Samsung Galaxy Tab - The AnandTech Review
by Vivek Gowri on December 23, 2010 9:48 AM ESTSamsung Galaxy Tab - Conclusion
Okay, let’s start with the easy conclusion - the Galaxy Tab is the best Android tablet on the market and probably the second best overall to the iPad. With that said, the iPad is still a superior device by far. It’s not a hardware issue; Samsung did a first-class job with the design of the Galaxy Tab. It’s fast, it’s well built, it’s aesthetically pleasing, and the screen is very good. Sasmung has come out of the gate with a benchmark device for 7” tablets going forward.
So what then? It’s the software. Or, to be more specific, Froyo. It’s too similar to a smartphone right now, too much of the same experience repeated on a 200% scale. To avoid that, companies really only have two options - either wait for a more tablet-centric Android 3.0, or skin the hell out of Froyo and optimize the UI for tablet implementations. There’s a reason that Motorola, Dell, and HTC are waiting until Honeycomb to release their respective tablets. And then you have companies like NotionInk, who has completely scrapped Froyo’s UI and come up with something new altogether in “Eden”, their reimagination of Android as it should be for tablets.
I’m guessing Samsung pushed ahead with the Galaxy Tab to get a jump on the Android tablet market at large, and they deserve to be commended for being the first high profile manufacturer to take a step. Unfortunately, they ended up leaving Froyo mostly alone. They added TouchWiz 3.0, but it’s just a glorified version of the skin you’ll find on your friendly, neighborhood Galaxy S phone. The custom mail and calendar apps are simply not enough to make up for an otherwise undistinguished tablet experience. The core Google apps simply are not tablet-ready, so until they are, it’s up to Samsung.
Samsung is definitely trying their hardest, even releasing a Galaxy Tab emulator for the Android SDK. But for now and even the foreseeable future, they’re not going to have the full-blown ecosystem that Apple had specifically for the iPad at launch. Where does this leave the Galaxy Tab? I’ll say that if you can hold off, it’s probably worth waiting to see what the next generation of tablets holds, but for right now, it’s one of the more competent tablets on the market, and as Google and Samsung build a platform around it, it will only continue to improve.
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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.