Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Review: The Sleekest Honeycomb Tablet
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 13, 2011 5:07 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Samsung
- Tegra 2
- Galaxy tab 10.1
- Android 3.1
- Mobile
- NVIDIA
Final Words
The new 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab is probably the sleekest looking Honeycomb tablet on the market today. The form factor is really wonderful and given how quickly Samsung introduced it after Apple unveiled the iPad 2, the company really deserves credit for responding to competitive pressure in record time. It's not just a great form factor however. The 10.1 has an incredible screen, competitive features and doesn't really sacrifice in terms of performance or battery life. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is your run of the mill Honeycomb tablet, just better.
A part of me really feels like delivering all of the resolution, performance and overall goodness of the Galaxy Tab in a smaller 8.9-inch form factor is the ticket to ultimate success. The iPad is too big for me to carry around with me as much as I'd like, as is the Galaxy Tab 10.1. However tablets like the PlayBook are too small to really deliver the tablet experience I'm looking for when I'm at home. Keeping the resolution fixed at 1280 x 800 but dropping the screen size by a little over an inch may be enough to really hit the sweet spot.
Ultimately I believe we'll shop for tablets similarly to how we shop for notebooks (or they may end up being one and the same): by screen size. If this form factor really does take off however, we'll have many more decisions to make than just what screen size is best (perhaps we'll start seeing multiple SoCs offered for various performance targets instead of one smartphone SoC playing double duty as a tablet chip as well).
Unfortunately with most Honeycomb tablets today we find ourselves in a difficult position when it comes to making any recommendations. NVIDIA's Kal-El target was originally August, I've heard more recently that the date has slipped to around September. Regardless of the specific month, there's a high likelihood that within the next four months you'll be able to get a much more powerful Android tablet for the same amount of money you'd spend today. With that in mind, I can't in good conscience recommend spending any amount of money on a tablet today if you can wait another two quarters. Remember Kal-El won't really change single threaded performance, but it will improve GPU performance and address the video decoding limitations of Tegra 2 today.
If you have to buy an Android tablet today I'd say the top two choices on my list are the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The former is an easy choice because of its price and flexibility vis-a-vis the transformer dock. If you want something more portable however, the Galaxy Tab is a much more comfortable device to use. Here's how I think the comparison boils down:
If you're a developer that just needs to have something running Honeycomb to work on today, buy the Eee Pad. It's cheaper and you get the same functionality as you would from the more expensive Galaxy Tab.
If you're sold on Honeycomb and want a tablet running the OS today but don't care about the ability to type on a normal keyboard, get the Galaxy Tab. The Eee Pad dock is a nice feature but it's also another $150 over its base price. If you're not going to use that feature and don't care about the cost savings, then the Galaxy Tab is clearly the better tablet.
Finally if cost is a concern (keeping in mind that you'll likely regret your purchase in another ~4 months), get the Eee Pad. You'll put yourself out less cash up front and hopefully have less to recoup later.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (top) vs. ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (bottom)
However, as I mentioned earlier, my overall recommendation is to wait if you can. Smartphones and tablets are operating on a faster-than-Moore's Law curve. As a result you'll see huge performance improvements every 12 months and devastatingly painful upgrade cycles. Given that tablets aren't carrier subsidized, the longer you can wait, the better off you'll be.
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darkhawk1980 - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
One thing that might be of note to those buying, might be the fact that the secure software key (SSK) for the Asus Transformer has in fact been found. This means that it is now possible to completely unlock the device to do whatever you'd like with it (ie possibly install Ubuntu Linux?). This is something that I'd be surprised if it happened with the Samsung Tab 10.1. While for most people it probably doesn't make a huge difference, but in another month the ability to have both Honeycomb and Ubuntu on the device could be a very compelling argument.Personally, given how much Samsung locks down their devices, I would never buy into their tablets. I still believe the Asus provides a much better overall experience. While it isn't the lightest, nor is it the most thin, it provides the best experience and flexibility. And to be perfectly honest, the price is pretty damn good as well. Having a rooted Asus and being able to overclock it a bit (1.6 GHz and really stable) makes a pretty decent difference in performance.
BTW, I've always wondered, how much of a difference does the resolution difference between the IPad 2 and all other Honeycomb tablets make a difference in the graphical benchmarking tools? I would imagine it does make a decent difference, all things given.
My experience with tablets thus far (have spent a few hours looking at the Acer Iconia and Samsung/Xoom at Best Buy, and bought a Transformer) is that I really do enjoy having it. I like being able to pick it up and browse the web while watching TV during commercials or boring parts of a show. I love reading books and comic books on it. And to be perfectly honest, since I got Plants vs. Zombies the other day for free from Amazon, I use it way too much. More than my wife I think.....
adt6247 - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Samsung locking down devices? You on crack? All of the Galaxy S devices shipped with unlocked boot loaders. Samsung also just sent a few Galaxy S II phones to the CyanogenMod team that brought CM7 to the various GSM Galaxy S variants. I rooted my Captivate within an hour of purchase, and I got it on launch day. How much less locked down do you want?My biggest complaint with Samsung was TouchWiz, and that simply isn't an issue here.
ph00ny - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
That's what i was about to say. Only company active leaving the bootloader unlockedmongo lloyd - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Reports have said that Samsung will deliver its TouchWiz UI enhancements in a later update.You can see a very recent video of how it looks on the 8.9 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj7M1WTiwGo
StormyParis - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
to see the insta-obsolescence of those things. Each month brings a new tablet that's da schinitz... for a month. And now Tegra 3 will arrive within a couple of months, and the OEMs that kind messed up first time around (Motorola, a lot; Asus, a bit) will have a second shot at leading the field... Any tablet will be upstaged within 6 tot 12 months anyway, which really is a pain because the new ones will be significantly better (and the current ones are barely "good enough", and those things are a lot more expensive than subsidized phones.I started out waiting for any Android tablet. The first ones, especially the Xoom, where pretty awful, so that morphed into waiting for the eeePad... which is OK, but not as good as the Galaxy. Now I'm thinking 10" is too big. It won't fit into my man-purse and is a bit unwieldy... but the 7-8" alternatives are pretty niche and/or lackluster.
So, in the end, I'm thinking I'll get a cheap Chinese knock-off, test out the format (for web surfing, ebooks, comics, and some videos), and wait 12-24 months for the dust to settle. I've found 8 inchers around 100 USD with 1280x800 and 1024x600 screens (Ainol Novo 8, Zenithink E98)
JasonInofuentes - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
That's not a terrible plan but try not to be too disheartened. This is simply the expected process of performance increasing with technology advancements played forward really fast. Ten years ago when deciding what computer to buy you would have asked yourself a few questions that had to do with features; at the time they would have involved playing the latest games, fast internet access, expandability and sufficient storage. So, a Radeon 9700, an ethernet NIC, a decent case, a 40 GB drive and a Pentium IV and you were all set. A few years ago you would have added HD video playback, WiFI and turned all the other dials up a few notches. And that's basically where we are today. Ten years ago to meet the demands of most users you needed a pretty high end system, anything less and the compromises were pretty high. Today, a decent video card (nothing integrated, yet), a cheap mobo with all the bells and whistles integrated, a cheap 2TB drive, and Intels cheapest Pentium will probably hit all your feature requests and still fit in a case smaller than the box my 9700 came in.In tablet talk, we are, thankfully, a bit beyond the Pentium IV era, but we're not quite at Penryn, and still a few years off from Nehalem. You can play games, you can watch HD video and you can do all the other things you want to do, you just can't do it as smoothly as you might want, and certainly not so smoothly as you could on your netbook. But we're in the post-PC era, so the days will come.
If I were you, still expecting to wait as much as two years before really committing to the cause, I'd hold off on that Chinese grey market special, pick-up a used Nook Color and throw CM7 on it. It's not Honeycomb but it's not bad either. And when you decide the market is ready for you to throw some real money on a tablet it'll be like booting up a Sandy Bridge powered MacBook Pro after years of using a Powerbook G4. Let us know how it goes!
StormyParis - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
I'd go for the nook color in a blink if I could get it. I'm in France though, and don't know anyone in the US. Even my brother in Canada can't et it, as far as I can tell.jrs77 - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
First of all, nice review there Anand.The Galaxy Tab 10.1 looks really good actually and with the bigger resolution then the iPad2 it's more to my liking. However, Android still doesn't feel as good as iOS and that's the real downside of the iPad-competition currently. With a pricetag of the iPad2 I'd take the better OS and go with Apple still, as I don't mind about the iTunes-thingy actually for a device that's primarily ment to browse the web or watch movies while travelling from/to work every day.
I'd like to see a tablet with a fully suported USB-port, that let's me use a internet-stick or external storage, with a pricetag of a netbook ($400). That would really be a step forward actually.
tayb - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Still sucks. I'm sorry, but it does. It's half baked and crashes more than a Microsoft Windows beta. It's not a finished product and I'm starting to understand how Google seems to make such rapid improvements to their OS. It's because they release the beta as the full version and then fix all of the massive holes and bugs with new OS releases.I still don't see a tablet offering from any company that I would actually be interested in. $499 for this is not a great deal unless you compare it to the iPad. Hey, the iPad is overpriced. I can walk into any electronics store and get a powerful notebook for $499.
ph00ny - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Have you tried 3.1 honeycomb tablets over 3.0? It looks like they're progressing very nicely