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Android Handhelds Hardware

A Deep-Dive Look At Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 264

Posted by timothy from the pleasant-news-from-the-ongoing-future dept.
MojoKid writes "Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 was announced way back in February this year just prior to Apple's iPad 2 launch. Shortly after, a Samsung VP noted the company was re-evaluating their Galaxy Tab line in the wake of Apple's strong iPad 2 showing in early March. Since then, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has begun shipping and early reports show the Android 3.1 driven device to be slightly thinner than the iPad 2, lighter and with NVIDIA's 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor under the hood, every bit as capable. With recent Honeycomb entrants in the 10-inch Android tablet market, like the Asus Transformer, Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the iPad 2 finally has solid competition in terms of both hardware and OS performance."
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A Deep-Dive Look At Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 More

A Deep-Dive Look At Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1

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  • Well (Score:3)

    by zero.kalvin ( 1231372 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @02:42PM (#36412514)
    "the iPad 2 finally has solid competition in terms of both hardware and OS performance." That's good news, more competition, better options for the rest of us.

    • Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @02:48PM (#36412556)

      Does it really mean that? This is Apple after all. People are going to buy the iPad2 over the other devices for any number of reasons--mainly the OS and the applications available for it.

      Personally I would much prefer an iOS device if I were to get a tablet simply because I already own an iPhone and I prefer the UI. While I don't enjoy using my Mac Mini (1st gen which really needs to be retired) simply because I prefer the application support available for Windows, nothing beats the iPhone IMO.

      Now, if the Tab had come $100 cheaper and offered me something MORE than what the iPad2 does, I would be all over it. But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support.

      YMMV.

      • Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)

        by amiga3D ( 567632 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @02:57PM (#36412598)

        If the samsung came with something like Meego or one of the touchscreen linux distros I'd be more interested. I'm underwhelmed by Android. The more I see it the less I like it. It's okay for phones but on larger devices it's not so good.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Divebus ( 860563 )

          The people I know with Android devices are (1) "anything but Apple" geeks, (2) buy only on initial price, (3) can't tell the difference between iOS, Android or anything else they're looking at or (4) don't really care (a rarity). I've helped these people set up their Androids for various things (mail accounts, ringtones, Wi-Fi access) and I get the "what were they thinking" feeling about how Android behaves. It's relatively clunky, vague, inconsistent, rigid and confusing compared to iOS across all the devi

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
            Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:Well (Score:4, Informative)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @10:04PM (#36415072)

          It's okay for phones but on larger devices it's not so good.

          As a matter of interest have you used Honeycomb? I tried it for the first time yesterday in an electronics store. It is so incredibly far removed from the Android on my phone that about the only thing I recognized on it was the Market App. It provided a very different experience entirely. So much as to say I wouldn't ever want Honeycomb running on a device the size of a phone.

      • Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)

        by blahbooboo ( 839709 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @03:02PM (#36412620)

        Now, if the Tab had come $100 cheaper and offered me something MORE than what the iPad2 does, I would be all over it. But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support.

        Exactly. It's not enough to match the ipad, it has to be CHEAPER than the ipad to be worthwhile for normal people.

        Not meant as flamebait, but I believe Android would never have gotten as popular as now if the iphone hadn't been limited to one carrier and priced higher than the android phones in the USA.

        • Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)

          by camperslo ( 704715 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @03:39PM (#36412806)

          Why can't they be much cheaper? These vendors got the OS for free. Most won't do huge ad campaigns. The CPUs cost far less than x86 Intel chips. It's not like the displays are made of anything extraordinary. With competition and SOCs, these could likely be in the price range of netbooks. Of course the margins would be fairly thin, but when they're Windows-netbook-like commodities without the price of Windows, that's how anything that isn't the hottest stuff should be priced.

          Hopefully seeing that the losers don't make any money will motivate companies to put out better products. Maybe someone will actually be smart enough to leverage the power of the user community, and release the full source so others can help polish/innovate to the next level.

          The lack of support for old Android products is shameful. Even if there is too little RAM to use the latest version of Android, all vendors should still have provided updates for things like security issues. Some units are being treated like they're disposable. They should be priced to match.

          And with some vendors putting out models that are a bit quirky or are otherwise duds, the previous generation models being cleared out ought to be dumped at really low ($100 - $200) prices.

          If Google is making ad money off of the OS, perhaps some hardware vendors should consider asking Google to pay them to use it? Maybe Microsoft shouldn't be the only one to pay to see its OS and search product installed?

          • Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)

            by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @04:10PM (#36413006)

            Why can't they be much cheaper?

            While some here on /. will refuse to admit, it actually is costly to make a tablet and get a decent margin on them. Most here would like a tablet to cost $150 and be able to run Crysis II while mixing 5.1 audio at the same time; there are limits to what tablets can do for a price. Some components like 10" screens are not plentiful as they have not been mass produced by many suppliers and are still limited to a few companies.

            The CPUs cost far less than x86 Intel chips. It's not like the displays are made of anything extraordinary. With competition and SOCs, these could likely be in the price range of netbooks. Of course the margins would be fairly thin, but when they're Windows-netbook-like commodities without the price of Windows, that's how anything that isn't the hottest stuff should be priced.

            Just because the CPUs may cost less does not mean the whole device is going to cost less. The touchscreen probably makes up for the difference in prices. Also form factor has a cost. Generally the smaller form factor costs more to manufacture. A manufacture could probably make a cheaper 1" thick tablet but no one is going to buy it next to thinner one.

            And with some vendors putting out models that are a bit quirky or are otherwise duds, the previous generation models being cleared out ought to be dumped at really low ($100 - $200) prices.

            One advantage that Apple has over their competitors is the vertical integration. They can sell the iPad at lower prices and still get a decent margin since they sell enough of them at retail to keep those margins.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mike_K ( 138858 )

            The reason they cannot be much cheaper is *because* they get the OS for free.

            None of the other vendors can match Apple on purchasing power alone, so they will have a hard time competing on cost for comparable hardware. And since Apple owns the software and the store that comes with it, they can sell the hardware below cost, and make it all back in the App Store, iTunes, etc.

            • samsung can, not only because they're HUGE, but also because they can make their own chips if they decide to ditch tegra2. remember that samsung is the current manufacturer of apple's Ax chips.

        • Not meant as flamebait, but I believe Android would never have gotten as popular as now if the iphone hadn't been limited to one carrier and priced higher than the android phones in the USA.

          The US isn't the only country in the world you know. Where I come from androids are still more popular, even though there are no carrier locks or anything like that (in fact, most mobiles are bought from a shop and then you put in the sim card, not bought as part of a contract)

      • Well, it means that people who do prefer the Android way of doing things, and (for some reason beyond my imagination) require a tablet-like device, will be able to get the product they want instead of resorting to their less-preferred Apple backup. I think it's a win for everyone. Definitions of "ease of use" and "interoperability" go both ways, naturally.

      • Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)

        by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @04:00PM (#36412944)
        I think it means that Apple competitors have now acknowledged that they can't rush out a buggy, incomplete tablet and hope it does well against the iPad. It has to be fairly complete when released instead at some future date. Consumers have short attention spans and first impressions matter.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • If that's the case then why did iPad 2 come out only ONE YEAR after iPad 1?

            The iPad 2 was probably being developed even before the original launched, because after 1 year, it was inevitable that serious competitors would start to appear, and the iPad would need a "bump" to maintain interest. It helps that the semiconductor industry is quite predictable (Moore's law and all that) so they can guess what components are going to be available and affordable 18 months down the line.

            Making the 2 a bit thinner, a bit lighter (dont diss the apparently small changes in size and weight unti

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by t2t10 ( 1909766 )

        But for the same price it's just not worth it to lose the ease of use, interoperability, and application support.

        Interoperability? With what? iOS is tightly locked down and it primarily "interoperates" with iTunes and (eventually) iCloud.

        Ease of use? That's rather dubious. iOS is a bit simpler because it's more limited. But ease of use ultimately needs to be measured in functionality per unit of UI complexity, not just UI complexity.

        Application support? There are more tablet apps for iOS to be sure, b

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bondsbw ( 888959 )

        Does iOS have real widgets (that you can change out for whatever you want... like wifi/3g/etc. buttons)?
        Does iOS have voice-recognition throughout?
        Does iOS currently have a split keyboard, or let you replace the stock?
        Do iOS devices support SD cards?
        Does iOS support a mouse?

        Disclaimer: I own both an iPhone and a Xoom, and the wife has an Android phone (HTC Aria). I don't see any reason to replace my iPhone anytime soon. But I cannot and would not try to claim that it has Android beat in all categories.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11, 2011 @02:58PM (#36412600)

    It's funny that these formerly PC performance sites decided to jump into the fray and began applying the gamer rig logic to tablets with pointless specs that don't explain anything of value to the average consumer.

    The correct question should be "does it have awesome native apps and games, support, and enough differentiation from the leading tablet to stand on its own?"

    So far, Android-based tablets don't. It's kind of a clusterfuck on that front. When carrier subsidy model is taken out of the equation you're left with bunch of spec-driven touch panels with goofy names.

  • I have one of these (Score:5, Informative)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @03:04PM (#36412634) Homepage

    I have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and I've also used a Xoom. Both are pretty comparable in terms of performance, which means not flawless (video occasionally appears to stutter a little bit) but acceptable. I like the thinness and light weight of the Galaxy Tab. My main beefs with it are:

    1. The onscreen keyboard kind of sucks, like most Android keyboards I've seen. It's slow, and I shouldn't have to toggle in and out of punctuation mode just to type an apostrophe.
    2. The touchscreen resolution doesn't seem very good. In Facebook, for example, next to the logo, there are three icons: A person, a cartoon speech bubble, and a globe. Mostly you'll want to click the globe to see your friends' latest updates. Clicking the globe on the Galaxy Tab is a chore and a half. It wants to select the speech bubble, every time.
    3. The built-in browser still renders pages strangely. It seems to want to reformat Web pages to fit the screen even when that option is not selected. And there are various other rendering quirks -- Slashboxes don't show up at all, for example, and the options in the top tab of Slashdot are scattered all over the place.
    4. The screen aspect ration is widescreen. That's great if you plan to use it to watch Shrek 2 from bed, but for everything else it sort of sucks. In landscape mode, the onscreen keyboard takes up half the screen real estate, making it hard to see what you're doing. In portrait mode, the screen is excessively long and narrow. The iPad uses a more traditional screen ratio that makes it more versatile.
    5. I'm just not so sure what's so great about this kind of device. A netbook is much easier to operate, is more versatile, and is almost as light. I can't see myself sitting on the bus with my Galaxy Tab like an asshole, so it's mostly going to stay at my apartment, where it just feels like a slower, harder to navigate version of the devices I already have.

    • licking the globe on the Galaxy Tab is a chore and a half. It wants to select the speech bubble, every time.

      Capacitive touch screens are inherently inaccurate, so selecting small items is always a problem. I think that iPad does better at guessing where you actually wanted to click by looking at the "shape" of the fingerprint.

      On Android, I like the way Opera Mobile handles this - if they can't figure out which of the two interactive elements you were trying to tap, they give you a list so that you can pick the one you want.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        I think that iPad does better at guessing where you actually wanted to click by looking at the "shape" of the fingerprint.

        I think that's also why I like the iPhone keyboard much better than any keyboard on any Android phone I've tried. Whatever it is, Apple is doing something right.

  • Not a fan boy, but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FyRE666 ( 263011 ) *

    I've yet to see anything on Android that gives a user-experience anywhere close to the iPad. I bought the original Galaxy Pad at about the same time I bought the iPad ; I've had it around 4 months, and can count on 1 hand the number of times I've used it. The interface just doesn't seem as though it can quite keep up with the user, slow to launch apps, just didn't take to it. The iPad (and now the iPad2) I use every day.

    Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of things I don't like about Apple - I hate iTunes wit

    • Re:Not a fan boy, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <`gro.daetsriek' `ta' `todhsals'> on Saturday June 11, 2011 @04:09PM (#36412998)

      The original Galaxy Tab runs Gingerbread. The Xoom, Transformer, and Galaxy 10.1 run Honeycomb. It is night and day different.

      Not to mention these tablets all have high performance Tegra 2 chips while the original Tab was running only a Hummingbird.

      You are basically saying you tried Windows 98 and hated it therefore Windows 7 has to be just as bad.

      I have an Asus Transformer and LOVE IT. It's an amazing machine, and I don't have the handcuffs on that my iPad-owning friends have.

      • You are basically saying you tried Windows 98 and hated it therefore Windows 7 has to be just as bad.

        Don't blame customers for their bad first impressions if you don't care enough about your brand to do right by them the first time.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Try using a netbook to type a message while standing up on a train/subway.

        I've yet to see anything on iPad that gives a user-experience anywhere close to a netbook at half the price .

  • What about the Eee Pad? (Score:3)

    by dogmatixpsych ( 786818 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @03:08PM (#36412648) Journal
    Looking at the results, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer comes out on top. I don't know how the designs compare but the Asus looks like a better deal, especially considering you can get a 32GB model for the same price as the 16GB Samsung. Neither at those price points is compelling enough to outdo the iPad 2 though. If they were $400 or $350, then they'd be compelling enough to get instead of the iPad. As the reviewers noted though, the tablet-centric apps just aren't there yet for the Android Market whereas there are a ton of useful iPad apps.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 )

      You can get a 16GB EEPad for $399.

      I think part of the thing these reviewers all miss is that every Android tablet has a MicroSD slot. There is no point paying $100 for 16 Gb of storage. It's highway robbery. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would get the 32GB version over the 16Gb version.

      This of course is very different from the iPad which has no such slot.

      • Well, that's only partially true - why do people bother RAIDing discs together instead of just burning their music and movies out to DVD or BR discs? It's more convenient.

        Up until a year and a half ago (actually, closer to two now), my phone had a uSD card slot. You know how often the memory got upgraded/swapped? Each time I bought a new phone. And, at that point, I was in for $100 for whatever the largest card was at the time (which, interestingly, was always half of what I could have gotten in an iPhone a

    • the tablet-centric apps just aren't there yet for the Android Market whereas there are a ton of useful iPad apps

      In truth, iPad-aware apps are more important for iPad, because iPhone-only apps run like crap on it (as it doesn't do proper scaling). Whereas on Android, 90% of all phone apps look acceptable on a tablet, and many actually look perfect (e.g. for a file manager I use Ghost Commander - a 2-pane classic FM - and it's a 2.x non-tablet-aware app, but it looks great on Transformer).

  • Where are the ARM based netbooks that run Ubuntu? And no, I don't mean the Asus Transformer at twice the price of an Atom based netbook.

  • I don't want to buy a "product" that I can't tinker with.

    I want to put my own version of Linux on it. I want to be able to open it up and put in more RAM, a bigger hard drive, replace the WIFI card, etc...

    I hate having to search the internet for custom ROMs. I hate not knowing which dodgy weirdo put together what ROM. I hate having the OS loaded in firmware...

    Give me a tablet form factor with an SSD drive and Ubuntu on it. I can actually USE this to do my homework. No, a text app doesn't replace OpenO

    • Re:Dear Companies making tablets, (Score:4, Informative)

      by RyuuzakiTetsuya ( 195424 ) <taiki.cox@net> on Saturday June 11, 2011 @03:46PM (#36412848)

      Dear technogeek,

      We want products that work first. Unfortunately this means locking down. We also outnumber you by a wide margin.

      Sorry

      -everyone else

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pulzar ( 81031 )

        We want products that work first. Unfortunately this means locking down. We also outnumber you by a wide margin.

        I guess all the PCs out there just don't work?

        • Re:Dear Companies making tablets, (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ColdWetDog ( 752185 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @05:10PM (#36413386) Homepage

          I guess all the PCs out there just don't work?

          They don't for a lot of people. You know, the ones that bought a random Windows laptop a few years ago to do email / browsing / Farmbook and now have them so infested with shovelware / spyware / viruses that it's "broken". These are the people slurping up iPads - they need an appliance, not a general purpose computing device.

          "We" are different and comprise a very small fraction of the consumer market. The market that powers the US economy for better or worse. THIS is Apple's claim to fame and fortune - the realization that everybody else was 'doing it wrong' in terms of the consumer computing experience. Now, Apple could have made it easier on "us" by having an expert mode in iOS and allowing sideloading. But they didn't (so the jailbreak community did). Sucks to be us but Steve don't care....

      • LOL... I'm 32. I'm LONG past the time where I enjoyed troubleshooting some stupid driver issue into the wee hours of the night... I just want things to work too. And you know what? They do. It's pretty nice really.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Dear Companies making tablets, (Score:5, Funny)

      by iluvcapra ( 782887 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @04:04PM (#36412962)

      Dear whistlingtony

      We, the Companies Making Tables, primarily care about selling 100,000 units at a time to Verizon and Best Buy. We do whatever they need in order to make those tablets disappear off their shelves, causing them to order more tablets. Also if Verizon says that a Blockbuster app and VZ navigator will help them sell tablets, we always take their word for it and make sure the gear does exactly as they say, because they're our customer (a much bigger customer than you I might add), and much better at turning 100,000 tablets into retail sales than we are.

      We do know these folks called "Apple," and they make tablets and are really good at turning them into money on a retail basis, but they basically agree with us on several of the lockdown issues for support and market positioning reasons. They hate carriers and channel resellers, though, so they never do what they tell them to do with their tablets, elitists!

      Thank you for your concerns, we'll refer them to our marketing department.

      Signed, Companies Making Tables

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bjwest ( 14070 )

      What you want is a slate computer, not a tablet. Tablets are designed to be light weight devices for somewhat dedicated use (web surfing, email, books, video, etc..), and specialized software. You go throwing in a hard drive (even ssd) and a full blown OS, you're going to need more power (both processor and battery) for it to work.

    • I don't want to buy a "product" that I can't tinker with.

      Unfortunately the vast majority of consumers don't. Why should companies spend R&D and expend effort to serve a small minority of the population instead of a larger one?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Give me a tablet form factor with an SSD drive and Ubuntu on it ... Give me HDMI out and a real USB port... I'll plug in a seperate monitor, mouse, and keyboard when I need to do my homework.

      For the most part, what you've described is Asus Transformer [asus.com]. The only exception is that you can't easily install Ubuntu in dual-boot on it today. You can install Ubuntu in chroot under Android and VNC into it, but it's not particularly fast (though it does let you run OpenOffice when you really need it).

      That said, as soon as we get nvflash, we should be able to do full dual-boot [xda-developers.com] on that thing.

  • But what about the price performance? These devices are all priced at the same level or even above than the iPad. All things being equal, the larger market of the has a network effort bonus that maks the iPad appear more valuable. Even the summary states these tablets are, "every bit as capable", in the technology sense, meaning the tech between the two is basically even. Once these Android tablets can offer a device cheaper than an iPad, then we can talk about serious competition.

  • *cough*advert!*cough* (Score:3)

    by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 ) on Saturday June 11, 2011 @04:12PM (#36413014)

    Another Slashvertisement! Ready pitchforks!!!!

    • Another Slashvertisement! Ready pitchforks!!!!

      You seem like an angry young man. Perhaps this article has touched an unmet need that you are unconsciously rebelling against.

      Would you like some Kool-Aid?

  • Stupid joke aside, I own multiple iOS devices (wife & I have iPads) and have had several Android devices (Evo, currently G2, son has a myTouch) and a 7" Sammy tablet - now that was Froyo, but I returned it in 2 days because it was like a bigger, crappier version of my Evo (which had gingerbread on it at the time). I have not tried a Honeycomb or 3.1 device, optimized for the tablet - and don't know if I will anytime soon. The application support is just too deep on iOS for the iPad. Not much for tablet

  • stupid lack of USB and HDMI connectors.

    Lack of HDMI stops me properly showing off at a friends house in plugging it into his TV cos I left my magic Samsung cable at home.

    So that's not going to help my friend want to buy one.

    And as I read through the review I thought "yes! at last! One I can buy! Yahoo!" until I saw that stupid cable business. I went through magic vendor proprietary cables with HTC and it's a pain and I'm not doing it again.

    Bad luck Samsung, maybe one of your competitors won't be so dumb, I'

  • I have both device type, as for competition, that doesn't rely on just hardware, the average person is buying iOS for the total package, because they are lazy, the same reason people buy windows. Android is cheap, but with may flavours, and only few devices getting upgrades, it will only ever compete on price.

  • most of the people i know who owns android devices bought them for 2 reasons:

    - price
    - don't need itunes

    thing is, itunes on windows doesn't HAVE bugs. IT IS a bug. my friends and coworkers that own iphones dislikes it and would ditch it at the first oportunity. up until now, since itunes was necessary so you could just use the damn phones as phones was a deal breaker for most people.

    but even now that apple partially caught up with times and made it possible to activate the phones without using that POS appli

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Now would be a good time to put history in perspective. The money was not much as important to Apple as the guarantee that MS not to stop producing software for Mac OS. For MS they needed to get the US government off their backs about the whole antitrust and monopoly thing. Well it didn't work as they sued a year later. But you're right, let's only see things from a pro-MS/anti-Apple perspective.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • So therefore why didn't Apple say "Thanks anyway but we don't need your money, Microsoft".

          Did you actually read what I wrote? Apple needed MS to promise to keep making software for them like Office. They didn't need the money. An agreement is a contract especially when money changes hands. They didn't need the money. At the time, Apple was sitting on $1.163 B in cash [apple.com]. Cash not accounting for other assets. The wired article didn't seem to take that into account that while Apple was not profitable that year, they were still solvent.

          Incidentally, as a Linux person who has never, in 30 years of computing never come across one Apple product that I've considered buying, would you not welcome the pragmatic views of an outsider to both the Microsoft and Apple camps? You fanbois have a very blinkered view of reality - i.e. being anti-Apple means pro-Microsoft.

          In a thread that has nothing to do with the 1997 agreement

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