You can also access films by heading to the Samsung Movies portal. Don't expect anything on the scale of the iTunes store - there are 1,000 films and 100 Tab-optimised movies. A shortcut is preloaded, but rather frustratingly it leads to the Movies website, and its Flash-driven interface is very hard to navigate on the tablet.
If you're after music, the Music Hub offers eight million tracks to preview before buying. The interface is not particularly user-friendly, but it works all the same. The separate music player had us a bit baffled. The Music Hub has its own player, which can play tracks from your library although not one after another - as well as play the previews. But when you want to listen to tracks without having to select each one separately, you need to load up the Music Player, Why the two facilities aren't combined, we're not sure.
The Galaxy Tab is a DLA device, and can both wirelessly accept and stream media to fellow DLNA devices - that includes Windows 7 computers, HDTVs and PS3s. You can share files over Wi-Fi with another Wi-Fi device using the AllShare app.
Eread a good book
As it's similar in size to a paperback, the Galaxy tab is rather good for ereading. It has a preloaded Readers Hub, which encompasses Kobo, a database of two million books, as well as a number of portals that allow you to subscribe to international newspapers and magazine that you can read on the Galaxy Tab. This feature is unique to this device at the moment.
The Readers Hub also acts as an ereader for reading all that digital reading matter, so we're not sure why there is yet another ereader - eBook. This is what you need to use to read books that are not from the Readers Hub - from the Kindle store, for instance. Once you're aware this is what's on offer, it's fine, but it's not as simple or as intuitive as HTC's Android phones or the iPad.
For apps, you can head to the Android Market, although won't find a lot of apps that are optimised for tablets. The apps do generally work (you'll find apps for Twitter, Facebook and so on) but we found the camera apps disappointing, as they're designed to be shown on a smaller display.
Internet and sat-nav
There is a full HTML browser on the Galaxy Tab, and this loads up websites speedily - but we did come up against some lagging when we were scrolling, particularly on mobile-optimised pages. The display supports multi-touch, so you can pinch to zoom as much as you like. Rather conveniently, the Galaxy Tab can save you time and data fees - it will choose to load up less data-intensive mobile sites when you're using a 3G connection, and opt for the full versions with images when you're using Wi-Fi.
The Swype facility also works when you're typing in the browser's text field, which makes the browsing experience very smooth and user friendly.
The Tab offers a great sat-nav experience - it has Google Maps, A-GPS and a Google navigation beta for drivers. The satellite fix worked fine, and the free Google Navigation mapping facility offers a top-down view of the route ahead, as well as voice directions. If you're on foot, you'll find the same full features Google Maps provides on other Android 2.2 devices.
The verdict
The Galaxy Tab has just about every feature you could imagine on a device - sometimes you pay for this in a drop in performance quality. It's not the most perfect tablet but it has plenty to offer anyone who likes to get in at the start of something, and who doesn't mind spending a bit of time tinkering with their new gadget to get the most out of it.
Small yet comfortingly solid, the Galaxy Tab is eminently portable, and its Android 2.2 OS can be customised to enable any shortcuts you'd like.
User friendliness summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
A mostly smooth user experience is thwarted by some awkward features and it's not as easy as it should be to set up social network and email accounts
Feature set summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
An amazing set of features includes high-speed internet, high-quality DivX support, video calls and a full HTML browser
Performance summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
The device offers a speedy, smooth experience, although the screen didn't always reorient itself as quickly as it should when it was turned, and scrolling was intermittently jerky when we were online
Battery power summary for Samsung Galaxy Tab review
We were rewarded with more than seven hours use with 3G, Wi-Fi and light video playback
Full Review and Specification for the Samsung Galaxy Tab
As we lead up to Christmas, Android tablets are here, there and everywhere, but the most heralded arrival is that of the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Its five months since the market welcomed the arrival of the Apple iPad, and now here comes the Galaxy Tab, boasting a far greater set of features and the Android 2.2 operating system. Samsung is well-known for its top-notch hardware, and the Galaxy Tab is no exception - but how does it fare when it comes to software, one of Samsung's weaknesses?
Looking good
This full touch handset has a total of four touch-sensitive buttons - one each for home, menu, back and the always handy search - all set in a shiny black bezel. Turn the device over to gaze on the white plastic back, which has been shaped ergonomically so that its edges are slimmer. It's easy to hold the Galaxy Tab in one hand, while you use the other to craft messages or navigate. This one design touch puts the Tab streets ahead of the iPad, and makes it simple to use when you're out and about.
On the front of the tablet, you'll find a 1.3-meapixel camera, designed for making video calls, along with a 3-megapixel version on the back for taking snaps. The sides are where you'll find the SIM slot, power button, volume rocker and microSD slot, and audiophiles will be glad to know there's a 3.5mm audio jack on the top.
The display -an LCD TFT version - is not resistant to greasy fingerprints, although we have seen worse. The gorilla glass makes it more resistant to knocks, and the whole tablet feels well made and solid. The screen is 7in (compare that with the iPad's 9.7in display), but then the whole device is about half the size of an iPad (it's comparable in dimensions to a paperback book). Storage-wise, you're looking at a 16GB or 32GB version, with expandable memory taking it up another 32GB, so it beats the top-tier iPad.
The 1GHz processor with 512MB of RAM allows the smooth running of multiple programs, although we did encounter the occasional lag.
Back to basics
The Samsung Galaxy Tab has the latest version of Android - Froyo (2.2) - which gets it off to a good start. Samsung has decided to include its TouchWiz interface, which has a subtle skin that ups the number of customisable screens from three to five, as well as a number of widgets.
We were impressed with the responsive capacitive touch-screen, and the accuracy of the keyboard - but we did find it a little sluggish at times when we swiped between homescreens. The display is also a touch slow when it comes to reorienting itself from portrait to landscape when you turn the device around.
Connections include HSDPA internet and Wi-Fi - and the OS also allows the Galaxy Tab to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, so you can connect other devices through it. Text messages and voice calls are made over the 2G network. If you want to make phone calls though, be aware that you will need to buy a proper headset, as there is no mic on the Galaxy Tab. This means it will not replace your main phone, although we found its SMS feature a very handy addition to an internet/media device.
Unlike some of its competitors, the Galaxy Tab does allow you to make video calls - choose to make them over 2G, or over 3G with a VOIP app such as Skype. If you're video calling over 2G, the recipient of your call with need a phone that supports them - apart from that, it's a simple process.
As you'd expect nowadays, the Galaxy Tab's contacts book offers social networking facilities, syncing to MySpace, Twitter and Facebook. It's not as easy as it could be to set up accounts, though. You have to go into the Settings application, then select Accounts before you start. If you're a bit of a tinkerer with your gadgets, this won't bother you, but it would have been nice to have been presented with a setup menu on loading the device for the first time - like that seen on HTC's Android phones.
However, get that done and you'll be rewarded with an aggregated list, where you can see friends' profile pictures, along with social network updates and a stream of feeds from the Updates and Feeds widgets, which are preloaded.
The Galaxy Tab also offers a number of handy contact shortcuts, which can be placed on your homescreen. Direct Call and Direct Message can be set up for your favourite contacts, and new entries can be automatically updated thanks to live folders such as Facebook Phone Numbers.
Get the message
One of the unusual features of Android devices is that they don't offer a universal inbox - all mail can be streamed together, except Gmail, which sits alone. The Galaxy Tab is no exception - you'll find Gmail appears as it does on your desktop, except it is in landscape mode, while your other mail accounts will show in a two-column interface, which has been optimised for the tablet; your inbox displays on the left, and the selected email on the right. It works far better on the widescreen, and you'll find that even your texts are shown in the same way. We're hoping the feature will be added to Gmail by Google sooner rather than later.
Apart from this, the email features work well - you'll see instant alerts for webmail and Microsoft exchange mail. The notifications appear right at the top of the display, and you can drag this down to go to any new events or to see all alerts.
We're also big fans of Swype. This very nifty new virtual keyboard allows you to write just by dragging your finger from letter to letter. The Tab is one of only a few devices to feature Swype. We were amazed by the accuracy of its predictive setting, and we were speedily typing away after a few goes. And it works even better because the device is just a little bit too wide to type as you would on a Smartphone with two thumbs.
Sound and vision
The screen has a resolution of 1024 x 600, so does not offer the totally clear resolution of the Super AMOLED display of its smartphone stablemate the Galaxy S. There's a bit of a blur on text and icons (but it is still clearer than the screen on the iPad), but as always with Samsung displays, brightness and colour is top-notch. The Galaxy Tab can support all kinds of video formats - MPEG4, DivX ad H.264 among them - and it means you are able to watch most video, whether they are ripped from a DVD or downloaded. The most important format is DivX, as it is more and more being used for compress high-quality video on the net, so that should mean that video-wise, the Tab has been futureproofed for some time.
It is possible to drag and drop music and films onto the tablet from your PC, but it's a shame the process isn't that simple. To sync media files and back up your contacts, you'll need to download Samsung Kies onto your computer.
You can also access films by heading to the Samsung Movies portal. Don't expect anything on the scale of the iTunes store - there are 1,000 films and 100 Tab-optimised movies. A shortcut is preloaded, but rather frustratingly it leads to the Movies website, and its Flash-driven interface is very hard to navigate on the tablet.
If you're after music, the Music Hub offers eight million tracks to preview before buying. The interface is not particularly user-friendly, but it works all the same. The separate music player had us a bit baffled. The Music Hub has its own player, which can play tracks from your library although not one after another - as well as play the previews. But when you want to listen to tracks without having to select each one separately, you need to load up the Music Player, Why the two facilities aren't combined, we're not sure.
The Galaxy Tab is a DLA device, and can both wirelessly accept and stream media to fellow DLNA devices - that includes Windows 7 computers, HDTVs and PS3s. You can share files over Wi-Fi with another Wi-Fi device using the AllShare app.
Eread a good book
As it's similar in size to a paperback, the Galaxy tab is rather good for ereading. It has a preloaded Readers Hub, which encompasses Kobo, a database of two million books, as well as a number of portals that allow you to subscribe to international newspapers and magazine that you can read on the Galaxy Tab. This feature is unique to this device at the moment.
The Readers Hub also acts as an ereader for reading all that digital reading matter, so we're not sure why there is yet another ereader - eBook. This is what you need to use to read books that are not from the Readers Hub - from the Kindle store, for instance. Once you're aware this is what's on offer, it's fine, but it's not as simple or as intuitive as HTC's Android phones or the iPad.
For apps, you can head to the Android Market, although won't find a lot of apps that are optimised for tablets. The apps do generally work (you'll find apps for Twitter, Facebook and so on) but we found the camera apps disappointing, as they're designed to be shown on a smaller display.
Internet and sat-nav
There is a full HTML browser on the Galaxy Tab, and this loads up websites speedily - but we did come up against some lagging when we were scrolling, particularly on mobile-optimised pages. The display supports multi-touch, so you can pinch to zoom as much as you like. Rather conveniently, the Galaxy Tab can save you time and data fees - it will choose to load up less data-intensive mobile sites when you're using a 3G connection, and opt for the full versions with images when you're using Wi-Fi.
The Swype facility also works when you're typing in the browser's text field, which makes the browsing experience very smooth and user friendly.
The Tab offers a great sat-nav experience - it has Google Maps, A-GPS and a Google navigation beta for drivers. The satellite fix worked fine, and the free Google Navigation mapping facility offers a top-down view of the route ahead, as well as voice directions. If you're on foot, you'll find the same full features Google Maps provides on other Android 2.2 devices.
The verdict
The Galaxy Tab has just about every feature you could imagine on a device - sometimes you pay for this in a drop in performance quality. It's not the most perfect tablet but it has plenty to offer anyone who likes to get in at the start of something, and who doesn't mind spending a bit of time tinkering with their new gadget to get the most out of it.
written by : Unknown | published In : Minggu, 11 November 2012 | article Title: Samsung Galaxy Tab | Url : http://doom-mobi.blogspot.com/2012/11/samsung-galaxy-tab.html | Please like and share this article to support this blog
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Unknown - Minggu, 11 November 2012
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