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Samsung just delivered another broadside against Apple in the tablet wars. After unveiling a 7-in. Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab, late last year to what became an underwhelming customer response, the Korean company upped its game, announcing a 10-in. version running a better operating system. The Tab 10.1 will be one of the lightest tablets in an increasingly crowded marketplace, and it runs Honeycomb, the next-generation version of Android optimized for tablets. It ships this spring in Europe and Asia; no U.S. launch date has been announced yet.
Here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Tab 10.1 is attracting more buzz than just about any other device, especially after pictures were leaked at the weekend. So is it worth the wait? I made a beeline for the Samsung booth to find out.
An important disclaimer up front: I’m a hard-core iPad user, so any tablet I use is inevitably going to be viewed through that lens. But I’m also not best pleased with the lack of features Apple left out of the first generation iPad (and the lack of new features currently being reported in iPad 2), so I’m prepared to be impressed by its rivals.
Speaking of lenses, that’s one of the first things you notice about the Tab 10.1: an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. The dual-core Nvidia chipset, new for the 10.1, means it can support HD video recording at an impressive 24 frames per second. The happiest experience I had, and this was true for other show attendees I watched playing with the Tab, was taking snapshots, recording videos, and playing with the camera settings. Had video chat been possible on MWC’s spotty wifi coverage, I suspect we would have enjoyed that too. Take that, Apple!
But that, unfortunately, is as good as it gets with the Tab 10.1. Every positive feature of the device comes with a large “but.” Yes, it is supremely light at 1.3 lbs, but it achieves that weight with a cheap-looking plastic faux metal. Yes, the form factor is thin at 0.43 in wide, but that doesn’t take into account the unevenness of the back. Yes, the back has a rugged texture that stops the Tab from slipping out of your hands, but it also gets as hot as a laptop in one corner, which is presumably where the dual-core processors are being thrashed. (One thing you notice about the iPad is that it almost never gets hot, even when you leave the thing out in the sun.) Are you going to want to lean back with a burning device, even if it is only partially burning?
Then there’s the Honeycomb interface, which I’m afraid I and other attendees found to be a confusing mess. The home screen is way too crowded with widgets. The basic app screen is hard to find, as are other important features within apps — such as how to see the photo or video you just captured from the camera screen. Like a lot of Apple tablet rivals, Samsung has seen fit to make their device as button-free as possible; you won’t find anything like the iPad’s all-important home button here to get you straight to your apps. Getting home involves pressing the on-screen back button several times, in the style of a browser. And let’s not mention the several times the Launcher application crashed, which I’ll put down to teething troubles with Honeycomb.
To Samsung and Google’s credit, there is a smoothness to this interface that was lacking in the first Galaxy tab. Scrolling — through slideshows, through app screens, through libraries — is fairly seamless. I enjoyed turning pages in the Book app far more than I do in Apple’s iBooks. The touchscreen was responsive enough. I look forward to trying this device again when it’s closer to a U.S. release. But on first impressions, this hot little device is not going to tempt me away from the iPad’s icy grip.
Samsung just delivered another broadside against Apple in the tablet wars. After unveiling a 7-in. Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab, late last year to what became an underwhelming customer response, the Korean company upped its game, announcing a 10-in. version running a better operating system. The Tab 10.1 will be one of the lightest tablets in an increasingly crowded marketplace, and it runs Honeycomb, the next-generation version of Android optimized for tablets. It ships this spring in Europe and Asia; no U.S. launch date has been announced yet.Here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Tab 10.1 is attracting more buzz than just about any other device, especially after pictures were leaked at the weekend. So is it worth the wait? I made a beeline for the Samsung booth to find out.
An important disclaimer up front: I’m a hard-core iPad user, so any tablet I use is inevitably going to be viewed through that lens. But I’m also not best pleased with the lack of features Apple left out of the first generation iPad (and the lack of new features currently being reported in iPad 2), so I’m prepared to be impressed by its rivals.
Speaking of lenses, that’s one of the first things you notice about the Tab 10.1: an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. The dual-core Nvidia chipset, new for the 10.1, means it can support HD video recording at an impressive 24 frames per second. The happiest experience I had, and this was true for other show attendees I watched playing with the Tab, was taking snapshots, recording videos, and playing with the camera settings. Had video chat been possible on MWC’s spotty wifi coverage, I suspect we would have enjoyed that too. Take that, Apple!
But that, unfortunately, is as good as it gets with the Tab 10.1. Every positive feature of the device comes with a large “but.” Yes, it is supremely light at 1.3 lbs, but it achieves that weight with a cheap-looking plastic faux metal. Yes, the form factor is thin at 0.43 in wide, but that doesn’t take into account the unevenness of the back. Yes, the back has a rugged texture that stops the Tab from slipping out of your hands, but it also gets as hot as a laptop in one corner, which is presumably where the dual-core processors are being thrashed. (One thing you notice about the iPad is that it almost never gets hot, even when you leave the thing out in the sun.) Are you going to want to lean back with a burning device, even if it is only partially burning?
To Samsung and Google’s credit, there is a smoothness to this interface that was lacking in the first Galaxy tab. Scrolling — through slideshows, through app screens, through libraries — is fairly seamless. I enjoyed turning pages in the Book app far more than I do in Apple’s iBooks. The touchscreen was responsive enough. I look forward to trying this device again when it’s closer to a U.S. release. But on first impressions, this hot little device is not going to tempt me away from the iPad’s icy grip.
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