Samsung Galaxy Tab - The AnandTech Review
by Vivek Gowri on December 23, 2010 9:48 AM ESTSamsung Galaxy Tab - The Software
To anyone who’s played with a Galaxy S phone recently, or really anything running Android 2.2, the Galaxy Tab’s software should be pretty familiar. And if you hate TouchWiz, you should stop reading right now, because the Galaxy Tab comes preloaded with Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0. It’s not bad, but after a few months with the G2, it’s hard to go back to a skinned version of Android. The skin works about as well as one could expect; it doesn’t change a whole lot to the core functionality of Android beyond adding a very handy task manager, but adds a nice glossy UI layer over Froyo. I noticed some stuttering in some of the menus and animations, though it didn’t significantly detract from the UX. I don’t know if that’s a fault of TouchWiz or the higher resolution display, but I wasn’t expecting it given the 1GHz Hummingbird inside.
There’s two keyboards - Samsung preloaded Swype in addition to their own keyboard. I’m not much of a Swype guy, though I did try it out on the Tab (it’s an interesting concept, but I’ll stick to typing for now); both keyboards work pretty well. There’s not too much to note here beyond saying again that the 7” form factor made the keyboard perfect to use in portrait mode, whereas in landscape mode it was a bit too wide for comfortable typing.
The familiarity of the OS raises an interesting question - other than the larger screen, what is different here versus a regular Android smartphone? Unfortunately, on the OS side of things, the answer appears to be “not much”. Now, there really wasn’t much that Samsung could do about that - Froyo simply isn’t a tablet-centric OS. That’s what Gingerbread and Honeycomb are for. So until that update, the Galaxy Tab is going to feel like an overgrown Galaxy S.
Not that it’s a bad thing - the iPad’s version of iOS makes it feel like a supersized iPhone, and that hasn’t hurt it one bit as of yet. What made the iPad different were the hundreds of applications designed specifically to exploit the comparatively huge XGA screen. That’s the level that Android tablets are going to have to get to, and in my opinion, they’re not there yet. Not by a long shot. There’s not much in the way of tablet specific apps in the Android Market - I found the New York Times Android Tablet app, a Mediafly beta for Tablets, and Verizon’s VZ Navigator for the Galaxy Tab (which came preinstalled on our review unit). Other than that, not much. Now, NYT’s app is nice, but it’s got nothing on their iPad app, and it’s the only marquee application that has a specific tablet version. Normal smartphone apps scale pretty well, but it’s just not the same.
Samsung bundled the Galaxy Tab with some of their own custom applications that were designed to make use of the tablet form factor. Their email client works well enough, splitting into a dual-pane view in landscape mode and doing its job in general. The calendar app is attractive and well designed, with a two pane view in both landscape and portrait modes to show the calendar as well as any upcoming events. The contacts, gallery, and media apps are all pretty satisfactory, and thankfully Samsung saw fit to preinstall an alarm clock app. (Apple, take note. Apparently people like to wake up on time.)
But as you use it, you can tell that Android just isn’t ready to be used on tablets. It’s not “there” yet, not as far as first-party apps, third-party app support, or overall system polish. Even at launch, bugs and missing functionality notwithstanding, Apple made sure it had all three - they put a lot of thought into optimizing the core applications for tablet use, and until Google does the same and gets third party devs on board, Android just won’t be a very good tablet platform.
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tipoo - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
No problem.SimKill - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
This is a minor pet peeve but when you( you != Specific author, you == general) write your reviews I think there was one more where you'd written '[Product] - The Anandtech review' instead of '[X] review' like before.I'm coming to Anandtech, it would be fairly obvious to me that the reviews on this site would be AnandTech reviews and wouldn't be rip offs from other websites.
Oh, and good job.
tipoo - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
I love how you used !=. Do I detect a CS student/graduate?SimKill - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
Nah, mech grad here with boatloads of programming. I find != the most unambiguous way to 'I don't mean X when I say Y'.tipoo - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
Ah, I see. From what I've seen people who haven't done any programming use =/= to denote "does not equal", whereas people who have programed like us use !=.TheStu - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
I would say that the reason for saying [Product - The Anandtech Review] instead of just calling it [Product Review] is that Anandtech reviews tend to includ more technical information than others, there is still subjectivity in the writing, but what I take away from Anandtech's reviews is a better objective view of the product.So, although it is self serving, and a bit narcissistic to label it as [Product - The Anandtech Review], it does serve the purpose of making it clear what you are getting.
synaesthetic - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
I find it helpful because I read most of my tech blows in an RSS feed reader, and can't always immediately tell which blog posted the article!SimKill - Sunday, December 26, 2010 - link
This is a fair point. But I generally group my RSS by websites. So if I click on Anandtech I can see AT reviews and so on and so forth.SimKill - Sunday, December 26, 2010 - link
We know what we get from them which is exactly why we come here time and again. I found this to be a little immature for such an awesome set of people.And why not let the review speak for itself instead.
Don't get me wrong, there's a reason why I wait for AT reviews before deciding on anything major but I felt that as a group of highly professional writers I believe that there should be no place for self-serving and narcissism. But then again as the subject title indicates clearly, it's a minor peeve.
I still love AT reviews.
ATOmega - Thursday, December 23, 2010 - link
I have two major complaints over how manufacturers are approaching android tablets:First, it's very difficult if not impossible to get one not as part of a carrier plan. So currently Apple has zero competition for their iPads without 3G/4G. As much as some people will see this as an outdated market, here in Canada lots of people are avoiding our major carriers because they're a bunch of greedy a$$holes. There's very little point in having their data plans on tablets because you're still stuck rationing out MBs...Kind of takes the fun out of it.
Second, they're way overpriced. If as a result of the price being designed to encourage data plans, or if the manufacturers actually think they're worth that...The SOCs are dirt cheap as advertised by the people who make them and as part of the Android promise. The additional hardware used to make up the systems aren't nearly enough to reach $700 either. At the very least, we should be seeing sub $400 prices for non 3G/4G models.
I want Android tablets on the shelfs of local computer stores (big box or wholesale alike) and available without data plans.
I'd love to see Anandtech take on these details in future reviews. But I'm glad they're looking at Android the way they are already. Good show.