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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TechnoButt - Thursday, May 26, 2011 - link
I'm rocking my Archos101 I got on ebay for $200. 10.1", 256mb ram, 8gb+sd card, Cortex CPU (?800mhz, maybe 1ghz, not sure).It's biggest grief is the viewing angles on the 10.1" display.. but come on, a capable tablet with 10.1" display @$300 new.. it should be in this article.
It's not great for sharing, but who shares a tablet anyway. As long as you're the single user it's pretty darn nice.
Yes, the transformer is better, but having two of these is better than one transformer. :)
TechnoButt - Thursday, May 26, 2011 - link
http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_101it/spe...1ghz A8
256mb RAM (slightly underpowered.. really the weakest feature, but definitely liveable with a good build and app management).
Power SGX 530
802.11bgn
10 hour movie playback battery life!
And my favorite feature.. it is a USB Host (ie, you can plut a usb keyboard into it.. or storage device, in theory).
SunLord - Friday, May 27, 2011 - link
I've got my nook color running CM7 at 1.2Ghz and it pulls a 2124 running quadrant standard and 14.597 MFLOPS in linpackET - Saturday, May 28, 2011 - link
On page 3.romanfoot - Saturday, May 28, 2011 - link
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/453383121-Ain...I don't expect too much for the quality,but $200 for 8" 1280X800 and cortex A9 &512 ram and front & rear camera? Even though I've already got an Ipad,but still wanna just get one,cause it's such a bargain.Though,I don't have much faith on the screen and its quality and battery life,just put the link here,maybe it could help someone.
HenHowC - Saturday, May 28, 2011 - link
Is the Nook Color screen 24-bit? I can't seem to find any information on this.
fromtablet1 - Monday, May 30, 2011 - link
I really like my Aishuo A817 tablet (Currently writing from it) - It have a fast A8 1.2Ghz CPU, 512MB DDR, Weight about 460g, Android 2.3 (Market is working fine on it, Voice search is working, Flash 10.3, Latest youtube all is working fine) can surf the web using built-in wifi or external 3g using USB modem, NFS/Angrybirds/Asfalt/Raging Thunder are working fast, Battery life about 6 hours with wifi on, Can play H264/MPEG4-TS/AAC 2mbit/s IPTV streams just fine by VPlayer by WIFI or 3G. In other words I am happy with this 190USD tabletYowen - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link
What I would love to see is GPS functionality compared for tablets. I personally would love to have a tablet that I can bring in my car to use as a GPS and media player. Without the need to connect to 3G. But that would possibly be filed under oddly specific, or no?uberDoward - Friday, June 3, 2011 - link
Rooted CM7 Nook Color @ 1.2Ghz for the wife, TF101-A1 for me :) Seems simple enough to me!Anand, I'd love a quick update, comparing performance of the Nook Color @ 1.2Ghz. All you need to do is flash Dalingrin's OC kernel. You can't really say that flashing CM7 is somehow any easier than doing another simple kernel flash for an extra 50% theoretical performance?