Samsung Galaxy Tab Review

Introduction:

Without a doubt, the Apple iPad is one of the most intriguing and successful consumer electronic products released this year. Its success has naturally caused a wave of announcements by various manufacturers, each revealing its own plans for upcoming tablet/s. As of now, the most serious contender seems to be Samsung with itsGalaxy Tab, which is to make an appearance with every single major U.S. carrier. Now, here's the deal about the Samsung Galaxy Tab. At first glance, it is very similar to the iPad; in reality though, it's nothing like it. "So, is that a good thing or a bad thing?", one would ask. If this question is tickling your fancy, then look no further, as you'll find all the answers you seek in this review!

Design:

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is more compact than the Apple iPad. It is nearly twice as small and packs a 7" capacitive touchscreen, as opposed to the iPad's 9.7 inches. Of course, don't be fooled by Samsung commercials, implicating that you'll be able to comfortably carry this device in your back pocket. It is not this pocketable. It is extremely easy to pick up and handle though. The Galaxy Tab is very light 13.40 oz (380 g), which can be explained with its plastic construction. We suppose that the back is quite prone to scratches, so it might be a wise idea to get some kind of case.

 

The gorgeous 7-inch screen has a resolution of 600x1024 pixels. It provides a crisp and clear image and makes even smaller texts look fine. Colors of the LCD TFT screen are nicely saturated, while viewing angles are more than passable. The Samsung Galaxy Tab's display is viewable under bright sunlight, though not in its full beauty. Naturally, an ambient light sensor is present to adapt the screen's brightness accordingly, but if you wish, you can always override it and push the slider all the way to the max, in order to experience one very bright picture. Conversely, if you wish to use the tablet in a completely dark place, say while in bed, the Tab can also output a wonderfully low level of brightness to preserve your eyes. Of course, we did not find any problems with touch registration; the capacitive screen is as sensitive as it gets. By the looks of it, 7 inches are still quite good for a tablet, though you might find yourselves switching to horizontal mode when viewing the web quite often.

Above the display are located the aforementioned ambient light sensor, as well as the 1.3MP video call camera. At the bottom portion of the front, you get four capacitive keys: Menu, Home, Back and Search, which can be really annoying due to accidental presses, especially in the beginning. On the top side is the 3.5mm headset jack, while on the left is the Galaxy Tab's microphone that will allow you to do calls on the device. On the right are the power/lock key, as well as the volume rocker and the SIM and microSD card slots. The bottom side houses the proprietary charging port (very similar to Apple's 30-pin connector) and two loudspeakers. The back hosts a 3.2MP camera with an LED flash.

So, we've taken a tour around the tablet, and as a result, we can conclude it is one pretty good-looking device. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is also quite thin and is surely a worthy competitor to the iPad from a design point of view. Yet, it doesn't feel as solid, or premium for that matter, due to its predominant use of plastic. One of the things we love about the Tab though is how easy to carry around it is, so this definitely puts it in a comfy position, when it comes to those users who are not willing to sacrifice on portability.

Interface and Functionality:

These days, the importance of software is beginning to get acknowledged. Customers are becoming aware that bigger is not necessarily better, and shiny doesn't mean functional. In this connection, the Samsung Galaxy Tab has the advantage of running Android 2.2 - a mobile OS that is increasingly popular among consumers for being open and providing a decent alternative to iOS.

Samsung is not leaving you with the stock experience though, as it has customized the OS with itsTouchWiz 3.0 UI, also found on the Galaxy S line of phones. You can have up to nine homescreen pages, each capable of hosting a number of widgets. Live Wallpapers are also here, in order to make your visual experience a bit more entertaining. Moving between the different pages and screens is very smooth on the Samsung Galaxy Tab. There's also a kind of a helicopter view (like in HTC Sense) available for the homescreen and main menu, which allows you to quickly jump to a certain page.

We've got to hand it to Samsung for redesigning the core apps of the platform so that they utilize the larger real estate. Starting with the Contacts application, we discover a very nice and relaxing interface by the manufacturer. You have a list of your people on the left, with their info and communication history on the right - all in a single view. There is also an extensive use of tabs that grants you quick access to the rest of the related functionality like the Dialer, Logs, Groups and Favorites.

The same visual style is also found within the Calendar. Available are traditional Day, Week, Month and List views, with all of them hosting more information under a single screen than the standard smartphone apps. In Month view, the appointments for each day are marked within the respective field, while the area at the bottom of the screen, used to display more info for each day, is significantly larger than on a smartphone, allowing you to see more stuff.

Setting an Alarm is a really simple and straightforward procedure. Once you've settled with a clock style fitting your tastes, You can move on the setting the alarm itself, by choosing a desired time, ringtone, repetition and so on. 

 

Internet and Connectivity:

We are a bit frustrated with the Samsung Galaxy Tab's internet browsing capabilities. Since the tablet is running Android 2.2 Froyo, it supports full Flash Player 10.1, which makes for one truly desktop-grade experience; however, the general performance of the browser is not very good, especially if you're visiting pages that are heavy on Flash elements. Very often there's some severe stuttering going on, while attempting to scroll a page, which really hampers the experience. Otherwise, zooming is done by either double-tap, or multi-touch and works fine for the most part. Still, if you are browsing in landscape mode, you'll rarely feel the need for zooming. 

Flash itself is surely a great feature to have, but as it seems it comes at a pretty high price, at least on the Galaxy Tab. Adobe's software is not entirely to blame here though, as the unpleasant stuttering continued even after we disabled the plug-in. Doing so, we managed to improve the performance a bit, but the results were still not buttery smooth. This doesn't mean that the overall browsing experience is not better than that of any smartphone with large screen out there, of course. It's just not stepping up its game hard enough, like the iPad is, in this respect.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is on the cutting-edge of connectivity, featuring Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, quad-band GSM and tri-band UMTS support (900/1200/2100), in addition to A-GPS and Bluetooth 3.0 for local connection. Similarly to the Apple iPad, the Galaxy Tab is also expected to ship in a Wi-Fi-only form, which should be more affordable, seeing it would be missing the 3G radio and some functionalities.

The on-board GPS works very well. We managed to get our location fixed in a matter of two minutes after a cold start. However, if Google Maps Navigation is your choice of navigational software (Google's free turn-by-turn direction solution), you'll need a constant internet connection in order to load the maps. Of course, exploring Google Maps on the Galaxy Tab's 7” screen is much more entertaining and convenient than on a cell phone display, but then again, we doubt someone has assumed the opposite.