On the last day of MWC I just had one more task to do and that was to spend as much time as possible with the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Contacts at MWC had already told me that it was good so I headed over to Samsung with time to spare.
Yes, the Galaxy Tab is a quality bit of industrial design. The back feels slightly disappointing if you’re looking for appeasing materials but it’s practical and I’m sure that it’s going to be of long-lasting quality. The camera is good – not awesome, but good enough. The speakers disappoint. The other part of the product that disappoints, and you might hear this from other reporters is that the UI was a bit underwhelming. Beware, this is incomplete software so we should’nt use it as any sort of indicator. In its current state it’s worse than that Galaxy Tab so I feel certain it can’t go out of the door like that. It was missing Market, some BT features and the browser had a lot of trouble with Google Mail and iGoogle.
In a Sunspider test I managed to get some idea of how Honeycomb and Tegra 2 are going to perform together. The score you see below is 4x better than the iPad and a lot better than results I have from Android 2.1 on Tegra2. A 7 inch Galaxy Tab returns about 7000 ms
Yes that’s 2256. Over 2x faster than the Galaxy Tab 7 inch-er!
Here’s my hands-on video. I’ll be happy to answer questions below.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:12 pm
NO card slot? WTF!
February 17th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
if these devices are to be taken seriously as laptop replacements they need to have at least 1 USB & SD card slot as local I/O for moving mass data otherwise corporations will NOT adopt them.
the cloud just is not there yet, neither is local wireless data swapping.
sorry Sam, but the Xoom is far more sophisticated than this device.
February 17th, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Wow, really amazing scores on Sunspider. Nexus S with Android 2.3 is only scoring 6155ms!
February 17th, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Looks like Honeycomb(Android 3.0) is giving yet another boost.
Android 2.1->2.2 = about 2x boost
Android 2.2->3.0 = another 2x boost
2.2 to 2.3 was negligible.
February 18th, 2011 at 12:28 am
Yup. Honeycomb definately worth having, just for that (although I still want to test 2.3)
Chippy.
February 18th, 2011 at 12:40 am
Thanks chippy for the review. No microsd card slot and not microusb too. It’s very disappointing to learn that.
I’m on noikron side. If Honeycomb is the selling factor, then there will be tons of tab/pad that will have both missing features. Samsung to lose out here?
February 18th, 2011 at 3:40 am
so if I take pics or record a video, how do I get it off the device, email? lol.
February 19th, 2011 at 1:56 am
I took pics off the device with Bluetooth.
February 19th, 2011 at 6:10 am
lots of devices dont have bluetooth, pairing problems are common, its slow
at least 1 USB could be its saving grace, even over SD
February 18th, 2011 at 3:43 am
I think you can do so by sync with your laptop. :)
Only thing is you can only do so when you have your cable, and your laptop. Unlike now, when we can just send to the MicroSD.
It’s sad yes. Never thought I’d see the day Samsung follow the Apple way.
February 18th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
“Yes that’s 2256. Over 2x faster than the Galaxy Tab 7â€-er!”
Unless you actually own a 7″ one like me, with the ext4 filesystem mod and no overclock i am pusing that score anyway.
Some on XDA with the 1.4 clock are getting even more ;)
February 18th, 2011 at 6:48 pm
is this the final version that will be sent to the masses. Or will Samsung do what they did with the Galaxy S and thats differential per carrier( some with SD cards/ some without, some with memory configurations)
February 19th, 2011 at 1:57 am
This isn’t finished software. Expect Samsung apps and store, AllShare and other important Samsung features. Hence my warning about evaluating it on MWC reporter feedback.
February 22nd, 2011 at 5:49 pm
thanx
chippy
February 18th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
chippy that last message was addressed to u. any info?
thanx
February 20th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Hey Chippy,
With the Xoom being released in the U.S. on the 24th….
Which did you like better? Tab or Xoom?
Should I wait, or run out and buy a Xoom Thursday?
Thanks
February 21st, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Like I said, you can’t judge the tab 10 against the Xoom yet as the software isn’t finished. I seen a better experience on the Xoom so far but Samsung could catch up.