Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 Alternatives

(Pocket-lint) - With the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the size and class cistron of tablets are finally set in stone. A year ago, tablets could have gone anywhere - they could have become slap-up and compact similar the BlackBerry PlayBook and the starting time Samsung Tab, or they could have swollen into 12-inch Windows monsters.

But with Samsung and Motorola falling into line behind Apple, it seems this is the battleground where the tablet wars will be fought: a 10-inch-ish screen, a premium finish and the minimum of buttons and ports.

On the hardware and blueprint side, the Tab 10.ane is startlingly similar to the iPad 2. It weighs just 5% less than the Apple tablet, boasts a fleck more screen estate and resolution, and is just a 5th of a millimetre thinner. Even the silverish-lined black glass bezel is virtually identical - but slightly smaller.

Inside, Tab x.i owners get more RAM, a sharper camera and a dual-core scrap. This is the game Samsung likes to play. It offers a device that is priced identically to the iPad 2 just that just pips it in terms of hardware. Of form, hardware is only one-half the story. Tin can Android Honeycomb compete with the all-conquering iOS? Or will the lack of good apps agree information technology dorsum? And how well does Samsung'south hardware integrate with Google's ever-expanding assortment of cloud services?

Our quick take

So it turns out that making tablet hardware is easy. Building something that looks like an iPad 2, something that feels every bit low-cal and solid and well-made, that takes a good photo and glides a smooth touchscreen and pumps out a punchy, colourful video, is patently not that tricky to make. If this was a competition between specifications, iPad would just be another funny word, instead of a noun, a verb and possibly a manner of life.

But that'southward not the world we live in. As hardware converges into distinct families, software comes to the fore. Some things nigh Android Honeycomb would make anyone sing. The infinitely customisable home screens are simply unbeatable, delivering only the information you desire and putting every aspect of search, navigation and functionality right at your fingertips.

Google's deject music and navigation apps are the best out there today and phonation search is also extremely handy. But Honeycomb is still riddled with bugs, especially compared with the less well specified but about-faultless iPad iOS. Then compare the anaemic Market to the well-fed App Shop when it comes to tablet apps and the gulf is almost embarrassing.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.i is certainly 1 of the best Android tablets so far and deserves to be high on the listing for anyone who tin can't stomach Cupertino's controlling neediness, but if a wider run of hardware connections are what you crave, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.one

4.five stars - Pocket-lint recommended

For

Lush screen
Light
Sleek blueprint
Practiced specs
Dual cadre innards
Decent photos and video
Solid battery life

Against

Honeycomb is nonetheless buggy
UI not as seamless as iOS
Must-have apps are still few and far between
Lacks concrete connections

Screen and build

The Galaxy's slimline/widescreen format feels great in the hand. Similar the iPad 2, it remains on the heavy side for extended ebook reading, say, but two-handed apply is piece of cake and natural. Unlike the Apple tablet, there's no metallic hither, just a plastic silver surround morphing into a silver/grey back that has been textured to await like carbon fibre, but isn't.

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Samsung'south quest for slimness means a paucity of ports. An unprotected 30-pin connector serves for both data and power, simply at that place's no HDMI output, USB or SD carte connections. You can become adapters though for all of these to connect to the dock, so if it's essential then yous'll demand an adapter like you would on the iPad. The only other holes are two tiny speaker ports, a miniscule microphone and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. A slim power button wakes the Tab up, and in that location's a volume rocker beside information technology.

Samsung's 10.1-inch screen is 1280 ten 800 resolution, which gives information technology 25% more pixels than the iPad 2 plus a noticeable crash-land in pixel density, upwards to 149ppi. Effulgence, contrast and colour are all splendid, although the iPad 2'southward screen has a noticeable edge in viewing angle, staying crisp and white while the Tab takes on a sickly grey tinge when tilted. Both endure every bit from reflections, glare and fingerprints but are, but, usable outdoors.

There's cypher to choose between the tablets for bear on responsiveness - both are just excellent. However, the Apple is slightly smoother and speedier when it comes to scrolling and re-drawing graphics.

At home with Honeycomb

Although the Tab 10.one is one of the start Honeycomb iii.1 devices, in that location are few visible upgrades - most of the stability and speed boosts are under the hood. You can run into a full run-down of the changes in our feature here, or our review of Honeycomb hither.

The Bone remains a joy to use, with v home screens that you tin can populate with all manners of icons and alive widgets. A 3D-ish transition between screens helps navigation, as do the icons in each of the corners. Height left gives instant links to Google text and voice searches. Voice searching is, as usual, impressive when information technology works and irritating when information technology doesn't (PRs always arraign my English language accent with these US-tuned devices).

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What is undeniably annoying is that if your voice search fails and you want to try once more from the Google page, you're non given the Vocalisation Search option that now appears in Chrome browsers even on desktops. You have to return to the home screen and hit the microphone icon again.

Back on the dwelling screen, top correct is where you manage apps and widgets. Bottom right is the useful notification area and bottom left is where you'll observe the dorsum, home and multi-tasking icons. Honeycomb 3.ane is certainly more stable than Google's first shot at Android for tablets, only it'south far from perfect. During our tests, nosotros regularly got booted out of the browser and YouTube app for no apparent reason, had to restart the unresponsive photographic camera app on several occasions, and suffered several inexplicable slowdowns and screen flashes.

Paradigm conscious

With a 1GHz dual-cadre Tegra 2 bit inside, it'southward no surprise that the Tab 10.ane skips and glides through graphics-heavy tasks. Video playback is faultless, games await fantastic and apps like Google Maps and the grisly new Google Body feel very assured. Tablet-specific games like Angry Birds Rio are now as polished and professional as anything you lot'll detect on the iPad 2, although obviously there are however far fewer of them. Nosotros've been compiling a list of our favourites that y'all can read here.

Downloading Adobe Flash from the Marketplace open doors that are all the same locked to the iPad 2. Wink compatibility gets better with each iteration of Android and the 10.1 had no trouble with Flash videos, Kongregate games and the interactive page piece of furniture we came across during testing.

The Galaxy Tab is generally good at multi-tasking, with a few hiccups. Bizarrely, the multi-tasking interface itself, with its rolling column of alive screenshots, is a little "glutinous" and sluggish. More serious, perhaps, is Samsung'due south weak, tiresome on-screen keyboard that lacks spell correction. Swype for Honeycomb might just be our saviour.

Sound and vision

It'due south thumbs upward for the Music Beta by Google cloud music service (currently U.s.a. only). Uploading music from iTunes was slow simply steady and the Honeycomb app has a clean, modern 2nd graphical interface that'south fast and piece of cake to use. The 10.1 streamed and downloaded songs over Wi-Fi without a hitch. The on lath speakers are predictably tinny, even more so than the iPad 2, but they're fine for occasional listening. Headphones improve the sonics but music even so sounds rather muffled.

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The camera app needs some piece of work. As well as regularly freezing or falling over, the app is wearisome to get going. In one case information technology's awake, there are the usual Android camera options and effects but zip to rival the quality of the all-time iPhone apps. Left handers will appreciate the fact that if you flip the Tab x.1, horizontally or vertically, the type flips but not the location of the shutter or menu buttons - thoughtful.

Epitome quality is generally adept, with the 3 megapixel snaps sporting good exposure and colours. The focus is a bit wobbly and contrast is wishy-washy but compared to the iPad two's shockingly bad sub-megapixel snapper, it's difficult to complain.

The 720p video recordings are articulate, crisp and wouldn't shame a decent smartphone, you can discover a sample on YouTube hither. The sound is hissy and prone to wind noise only, again, this is hard to criticise as well much on a device that is unlikely to be your principal music player, photographic camera or camcorder. (Also, geeky shout out to Samsung for the best paradigm file names ever: year/month/day_time/seconds.jpg should be compulsory manufacture-broad.)

Everything else

The Tab 10.1's bombardment life is in the same class at the iPad's. You lot tin can look to a solid viii hours web/multimedia from a fresh battery - anything beyond that should be considered a bonus. The device gets quite warm during intense utilize and if you have the brightness turned fashion up, the screen volition get toasty, too.

The front webcam is a (seriously overengineered) ii megapixel affair which can handle video chat in Hard disk, should yous have the wish for other people to see every scroll and wave of your nostril hairs. GPS locked on quickly and finer, and held its signal well even indoors. We didn't have the opportunity to check the Milky way's 3G capabilities.

To recap

Samsung has shown that you don't accept to be chosen Apple tree to turn out a smart, desirable tablet. Now it'due south over to Google and the app makers to develop software to match

Writing past Mark Harris.

Source: https://www.pocket-lint.com/tablets/reviews/samsung/72470-samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-review

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