Samsung Galaxy Tab - The AnandTech Review
by Vivek Gowri on December 23, 2010 9:48 AM ESTSamsung Galaxy Tab - Performance
The Galaxy Tab’s internal hardware feels pretty familiar. As with the Galaxy S phones and the newly launched Nexus S, there’s a Hummingbird chip underhood. Samsung’s proprietary SoC bundles a 1GHz Cortex A8 with Imagination’s PowerVR SGX540 GPU and 512MB of LPDDR1.
Performance is about expected, given how the Galaxy S devices performed. The second generation 45nm Snapdragon chips are really nipping at the heels of Hummingbird, even surpassing it on the CPU side in our benchmarks. Snapdragon has always had strong FPU performance so the Linpack score is expected, but in SunSpider’s JavaScript benchmark, we see the 1GHz myTouch 4G basically beat everything this side of the Cortex A9/Tegra 2 combo. We talked more about how A9 compared to A8 in our Tegra 2 performance preview here, so look at that to see how the Galaxy Tab stacks up against the tablet platform of the future.
On the graphics benchmark side, we only have two tablets to compare head to head - the Galaxy Tab and the Viewsonic G Tablet that we used in the Tegra 2 preview. The Galaxy Tab handily won out in Neocore - the 54 fps figure is basically capped by the vsync - but the Tegra 2 exhibited slightly faster performance throughout the rest of our smartphone graphics benchmarks. We initially had some issues with Quake 3 on the Tab, as detailed in our Tegra 2 performance update, but overall, SGX 540 is definitely competitive as far as graphics performance goes even if it isn't the clear cut leader anymore.
Our Galaxy Tab unit was a Verizon model, but for some reason the 3G data was very slow. I’ve tested it in multiple regions in the Seattle area and I have yet to break 700 kbps down and 500 kbps up. I haven’t had a Verizon device to test before, but even so, speeds around 600 kbps are not what I was expecting. I later talked to some Verizon employees and was told that such speeds are normal for Verizon 3G in Seattle, so their LTE rollout really can't happen fast enough.
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thartist - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
seriously? we're gonna bring all that FAIL thing to Anandtech? go elsewhere.JohnCarney - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
Really? How did you do that?http://www.amazon.com/Tron-Blu-ray/dp/B001AQT15I/r...
therealnickdanger - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
The Tron Blu-ray was delayed by Disney due to fears that their target Tron Legacy audience would see it and laugh at the bad old CGI and then not want to see the new one.The HD master of Tron used to create the Blu-ray has been aired on HDNet and other HD channels. So while it isn't technically a Blu-ray rip, it is most definitely HD. If you didn't have the luxury of seeing it broadcast, there are a couple torrents out there if you feel so inclined.
MeanBruce - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
So Cool, I love Tron, thanks for giving us the info! 1982 Jeff Bridges. Are you the User?Aloonatic - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
I was just thinking, as these tablets are often little more than bigger versions of what many of us have in our pockets already......How hard would it be for a company to make a large touch-screen device with a big battery that one could simply slip their smart-phone into and use that way? Probably requiring something in the phones OS to recognise that it is plugged into such a device, allow it to display at a higher resolution and maybe even change it's processor/GPU power/performance profile, as it could be plugged in somewhere, or at least know that it has a larger battery power supply at hand?
Just a thought.
kmmatney - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
Damn good idea. I'd love to be able to pop my phone into a device to give it a larger screen, especially when just browsing on the couch. However the cost to build something like that probably isn't that much more than just making a whole new device.VivekGowri - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
The original Palm Foleo waves hello. I dunno if that type of thing would be any better now with the updated technologies, but the Foleo crashed and burned so badly that I think people are scared to even try.baba264 - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
To be honest, 6 month after the ipad launch, I still have a hard time figuring out what it is exactly that's pulling people to the tablet market.I honestly don't see much use for these tablets except as a very occasional gadget with a terribly high price tag. Or alternatively as a fashion statement, but being on a hardware site I don't think that should really apply to us.
Guspaz - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
There are a few things I can see people using an iPad (or equivalent device) for, but the general gist of it is that you take a smartphone's easy usability and portability, but use a larger screen to address some of the shortcomings or limitations of a smartphone. For example, browsing with touch controls can be pretty intuitive, but a smartphone's screen is small enough that it's a compromised experience. Give it a 10" screen, however, and you can get that same user experience with a device that can actually display a full website like a PC would. Or take the case of portable video playback. It's convenient to be able to watch a movie or TV shows on a smartphone, but a 3.5" screen is kind of tiny. But make it a 10" screen, and it's a completely different experience.Most other use cases are similar. Take something that was intuitive on a smartphone but had the experience compromised by the small screen (or was missing features due to it), and a tablet can solve that. E-mail works nicely on a smartphone, but the small screen means there isn't room to get both the E-mail message and the inbox open at the same time; a tablet enables that.
So you sacrifice some portability (although tablets are still more portable than a netbook or notebook), and get a lot more usability. As for price, tablets have prices on par (or lower than) with smartphones; it's hard to argue that they're expensive or overpriced without saying the same of smartphones.
mrd0 - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
You can use a tablet to do much more than browse the web. Our law firm, and many, many others, are starting to move to the iPad instead of laptops because they are such much more friendly in the court room and on the move. I can actually write a brief and submit it, whereas, that is nearly impossible on a smart phone...certainly painful. I don't need a full computer most of the time, so the iPad, or another 10" tablet, is ideal. It's so useful that some large firms are starting to give every associate a new iPad.Now we just need a great 10" android tablet to get away from all of Apple''s limitations/restrictions.