Battle of the Budget Tablets - Nook Color vs. Galaxy Tab
by Vivek Gowri on May 25, 2011 12:52 AM ESTRound 1 - Performance
Performance-wise, the Galaxy Tab does pretty well. The Hummingbird SoC used by the previous Galaxy Tabs has always been faster than OMAP 3, even the 1GHz 3630, so the WiFi version is slower than its 3G brethen. Both tablets have OMAP 3 and Cortex A8s, but the 1GHz implementation in the Galaxy Tab is faster than the Nook's 800MHz core, pretty much the whole way down the line.
Interestingly, we couldn’t get some of our tests running on the Nook - there was no way to get a score for Kwaak3 without reassigning hardware keys (you need to use the search key to bring up the FPS counter at the end of the test run), and Neocore just flat-out would not run. But basically, there’s about a 10-20% difference in CPU performance that is mostly put down entirely to the clock speed difference. The Nook has a higher BrowserMark score because of the stock Android 2.3 browser, and a very good Sunspider score because of the JavaScript improvements in Gingerbread, but overall, it’s outmatched.
We see about the same margin of victory for the Galaxy Tab over the Nook Color in the gaming benchmarks as well, even with the same SGX 530 graphics processor. However, we can see SGX 530 trailing SGX 540 by a long way here, which is a bit disappointing. SGX 540 is more powerful than SGX 530 by a factor of two, and Samsung's switching of SoC here feels like they cut some corners in getting the WiFi edition out the door as cheaply as possible.
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MonkeyPaw - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Sorry for the typo, it is early for me. :oLukemcd - Thursday, May 26, 2011 - link
It's off in size. That's the primary reason they did not make a direct comparison. It really is an apples-oranges thing, too, since two-handed typing is perfect with a vertical Nook but really isn't once you get much beyond that.jconan - Saturday, May 28, 2011 - link
Dido, got the Transformer from Fry's even though amazon sells it for 443. It is quite worth it with splashtop pc access and portability even though it is a bit more for the portability. It does pale to iPad in terms of quality apps but for the freedom from iTunes it's liveable.ViperV990 - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Is it feasible for a regular joe to put Honeycomb on either tablets?Also, is either of them capable of acting as a Google Voice/Talk client?
zvadim - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Nook doesn't have a microphone, so unless you try for some kind of Bluetooth headset solution....ForeverStudent - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
I realize this is kind of irrelevant to the article, and I apologize, but are the dimensions of the devices on the first page switched? They seem to show that the nook is significantly smaller than the Tab, about 30% shorter and narrower. But then throughout the article you talk about how much more compact the Tab is. I could be confused, I'm just checking.VivekGowri - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Ah crap, I think those are the dimensions for the EVO 4G...Fixing that now :) Thanks for catching that.cosmotic - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Just as this was published Woot.com has the Refurbished Samsung Galaxy Tab 7" 16GB Android Tablet - Wi-Fi + 3G for $259.VivekGowri - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
That, my friend, is a good buy. Not sure if I like the idea of a refurb, but if you're dead set on a Galaxy Tab, that'd be tough to pass up.phendric - Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - link
Ditto to that. This isn't the wi-fi only version of the Galaxy Tab, but the full 3G version (with the Hummingbird SoC, and other better hardware). I'll only add that it runs on Sprint's network.I wonder if activation of a data plan is required? Anyone know?
I signed up to two different websites just now - Woot, to order the Tab, and Anandtech, to leave this comment. I've been a silent reader of the site for several years now, but just as I was wondering why there wasn't a good review comparison between the two tablets on a high-traffic site, this showed up.
Great site, good writing, active community.