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
A Beautiful Display
Other than form factor, the 10.1's display is the only other major advantage Samsung holds over ASUS. While the Eee Pad's display is quantifiably similar to Apple's iPad 2, it does fall victim to an incredible amount of glare. There's a sizable gap between the LCD panel and the outermost glass, which results in more glare than most other tablets we've reviewed this generation. The 10.1 however doesn't suffer this fate and as a result is more directly comparable to the iPad 2.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (left) vs. ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (right)
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (left) vs. Apple iPad 2 (right)
While both ASUS and Apple use an IPS panel in their tablets, Samsung uses its own technology called Super PLS (plane line switching). Brian Klug, our resident smartphone and display guru did some digging and it turns out that Super PLS is Samsung's own take on IPS that maintains viewing angle while boosting throughput (brightness). The Samsung supplied photo below shows a comparison of the tradeoff you make with S-IPS and I-IPS, as well as both of those compared to Super PLS:
Traditionally you'd have to trade off viewing angle for brightness or vice versa even within the IPS family. Super PLS lets you have your cake and eat it too, giving you the same side viewing angles as S-IPS but with the light throughput of I-IPS.
Perhaps due to the use of Super PLS, Samsung actually managed to outfit the Galaxy Tab 10.1 with a brighter panel than what we saw with the iPad 2. Black levels aren't quite as good but peak brightness is measurably better at nearly 500 nits. While the display isn't what I'd consider bright enough to use in direct sunlight, it is more versatile than the iPad 2's as a result of its brightness.
The higher black levels balance out the brighter panel and deliver a contrast ratio comparable to that of the iPad 2:
I should mention that the quality of the panel on the retail 10.1 sample is significantly better than what I saw with Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition at Google IO. The sample from IO had noticeably worse black levels, lower peak brightness and as a result lower overall contrast. On top of all of that, the LE suffered light bleed from one of its corners - a problem I haven't seen on the retail 10.1. With only two Galaxy Tabs to compare this is either an indication of wildly varying quality control, or more likely that Samsung simply repackaged its early samples as LEs and saved the mass production hardware for paying customers a month after Google IO.
As you can see in the shot above the Samsung panel has a considerably cooler white point than the Eee Pad Transformer. A quick measure with our colorimeter shows a white point of 8762 (vs 7805K for the Eee Pad). It does make Samsung's default wallpaper look very pretty. If you're wondering, the iPad 2's panel is calibrated to a 6801K white point - at least with our 16GB CDMA sample here.
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fteoath64 - Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - link
Very true. They had a chance to differentiate and blew it. MicroSD, Mini-HDMI and USBhost ports are really mandatory for any device because they additional modes for media consumption. Only Apple can get away with it, no one else.[insert name] - Sunday, June 19, 2011 - link
Hmmm.. the lack of both kinda killed the GT10 for me so I went looking at Xoom (too early, too flakey) the iconia (usual woeful levels of post-sales support) and the Transformer (ugly-looking, heavy and I read they too are having their problems, although I like the external HDD support on the dock!).So I went back to looking at the GT10; I can live without the HDMI port (my GT7 doesn't have it), but it's still the lack of uSD that's killing me - I have a 32GB uSD card chock-a-block full of music & videos and a 16GB one I use for business documentation, pressos etc.
Yes, I can just pay the ridiculous excess for the 32GB version, but it's a lot easier/faster to swap out a uSD card than plug 'n drag many, many GB of data...
Zandros - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
"The Samsung supplied photo below shows a comparison of the tradeoff you make with S-IPS and I-IPS, as well as both of those compared to Super PLS"I'd say it's a near useless comparison, since there's no way you'll be looking at the three displays with the same horizontal angle at the same time.
RHurst - Thursday, June 16, 2011 - link
Exactly!MrSewerPickle - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Yet another excellent technical review. I read a lot of reviews online but typically wait for your opinion before making a decision. You make some excellent points as always about the impending Tegra 3 factor.Anyway I've been enjoying this site sense before Tom left Toms and it always continues to impress me. Keep up the unbiased technical reviews.
spambonk - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Does it have light bleed, like the Asus transformer and you didn't tell us.erple2 - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Page 6:<quote>On top of all of that, the LE suffered light bleed from one of its corners - a problem I haven't seen on the retail 10.1.</quote>
Sounds like the answer is "not on this unit".
erple2 - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Ratza fratza no edit button ratza fratza...Page 6:
Sounds like the answer is "not on this unit".
sammsiam - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
The XOOM has 32GB of NANDAsteriskCGY - Monday, June 13, 2011 - link
Bought a Xoom on sale like 3 weeks ago 100 off retail. still had tax so ended up being 558 in the end. Glad its numbers are comparable but that weight really does factor in a lot. And if Kal El means I can start playing my 720 mkv's with subs instead of hunting for SD or 480 avi files for the stuff I watch might've been worth the wait.Or see who'd want to buy a xoom at that time.