Samsung Galaxy Tab impressions

Forum: LXer Meta ForumTotal Replies: 3
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jimbauwens

Dec 05, 2010
11:05 AM EDT
I have the luck to have a brother that works in a company that sells high end hifi devices. He has managed to take home a galaxy tab to test it! I never thought that I would have the posibility to hold one in my hands :) So, here are my impressions: The device itself is very robust, compareble to iPad. The screen is really nice, and the size is perfect, its not to small. The hardware overall is just perfect. It has a front facing camera (1,3mp) and a back facing camera(3,2mp) wich are ok. Its not like the 5mp camera in the HTC Desire, but its ok. The software is modified to fit on the larger screen, and is nice to work with. All the apps I installed from the Android Market also worked good on the larger screen, despite the fact that they were programmed for smaller screens. One thing that anoyed me really much was the default webbrowser, because it was really laggy. Even on LXer it was laggy, while there is nothing cpu intensive on it. I installed the fennec (firefox) browser, which worked a 1000 times better than the default browser. The browser was not the only thing that was laggy, some other apps also were not so smooth. I think this is an area where there has to be worked on, because the iPad, which has half the ram, doesn't have these problems. Overall I think that the its really nice, but with high price tag, there shouldn't be those little quirks. I will have the Galaxy Tab still for a while, so if you want to know something about it, you can just ask.
hkwint

Dec 05, 2010
5:27 PM EDT
I never ever touched a tablet, though I'd like to know if the screen is better than the one of the iPad?

The 'slow' experience was the reason the Toshiba tablet was pulled from some stores I believe, it just wasn't ready for prime-time. Let's hope such is not the case with the Galaxy tab. From what I understood, Samsung is doing expensive adds by sponsoring some TV programs to make the people in the TV programs use the device, so I'm curious how sales numbers will develop.
jimbauwens

Dec 06, 2010
7:21 AM EDT
I've been comparing the galaxy tab and the iPad, and both have really good screens. The galaxy tab is alot more crisp than then the iPad, but that normal, because the galaxy tab has a 7 inch 1024x600 screen, and the iPad has a 9,7 inch 1024x786 screen. When I look flat at the screen, I can see that they both have very good viewing angles, but the iPad screen is better.
JaseP

Dec 06, 2010
11:52 AM EDT
I have a $220 Nationite MIDnite Android tablet (re-branded Witstech A81-E). It has: * Cortex A8 processor * 256 MB RAM * 2GB Flash (upgradeable with its microSD slot) * 7" resistive screen * WiFi (not the best) * Bluetooth * GPS (a $15 buy-up) [Navit is free & works] * Extra battery (another buy-up, but note the removable battery) * Includes a semi-hard carrying case) * Android 2.2 (Froyo, & completely upgradeable) * No camera/mic (but supposedly has USB host w/ its mini USB port) * They (MP4Nation) are (were?) giving away free car charger kits & free shipping (2-3 weeks from China)

Impressions? Use the Dolphin browser vs. the default (no relation to KDE Dolphin). Use 3rd party firmware hacks vs. official firmware. Expect performance to be lackluster with Flash (need to install Flash 10.1 Beta for Android yourself). Expect the usual differences for Resistive vs. Capacitive screens). A real lack of productivity & note-taking Apps (no Android port of Xournal/Gournal/Jarnal, for example, & no Android version of Cellwriter). There's a bad spot on the LCD screen on mine (white spot w/ surrounding darkness, observable only at an angle, though).

Verdict? At ½ to ¼ the price of an iPad or Samsung Galaxy, I have 80-90% of their capabilities/performance. Any sacrifices are palatable. I don't know why anyone would pay $500 to $700+ for one of these ARM-based tablets. Plus, I'm considering getting a 10" for my wife, when the Cortex A8/Android 2.2 ones become available at a reasonable price.

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