Posted on September 25, 2011 by Mitosh Mora // Tablet PCs

The long wait for Samsung Tablet v10.1 is finally out and the tab is happily playing in the big chunk of space in the playground made for it. As the only competitor was the iPad 2, which also looks outdated in front this Samsung Tablet. This review is of the limited version of v10.1.

The looks are classy. It has glossy white rear made of plastic; it feels tremendous to hold it, as it oozes only quality from corner to corner.

Hardware and Software

This elite Samsung Tablet is powered with the limited edition build of 1GHz Tegra 2 dual-core processor with display of 1280 x 800 resolution and has 3-mega pixel rear camera with flash and autofocus. It runs on the new Android OS 3.1 Honeycomb, Android claimed that this OS will be more faster than its rest and yes they are true its but only pinch quicker with transitions even more pinch faster. The browsing speed is remarkably faster. But considering all this the Android 3.1 is till not as powerful as Android 3.0.

The tablet weighs 565g with dimensions of 256 .6mm x 172.9mm and 8.6mm thick with a 3.5mm earphone jack over the right side of the tab. Stereo speakers are located on the right and left edge and the charging/data port is on the bottom.

The Wi-Fi has amazing speed; with brightness level at 65 it plays non-stop videos for almost 10 hours and put the brightness level to 55 and the play-time gets more extended till 11 hours, now that’s something isn’t it! It plays almost all formats of videos like H.264, MPEG4, DivX and even Flash. At 720p there was no strain on the system like the previous versions of Samsung Tablets had. The device doesn’t have 3G yet but is expected soon.

Calling and Data

The Samsung has no voice input in it. But you can use VoIP applications. Its USB supports many USB accessories. The virtual keyboard is no surprise that it is the best in messaging platform. As this tab lacks 3G capabilities there is no provision for picture and text messaging. It has no in-built support of Twitter and Facebook but you can install third party apps.

Apps and App Store

Here is where the 3.1 Honeycomb lacks, yes the app support is poor. There are very few apps available for this OS. As there are more than 200,000 apps but only few works properly, some works on full screen while some doesn’t works smoothly. And since Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is powered with Android 3.1 Honeycomb, there are pre-loaded apps, which can be synced with Google accounts and Exchange.

Browser

The version found in the latest tab OS from Android is quite different from the rest. Its completely different and easy to use, it has tabbed browsing just like the Chrome browser is on desktop. This browser supports Google Chrome’s Incognito mode. The browsing experience is quite good, the swiftness and accuracy is very well managed. But the Adobe Flash support is very rough, loading heavy sites with ads can quite irritating.

Battery

The Samsung Galaxy Tab is equipped with 7000mAh battery. After hours of using camera, recording videos, playing games and listening to music I was quite surprised that the tab was still alive. The drawback here is that it takes too much time get fully charged and cannot be charged using USB port from a laptop or desktop.

Price: The 16GB model cost at $499 (approximately) and the 32GB costs at $599 (approximately).

Coming to Pros and Cons
Pros: -

• Slim wide-screen
• Light weight
• Good camera quality and crisp HD videos
• Sturdy Build
• Fast hardware

Cons: –

• Very few apps
• So support for USB storage
• Some where the interface lags
• Browser doesn’t support all features of Adobe Flash

Editors Verdict:

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is best tablet in the market of tablets after iPad 2, but it has some features that outrun the iPad 2 and those features leaves me overwhelmed. I was expecting it would have the TouchWiz interface that was shown by Honeycomb this year.

Overall it is the king amongst other Android tablets but it would be more better if it had more apps. But I would advice you want to wait until the iPad 3 is finally out and then buy this Samsung Tablet after comparing.

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