The Samsung Galaxy Tab is the first slate since the iPad that really made us sit up and take note on launch. In between all the cruddy, cheap Android tablets with resistive touchscreens and no core Google apps, the Samsung Galaxy Tab stuck out like, well, an Android tablet that had core Google apps, a responsive capacitive touchscreen, and that most definitely wasn’t cheap.
Google itself has said that Android still isn’t ready for tablets, and yet Samsung begs to differ. Who’s right? We’ve been testing the Samsung Galaxy Tab to find out whether we’ve got a worthy rival to the iPad at last. Read on for our findings here in our Samsung Galaxy Tab review.
The folks at eXpansys provided us with a Samsung Galaxy Tab for the purposes of this review, and we have to say we’re pretty impressed. While the model we’ve got isn’t a boxed unit, we’ve had no visible software or hardware issues and performance is everything you could hope for with a 1GHz CPU under the bonnet. The problem only stems from justifying the cost of the Samsung Galaxy Tab – and that in turn is partly down to Google itself.
Hardware
The Galaxy Tab's screen is a joy to use, and the unusual resolution for Android isn't as much of a problem as we feared
Physically, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is a delight. Its 7-inch, 1024×600 screen is bright, resilient (Thank you Gorilla Glass) and responsive, with extremely wide viewing angles. It’s as smudgy as the Smudge Tool on Photoshop, and bounces back a fair bit of direct light, but no more so than any other tablet we’ve seen. While we could sit around bemoaning the lack of a Super AMOLED screen, let’s not forget that Samsung itself makes them: if it can’t come up with one that’s affordable at this size and resolution right now, no one can. C’est la vie.
Because of its shorter length, the Samsung Galaxy Tab doesn’t actually appear thinner than an iPad, but it is by a few millimetres. However, it’s still sturdy and satisfyingly hefty. Ports are pretty much where you’d expect, with a 3.5mm audio jack on the top, and power/lock and volume on the right. Also on the side are slots for a microSD card and SIM card. These are tough to open, but you’ll rarely have to do that – it’d be more problematic if these doors were on the charging slot. They’re not, but it’s also not micro USB, rather than Samsung’s own connector, so you’ll have to take good care of it, and probably buy a spare.
The Galaxy Tab charging and data loading dock
The touch sensitive buttons, while responsive, are a bit of a niggle – they don’t light up when the screen is on unless pressed, and it’s very easy to forget which button is which (They’re not in the same order as on HTC Android phones). If you’re using the Samsung Galaxy Tab in bed, you might forget which one the Menu button is, not be able to see it, then have to stab a few times to realise. But a minor inconvenience you’ll probably learn to overcome.
Placing the Samsung Galaxy Tab side by side with an iPad, it really is eery how similar they are in design. But it is worth stressing that though 7-inches sounds similar to 10-inches, in reality it leads to a vastly smaller tablet. As you can see below, you could fit two Samsung Galaxy Tabs across the front face of an iPad. It’s much closer to a phone in size, and if you already have a pricey smartphone, this could be a turn off.
You can fit two Galaxy Tabs into one iPad
Android 2.2
Enter the software: Android 2.2 Froyo, with full Google app support, a first for a tablet of this size and resolution. We don’t know whether we were pleased or disappointed that there were no real surprises on the software front. This is a very similar version of Android to that on Samsung’s top-end smartphones, but with visual tweaks and tickles provided by Google in the latest 2.2 build of Froyo. In short, we’re talking new Android features such as Exchange support, multiple Gmail accounts and beefed up security.
Samsung’s software skin over the top of Android 2.2 is very reminiscent of the one as seen on the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone, but there are a few differences. The browser’s grey task bars make it look more like Firefox from 2005 than the stock Android browser, but it gets the job done and pinch to zoom works almost as flawlessly as on an iPad. Then there’s the contacts book. Like the Dell Streak mini-tablet, it veers from the Android norm with a multiple column view to make things nice and easy on a bigger screen. It doesn’t feel like much of an improvement, but it’s not detrimental either.
Samsung’s Android mobile hotspot software is absent in the Samsung Galaxy Tab however, despite the 3G connection. In truth, it’s not missed since the chances of you carrying this instead of a phone with the same functionality (rather than both) is pretty slim.
Other features have met the cut, to mixed reception from us. Samsung’s App Store is back to bump shoulders with the Market, and it’s still as sparsely stocked as ever – at the time of writing, there were two apps available for download. And while we loved Swype on the Samsung Galaxy Europa phone, but we have to say it’s pretty redundant here. The regular portrait QWERTY keyboard is excellent, and just the right size for cantering along with your thumbs without ever making a mistake, where as tracing your finger over such distances actually ends up being quite tedious. But hey, it’s optional, so no harm done.
The Galaxy Tab played every video we threw at it
Media
Samsung’s AllShare media streaming app is back once more to make DLNA a doddle, and unlike on the Europa, it actually works. We were up and running, slinging TV shows over WiFi to our PlayStation 3 in minutes, and they looked superb. While in practice we’ve never bothered streaming movies from a phone to our TV, the Samsung Galaxy Tab’s storage space (16GB plus a microSD slot), screen size and codec support means we’d actually consider making it the dumping ground for our videos.
Speaking of those codecs, the Samsung Galaxy Tab played everything we threw at it without a struggle, from AVI and MP4 files to 720p MKVs which caused some frame skipping on the Samsung Galaxy S. For media hoarders this is a big deal, and will definitely make it more attractive than an iPad locked into iTunes downloading and syncing. Music can also be controlled from the task bar and lock screen just as it can with TouchWiz on the Galaxy S, which is helpful – and if you’ve got cover art, colourful.
Samsung’s preloaded eBook app is meant to show off the tablet’s ereader skills meanwhile. While it opened all the eBook formats we threw at it, slow loading times when you turn pages and tilt, plus a lack of ability to sync with other devices makes Kindle for Android preferable still – it’s much, much faster. Whatever app you use, reading on the Samsung Galaxy Tab’s screen is perfectly pleasant indoors, but nearly futile outdoors or directly under a light bulb, as no tinkering with the screen brightness will remove the glare.
Samsung's eBook reader in action -in truth, it's slow to load compared to the zippy Kindle Android app
More disappointing was the media the Samsung Galaxy Tab itself produces. There’s a 3.2 megapixel camera on the back without a flash, and there’s no tap to focus in the camera software, so you’re left with pretty miserable shots packed with more noise than the Notting Hill Carnival. The front facing camera (Which works just fine for video chats with Fring) also can’t be activated, if you fancy a self portrait.
The Adobe Flash 10.1 plugin for Android comes pre-installed on the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and it works pretty smoothly. Once a video buffers, there’s no sign of frame skipping on videos designed for streaming on a desktop PC browser. That’s only true of standard definition video, but it’s pretty hard to find any HD video on the web using a Samsung Galaxy Tab without it toggling to the mobile version of a website anyway, and besides, you won’t see the extra pixels on the Tab’s medium resolution screen. Check out a video of it in action below.
If you’ve tried a high end Android device released this year, you’ll be used to the performance and power of the Samsung Galaxy Tab – it’s similarly blazingly fast thanks to its 1GHz processor – save when it came to account syncing. As so often happens with this type of functionality in mobile devices, trying to grab Twitter updates causes a big ol’ slowdown if you follow too many people, but otherwise, everything else was as speedy as you’d hope.
We were pleasantly surprised by the battery life of the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Android isn’t exactly known for being easy on the gas, but we got more than a full day’s intensive use out of it with both 3G and WiFi turned on. Something we can’t give such a reassuring answer to is whether you’d want to use it for a whole day. You see, we’re struggling to work out when we’d use it, for the cost.
Yeah, you want to play Angry Birds on the Galaxy Tab
Productivity
While it runs most Android apps without any problems despite the higher resolution (There’s the occasional bit of letterboxing, but honestly, Angry Birds is fantastic on it), so do Android phones. It’s still not an ideal office device. The Samsung Galaxy Tab comes with thinkfree office mobile installed, but typing isn’t as quick as on an iPad in landscape at a shallow angle, and it doesn’t provide anything beyond font size and basic formatting – no footnote editing, as one reader wanted to know, though it’s always possible other Android apps allow for this.
In fact, if you need a tablet for word processing, we’d recommend the Dell Streak since it supports Bluetooth keyboards. You can open PDFs with the right apps, sure (In fact, Documents To Go runs great) – but the step change in productivity from a four to seven inch screen is not the same as that between a phone and an iPad display, even if the Tab’s resolution is similar.
Of course, the iPad isn’t hugely, obviously practical at a glance either, but we’ve really learned to appreciate the joys of an instant on machine capable of desktop web surfing lying around on the sofa. The Samsung Galaxy Tab would do the same for people who hate iOS, but you’d really have to hate iOS to stump up the eye watering £549 pricetag.
You see, unlike the iPad, the Samsung Galaxy Tab comes with 3G built in as standard. You don’t have to use it of course, but you’ll be paying for that SIM slot and 3G gadget whether you do or don’t – it’s the only way Samsung could have got the thumbs up from Google for those core Google apps (Gmail, Google Maps, Android Market). Google’s requirements also mandate that the Samsung Galaxy Tab has to be able to make calls – and this is where the silliness comes in.
Remember the Dell Streak? We said that at five inches it was just big enough to hold comfortably on a call. You won’t have to do that with the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab – it only works as a mediocre speakerphone, or with a headset – but the problem is that you’ll be paying for this functionality regardless. And as the numbers of people who’ve bought WiFi iPads should testify, it’s not really necessary – save for the fact that right now, Google says it is. Watch us try to make a phone call in the video below.
Verdict
So there you have it: the Samsung Galaxy Tab is a more portable iPad that’s better for media, but with less to distinguish itself from the larger smartphones out there, and a pricetag that’s no more appealing.
Is it one worth coughing up for? That depends on how much you value notional frivolities like watching videos, checking the train times online, and playing games. Us, we’re starting to see them more and more as essentials. But if you wanted to hold out for Android 3.0 to see what Google has planned for Android tablets – well, we wouldn’t blame you.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 16GB is available for pre-order at eXpansys now.
We also put the Samsung Galaxy Tab into the hands of loyal Electricpig readers to see what they think. Read all about it in our Samsung Galaxy Tab review: Reader Inquisition!
