Round 4 - Cameras

The Nook doesn’t have a camera, so Samsung wins by default. With that said, I never missed having cameras on the Nook while I had it. I understand the allure of having a front facing camera from the videoconferencing point of things, but I never figured out why I would need a rear facing camera on a tablet. I’m not going to complain that they have them, but just given the usage model of tablets, I’m not sure how often most people use the rear facing cameras. Usually with tablets, you’re just sitting somewhere, either at home or somewhere like a Starbucks or a library, and generally you don’t need to take pictures of stuff there. It’s like putting an outward facing webcam on a notebook - sure, I’m sure someone somewhere would find a use for it, but for a vast majority of users, what’s the point? It’s why the rotating webcams on laptops died out long ago; it was a part that had little to no usage model. 

Maybe I’m weird, but I’m legitimately curious for those people that have iPad 2s or any of the other tablets. How often have you guys ended up using the rear facing cameras?
 
 
Anyways, back to the Samsung’s cameras, our findings remain pretty similar to before. Passable still quality; with enough natural light, you will get solid Facebook quality pictures. With less light, you’re going to regret even trying to take a picture. Video turns out okay, but there’s no HD recording like there is on the Galaxy S devices. I kind of wish Samsung had used the same camera module as the handsets, but on a lower-end device this, I can understand why they didn’t. 

AnandTech - Samsung Galaxy Tab Video Sample

Round 3 - Display Round 5 - Battery Life
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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 linpack
  • ET - 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 tablet
  • Yowen - 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?

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