Galaxy Tab Review
 

Samsung Galaxy Review

My personnel opinion on the Galaxy Samsung Tab - November 17th 2010

First impressions of the Tab are that the weight is slightly lighter than an Ipad, and I'm not going to keep on comparing it to an Ipad to make out that one is better than another, I'm only putting the two side by side as a comparison, because the people that will buy a galaxy tab, will probably be the same people who want an Ipad.


it's bulky basically, it's not an ipad, "here I go again". however, that’s all I can fault with the design. the size of the screen is very impressive and the quality is excellent.


the touch sensitive screen lets you flip between pages very smoothly, and I own an Ipod Touch which I really like, but this is far more smoother.
You have 4 main buttons on the side to allow you to access the main features quickly, Home, Settings, Back Button, and Search. you also have your volume settings on the side, and the power button.


A neat feature I've not seen on anything similar is the sim card slot. you just open it, insert your sim, and that’s it, there's no taking the back off and removing the battery, so for simplicity, that gets a thumbs up.


you also have a Micro SD card slot which works similar, and this will allow you to add more storage space, or use a micro SD to transfer content to the 16gb already installed, you could in fact add a 32gb Micro SD if you wanted, and in 12 months time you could probably double that.


when you turn the system on you will notice it boots very quickly, and immediately you are aware of how smooth the motion between pages are, it comes across to me "Idiot Proof" because everything you want is there ready.


The browser was the first thing I opened, and of course being me I didn’t set the wifi up first, and I didn’t read the manual so I hit the settings button, and a list of options popped up including the wifi settings, again, this is idiot proof, and I was connected to google in about 4 minutes from turning it on.
one thing that did annoy me was the factory settings for power consumption, one minute the screen was bright and wonderful, the next it was dull. to be quite honest it was annoying, but again it was easily solved to suit my needs.


accessing websites was no problem, unlike the Ipad or Ipod you "CAN" view flash pages, it doesn’t ask you to download anything just to view a specific webpage, its just like surfing the net on the desktop.


the market is easy to access, lots of games and applications, and it seems a bit cheaper than the apple store, as for the quality of any specific applications, I cant say, but I did download a golf game and that was really cool and way better than any games I downloaded for my Ipod. again, im not dissing apple, just my opinion.

the galaxy does come with some trailer videos, and music, similar to you starting a PC up and accessing Media player. the video is good, but im not sure I would want to sit and watch a full 2 hour movie on the galaxy, but saying that, its way better than anything I have seen on similar devices. my opinion on the video playback would have to go to the Ipad, mainly because of the large display that the Ipad has, but that’s about it, 7 inches is fine and its crystal clear, so I wouldn’t buy an Ipad just for Video, in that instance I would just buy a portable DVD player.


Music quality was excellent even without headphones, very crisp, and really loud on full volume. It was so loud that I didn’t believe it, and ended up ringing someone to see if the speakers were that loud on voice calls. they were. my girlfriend could hear my conversation with my mother in the bedroom at the other end of the house, but equally impressive was the fact the mic could pic up everything clearly, so even though I was talking with it next to me, it was clear at the other end, and if my girlfriend said anything, that was also clear, massive thumbs up for that, really impressed.


I don’t know how many people have facebook, but once you connect to facebook you can automatically import everyone on your friends list into the phone, and it just imports them so you can connect to them however you wish, Via Phone, Texting, Vedeo Calling, E-Mail, its pretty quick to do any of the options, and again it’s a very neat idea but not something that Samsung have invented, I've also seen this done on the Ipod and Ipad, the way you can connect to them is new though.


Basically, you tap a friend and you can choose to call them or text them, and when you text them and they reply, you have a kind of chat room interface with speech bubbles, so you don’t need to view previous messages, it's not mind blowing brilliant but it's better than the normal boring way of doing things, and I feel it's an addition to the way you text.
you can rotate the screen 360 degrees and it just follows you, I havent seen it stick yet, and 4 days in to my Ipod I saw it get stuck a few times.
The power consumption is nice, you can actually view what applications are using the most from the main screen, it basically tells you using colours what's causing the most power drain, and you can just end it in one click, you can also set the tab to end unwanted or unused applications that are using power.


I've found its hard to keep track of what you open, but again I found this with the Ipod, sometimes when you open something and you think you have ended it, you find its still running, but this feature lets you know straight away that you havent by telling you that it's running and it's using up battery power.


the battery was charged when I got it, and ive used it for about 4 hours, and it still has about 1 hour left (Estimate), so that’s pretty good going considering I havent charged it up myself, and ive had a good mess with it.
The maps feature is my next big thing, I love it. I used to have a Dell Streak and it was similar, but this just blows it away, you can literally sit and play with the maps for hours and not get bored.


Basically, in a nutshell, you open the maps, it homes into you via GPS, it tells you what's near you, displays your house via street viewing technology, its got all the traffic updates via 3G, its awesome. You don’t need a Tom Tom, its better than a Tom Tom.


I wouldn’t say the Maps feature was new, but I will say the options are new. The simplicity of it all makes it worthwhile. I didn’t know there was people up my road with businesses but they showed up on the map and I could call them or email them, so I will say that in my opinion was pretty cool, and you can just imagine driving around somewhere you don’t know and you fancy a burger, and it shows you how far you are, and allows you to call the place up before you get there, who's hungry?

Is it a phone though? It’s a bit big to be classed as a phone, but it is a phone. People used to call my 5 inch Dell Streak a brick, and it was. If an Ipad had a phone feature it would be classed by many as over the top, and in all fairness I would say the Galaxy is over the top, but only if you bought it as a Phone.


I know that’s a bit confusing but it's not actually just a phone, it can also be used as a mobile phone, and I think that anyone that wants to get an Ipad will benefit more from this, if like me, you want to use it as a phone.
But if you forget the fact it's a phone, what do you have? An Ipad in my opinion, just a bit smaller, it's able to load flash which is better for the internet, it supports 3G so you can use it anywhere, the Video quality is excellent, Music is amazing, you can rig it upto a TV, or PC, Totally expandable in terms of storage. And the applications you can download are limitless.


It's not an Ipad, we know that, but what differentiates this with an Ipad? And this is my view, and review, and I can honestly say there's nothing that this cant do that an Ipad can do except play flash, and you can use it as a phone. The features and simplicity of the Galaxy makes it a winner for me, it really is idiot proof.


I'm glad I got this over the Ipad, and if anyone wants a smartphone with a touch screen that’s big but not too big, then this isnt for you, because as just a phone it is too big, but the rest is amazing, even my Dell was too big. I would settle for the Galaxy S for a smartphone rather than this, but the Apple Phones just as good.


Ipad or This……………….This, based on functionality, ease of use, and functions.

Also, there's a prototype of this in the making for a 10" version, which would blow the Ipad away if its as good as this.