Battle of the Budget Tablets - Nook Color vs. Galaxy Tab
by Vivek Gowri on May 25, 2011 12:52 AM ESTMeet the Contenders - Galaxy Tab WiFi
The Galaxy Tab WiFi is very similar to the Galaxy Tab we reviewed previously, and that’s a good thing. Even if I thought the software was too smartphone-like to be very useful, I liked the Galaxy Tab hardware, and that has stayed mostly the same here. The design hasn’t changed, with a very minimalistic front face and thin bezels the entire way around. Even with the same size screen, the Galaxy Tab ends up being significantly more compact than the Nook. The sides are still matte black, but our WiFi review sample has a glossy white back instead of the Darth Vader all-black look our Verizon 3G review unit had. It’s a good look, though I’d have preferred an all-white device rather than a two tone aesthetic.
Most of the differences lie internally. Beyond the obvious lack of any 3G radios, we see that Samsung's venerable Hummingbird SoC has been swapped out for TI's OMAP 3630, featuring the same 1GHz Cortex A8 and and a PowerVR SGX 530 GPU. The SGX 530 is roughly half as powerful as the SGX 540 pixel pusher in Hummingbird, so it's a relatively significant downgrade. Speaking of downgrades, the Bluetooth 3.0 radio has been dropped in favor of Bluetooth 2.1, though that is pretty minor compared to the SoC switch. Other than that, there's the same 16GB built-in flash storage (plus microSD expansion), the same front facing 1.3MP and rear facing 3MP cameras, the same beautiful 7” WSVGA display, and the same TouchWiz skin on top of Froyo. The Gingerbread update is scheduled to release to devices within the next few weeks.
Great, so why are we here? Because, well, the WiFi-edition Galaxy Tab is downright cheap - at $350 it’s going after the crowd that thought the iPad was too expensive, thought the Xoom was ludicrously expensive, and would otherwise end up with something like the Viewsonic G Slate. Trust this guy, the Samsung is better. Way better. But how does it stack up against the even less expensive Nook Color?
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MossySF - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link
The specs for Archos 70 say:• High resolution screen, WVGA 800 x 480 pixels, 7'' TFT LCD, 16 million colors
• Capacitive multitouch screen
Yes on the resolution. No on resistive.
medi01 - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
" Overclocked kernels, custom skins and launchers, updating the ROM to the latest nightly build, anything you could possibly dream of. That's something you just won't get with the Samsung..."Samsung Galaxy Tab was rootable even back in 2010.
ironmb - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
I will never understand this new fad of tablets.. to each is own i guess.mi1stormilst - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Bought one for my wife, rooted in about 15 minutes she uses it for reading and gaming and surfing. Not everything works perfectly, but the battery life is more than decent and it is very much a usable product. We read from both the Kindle App and the B&N App with no trouble. I got it during the Ebay B&N sale for $199 enough said :-)IdBuRnS - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
My wife uses my rooted CN all the time for playing Angry Birds. loldukepeter - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
It seems like the WiFi-only Galaxy Tab packs OMAP3* as well, not Hummingbird.this was reported here: http://www.thegalaxytabforum.com/index.php?/topic/...
can anybody confirm?
DanNeely - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Did you read the article before posting this? It does so.Stanil - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
In the original it said Hummingburd and PowerVR 540, they changed it post factum :) Thx for the specs, I wasn't sure if the castrated version was only for Europe.dukepeter - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
yes, i read the article, and i remember clearly it said Hummingbird and PowerVR SGX540.But yes, they have changed it now. i wish i had been wrong =|
VivekGowri - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Yeah sorry, I had changed it on my document file but apparently not the actual article engine before posting - sorry guys, that was a big time proof-reading error by me.It felt very bait-and-switch to me, I never noticed it was SGX 530/OMAP3 until I ran the gaming tests and went o_O. I don't mind too much about downgrading the Bluetooth, but the SoC downgrade is pretty terrible.