Samsung Galaxy Tab - A Tough Competitor

Samsung Galaxy Tab

 
Almost a year ago, Apple’s iPad announcement and the excitement it generated acted as a wake up call for manufacturers. The fact that over 100 tablets are expected to be launched in 2011 itself, shows the rise in demand of the segment. Like each Apple product, manufacturers started to launch their offerings to counter the iPad, but other than the Samsung Galaxy TAB, there was nothing that could actually be a worth competitor.

Looks & Ergonomics

The Galaxy TAB has a 7inch display on the front with touch sensitive android buttons at the bottom. On the side is the power/hold button, volume controls as well as microSD and SIM card slot. The front bezel is glossy much to our dislike, though the white color on the back gives the tablet and elegant look. Another thing that we did not like was the fact that the white color tends to get dirty. The tablet also sports a rear camera as well as a front camera. The 30-pin proprietary connectivity port is present at the bottom.
The TAB scores in terms of ergonomics as even though its bezel is thicker than the iPad, it fits snuggly in the hand owing to its overall dimensions.  The tablet weighs a mere 400g, almost half of the iPad and this makes it very easy to carry around. Using the tablet by holding it in one hand and working on the touch-screen with the other allowed for faster interaction.

Display

Samsung Galaxy Tab

The TAB comes with a 7 inch TFT display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The display is bright and has rich colors with excellent sharpness due to the resolution. The 1024 x 768 resolution allows for enough screen estate on the display to have multiple icons and various widgets to be placed. The tablet employs haptic feedback for the touch-screen and it proved to be an asset, especially while using the onscreen keyboard. Though, the Apple iPad has a superior display without doubt.

Hardware & Software

The Galaxy TAB runs on a 1GHz Cortex A8 Application Processor with PowerVR SGX540 graphics. It comes with 16/32 GB storage on-board with microSD slot supporting up to 32GB cards. The tablet comes with 512MB RAM and also features 128MB dedicated application memory for the graphics! It has 3G, WiFi as well as Bluetooth connectivity.
The tablet runs on Android OS 2.2 with flash 10.1 support. It comes preloaded with various applications such as Reader’s hub, Social HUB, Thinkfree office document reader, swype, MapmyIndia aura navigation as well as augmented reality apps.

Multimedia

The TAB impresses in terms of its multimedia capabilities. The 7-inch tablet is great to watch videos or play games. The sound output from the speaker is good, but not extraordinary irrespective of music, movies or voice calls. It boasts of SoundAlive 3DAudio, which provides for 5.1-surround sound experience on the tablet when using headphones, but its best to have this switched off.
The device features a 3 MP camera at the rear that clicks good pictures in daylight, but otherwise indoors or in darker environments the noise becomes visible on the display screen itself. The front camera is a 1.3MP snapper, which is good enough for video calling. The rear camera also records videos in 480 x 320 resolution that is good enough for occasional usage. The camera is one of the biggest advantages that the TAB sport over the iPad currently as the iPad lacks any camera.

User Interface

Coming to the UI, the TAB runs on standard Android 2.2 OS. Although, the navigation is zippy and the overall experience is smooth, the 1024 x 600 resolution is not a standard for Froyo. The UI feels no different than that on the Galaxy S in a lot of ways and due to the same applications, the TAB just feels like using a bigger phone. The visible difference comes in app such as mails and calendar where the split screen interface comes into play making it easier to work on the tablet.
Interestingly, the TAB can also be used as a phone! It comes with a dialler interface as well as an SMS application! Though, we doubt anyone would use it by holding the device next to their ear. The TAB has flash 10.1 support and will also support HTML5 which makes the device a much better option for browsing compared to the iPad.

Conclusion

The TAB gave us a battery backup of just over 6 hours spent in browsing, listening to music, watching movies, occasional snaps and social networking with constant WiFi connectivity. Like the iPad, even the TAB takes its own sweet time to recharge (over 2 hours) once the battery gets low which is something to work on.
Samsung’s Galaxy TAB is perhaps the only alternative we can suggest at the moment for the Apple iPad tablet. It scores on a number of factors such as portability, cameras and price, but in the end it just feels like a giant Galaxy S due to the apps and interface. Interestingly, Samsung also mentions it as Smartphone instead of a Tablet on their site.

Specifications

7 inch multi-touch display
1024 x 600 pixel resolution
1GHZ Cortex A8 Application Processor
PowerVR SGX540 graphics
16/32GB internal storage + microSD slot
Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system
3G, WiFi, Bluetooth connectivity
3MP rear camera + 1.3MP front camera
380g weight