Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

So here it is, in our lab at last: Samsung's long-awaited riposte to the Apple iPad has finally made it.  It officially went on sale at the start of August, but getting hold of a Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been a tricky business ever since.  Given all of the legal wranglings over patents between Apple and Samsung, saying that the Tab has had a bit of a rough start is something of an understatement.

After being banned, it subsequently went on sale according to certain conditions, but with the constant threat of a new ban.  It's now available everywhere apart from Germany.  We were very impressed when we got the chance to play with a Galaxy Tab 10.1 back in July, but we've now—finally—managed to get our hands on one.

 

In technical terms, very little separates the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from the majority of other 'high-end' tablets running Android Honeycomb with a 10.1'' form factor.  That means it gets a 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage.

For connecting to the outside world, there's a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a proprietary charger ... and that's it!  There's no microSD card slot or anywhere to provide your own SIM, nor is there any kind of USB port, let alone a HDMI output.  Samsung seems to be playing Apple at its own game, maintaining a closed system that forces users to buy extra accessories.

The display is one area where Samsung has innovated, making the switch to its own PLS technology, a custom version of IPS.  The WiFi version of the original Galaxy Tab was the first tablet to feature a PLS display back in the spring.

Design

Samsung definitely hasn't lost any of the 'wow' factor with this latest generation tablet.  It's a very thin 8.46 mm and is incredibly light for its size at just 547 g, compared to an average of 650 g for similar tablets.  The eye-catching design leaves you feeling like you've got an LCD monitor in the palm of your hands, and it's hard to believe that the display only measures 10.1''.  The Tab is light enough to make holding it a breeze.


Turn it over, and you'll see the glossy white rear and a 3 Megapixel camera bolstered by an LED flash, something of a rarity on a tablet.  The Tab 10.1 is so thin and so packed with hardware that the case fits snugly, but it's still primarily made of plastic, albeit decent quality plastic.  To make the inevitable comparison with its nearest rival, the iPad has always had an aluminium exterior without costing much more.

The two outputs—the 3.5 mm line out and the proprietary port for charging and connecting the Tab to a PC—are flush with the frame.  Samsung also includes an adaptor with a USB 2.0 port, which, in case you were wondering, is also true of the 'other' tablet.  Other adaptors are available, including an SD card reader and a HDMI output, but both require you to connect the tablet to a charger.


Once we'd spent a little bit of time with it, we were left in no doubt as to the fact that Samsung envisions its customers using the Galaxy Tab 10.1 indoors most of the time.  The screen is wide enough to share with several people, but the portrait mode isn't up to much.

Screen

So what of that PLS display that Samsung is so proud of? Is it a real improvement on the IPS technology found on other tablets like the Apple iPad, the Asus Transformer and Slider, the LG Optimus Pad or the Motorola Xoom.  In some ways, yes ... but in others, no.

To start with contrast, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a contrast ratio of 1081:1, higher than any IPS model, the iPad 2 included.  The viewing angles are just as wide, and that's true in every direction.

We're used to Samsung's mobile devices giving our colour testing equipment a hard time, and the same thing happened when we measured the Galaxy Tab 10.1's deltaE score; this figure, which should be as close to 0 as possible, represents the accuracy with which colours are reproduced.  At 8.2, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 can't really rely on the excuse that it's a tablet for such a poor performance as the only colours that are vaguely well handled are red and black.

Furthermore, the Tab's screen inaugurates a whole new problem for tablet displays: a warm colour temperature.  At 5222 K, the screen has a strong red tinge, unlike the majority of other tablets which are dominated by blue.

One area where the Tab's PLS display can beat its IPS competitors is with low response times.  It has an average ghosting time of 20 ms, right in the middle of the expected range of values for this technology.  All told, PLS technology comes out of its first big product looking rather good.

Another aspect to bear in mind is the powerful LED backlighting which helps achieve a maximum brightness of 355 cd/m², but which is anything but even.  There can be as much as 15-20% difference between the centre of the screen and the edges in terms of brightness.

The media player has an 'Outdoor' mode, which is supposed to make watching video under natural light easier.  In reality, that means the Tab boosts the brightness as much as it can and abandons any pretence at reproducing colours accurately to produce an ultra-saturated picture.  Give it a go indoors to see what we mean, but don't expect it to be that much use if you actually go outside.

Still, with brightness turned up as far as possible, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 can more or less beat the twin enemies of natural light and the glossy finish on its PLS display.

Interface and navigation

Let's start by looking at Android Honeycomb: the Galaxy Tab 10.1 ships with version 3.1, but an update to version 3.2 is promised soon.  Flipping between the different tools, apps and widgets is fast, easy and almost flawless.  It's definitely one of the smoothest user experiences we've ever had on a tablet.  (To give you a little teaser, we would have said that it's the smoothest interfaces if we hadn't already tried the Sony S).

However, the combination of a slick design, glossy interface and garish colours leaves you feeling like you're dealing with something slightly more powerful than a tablet that ultimately doesn't really do much more than other Honeycomb devices like the Asus Transformer.
 

What makes the Galaxy Tab 10.1 stand out—just like its 7'' cousin—is the inclusion of Samsung's TouchWizz interface, first designed for the firm's mobile phones.  Even Google's basic menus have been made more user-friendly, right down the Settings app you can see below.  There are also direct links to your favourite contacts and social networks, which are all aggregated into a single app.  Whether you like the look or not, if you've tried the Galaxy S II or another Samsung smartphone, you're not likely to get lost.
 

But Samsung hasn't just tweaked the look and feel of Honeycomb on the Galaxy Tab 10.1: it's also added its own apps in a range of hubs, including the Kids Hub, the Reader Hub, the Video Hub and the Music Hub, all of which come with a pre-installed set of apps.  The first of these, for example, is testament to Samsung's partnership with Nickelodeon and has a whole bunch of games featuring Dora the Explorer, including, songs, games and (rather ropey) video.  It should keep the little ones happy without the parents having to do too much work.


The Reader Hub features electronic books and the Realy app, which now offers offline reading, while the Music Hub features content from MTV and a webradio app.  Finally, the Video Hub includes apps provided by online VOD services.


Finally, there are six shortcuts to basic apps like the calculator and the calendar that you can access at any time.  We had thought that we wouldn't make much use of them given that Android Honeycomb offers multi-tasking, but they turned out to be pretty handy.  We especially liked the Note app, which works either with the keyboard or by drawing straight onto the screen.

Multimedia

The first version of the Galaxy Tab had a built-in browser that was slower than most of its competitors, but here Samsung has been able to fall back on the progress made by Google with the recent version of Android.  The entire architecture of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 revolves around the web, and the user experiences is as impressive as with the Asus Transformer.  Let's be clear: we mean good—very good—mobile browsing.  But the Galaxy Tab goes one better, rendering pages more accurately than any other Honeycomb tablet in both portrait and landscape orientations because Samsung has set the default zoom at an appropriate level. 

Samsung hasn't changed tack on multimedia, and has even managed to make a few small tweaks to what was already an excellent media player on the first version of the Galaxy Tab.  Like many of the brand's televisions, you can throw just about any kind of audio or video format at it and it will decode it without the slightest complaint.  We even managed to play AC3 and FLAC files that mobile devices often struggle with.  As with the original tab, HD video works up 1080p, as long as the file itself isn't any larger than 4 GB.
 

If you want to watch videos with subtitles, then you should know that support for formats like SUB and SRT is there, but is turned off by default.  Once you've opened your video, all you need to do is turn them using the menu, and you then have a choice over the size of the text.

The camera itself is less impressive.  Samsung has decided to make the Galaxy Tab as slim as possible, but that means there's no room for the 8 Megapixel camera which we were initially promised.  With just 3 Megapixels to play with instead, the camera in the final version gives it its best shot, but that still isn't good enough, even if it is a slight improvement on the 3 Megapixel camera found in the original Tab.


When you get up close and personal, the flash leads to over-exposure, while dark areas are under-exposed almost all of the time.  Such a basic sensor can never hope to pick out many details, but a careful blurring and accentuation of the contours keeps things looking reasonable without causing too much damage.  You should think of this as a third choice camera, in case your usual second choice—your smartphone—isn't available for some reason.

Battery Life

Apparently there's a 7000 mAh hidden somewhere inside the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (though we're not sure where) which should give it enough oomph to last as long as the best of the bunch.  Samsung lived up to our hopes by actually delivering some great battery life: the Galaxy Tab 10.1 lasted an average of 7 hours 45 minutes while looping video, but can extend that for another 30 minutes if you turn off WiFi.

If your usage pattern is more varied and includes a mixture of browsing, communication, games, video and apps, then you should find that your Galaxy Tab 10.1 lasts well over eight hours in most cases.  Only games and video heavy apps like those in the Video Hub risk leaving you reaching for the charger.  If you do, you'll find that charge times are just about average: you can expect to wait less than three hours before your Tab is ready to roll again.