amsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless Review
Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless Review
The Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless hits the infoSync labs. Read the full review here.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Overview
After the deluge of tablets that showered the Consumer Electronics Show a few weeks back, it has become apparent that 2011 will serve as the harbinger for more to come. The Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless is the company's first attempt at an iPad killer, and Samsung has done a bang-up job. However, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is not very far removed from the Galaxy S line of phones when it comes to its interface. Consider the Galaxy Tab as a Galaxy S that was stretched out in a taffy room to achieve a 7-inch TFT LCD screen and stuffed with a powerful 1GB Hummingbird processor to run rampant in a land of Android 2.2 with Flash 10.1 support. Yes, the Galaxy Tab is a power-packed Internet and 1080p-friendly multimedia machine, but does it have what it takes to compete with the iPad? Will it still find relevance amongst the burgeoning crop of tablets that include Motorola's new XOOM and Apple's upcoming iPad 2? Let's find out in this review.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Design
Samsung spared no expense with the design of the Galaxy Tab, which is a glossy sheet of goodness. The back of the Tab features a lightly textured dotted pattern with the 3.2-megapixel camera lens and flash as the only occupants. In front, the Samsung Galaxy Tab has a 7-inch TFT LCD with a 1024 x 600-pixel resolution and capacitive touchscreen technology. A row of haptic feedback-clad buttons line the bottom of the screen, consisting of Menu, Home, Back, and Search, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera is embedded above the top right of the screen.
External controls are minimal as well, just like most Galaxy S phones. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has a 3.5mm audio jack located on top and a pair of stereo speakers on the bottom, which bookend a proprietary 30-pin dock connector/battery charge terminal that's looking strikingly similar to that of Apple's. The Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless has a traditional Power/Lock button and Volume control on the right side, and a nice little surprise mounted below.
In place of a Camera button lives a MicroSD card slot that is capable of holding up to 64GB cards. Our Galaxy Tab came equipped with a 16GB MicroSD card, and having a modular media terminal is far superior to Apple's fixed internal GB capacity on the iPad. The Galaxy Tab is basically a Superman version of a Galaxy S phone when it comes to design.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Software and Interface
Things differ slightly when we look at the insides of the Samasung Galaxy Tab compared to a typical Galaxy S smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy Tab has a 1GHz Hummingbird processor with PowerVR SGX540 GPU, making the Tab one of the fastest devices on the market. Couple that with 512MB of RAM and Android 2.2 with Adobe Flash Player 10.1, and the iPad has met its match. The Galaxy Tab also offers EV-DO, Wi-Fi Wireless-N, and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity. For gaming, the Galaxy Tab offers a gyroscope and 1080p playback via DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, H.264, and more video containers.
We will say that the Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless offers the same immediate feel we get from a Galaxy S phone, only there are slight variations. For instance, we now have the ability to store up to 9 home screens, and we can pinch to minimize them all onto one screen with the ability to set any of them as the primary home screen. The Samsung Galaxy Tab operates fairly similarly in most other aspects. In order to add a Widget, Shortcut, or Folder, we just tapped on the screen and held in order to bring up a menu, and the classic drop-down menu at the top held all of our Power controls and updates. One thing we liked about the Galaxy Tab was the fact that it had Task Manager and Active Applications, allowing us to monitor and kill programs to conserve the battery.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab has a virtual QWERTY keyboard with Swype technology for quick input, but you'll have to get used to typing deliberately with your fingertips one at a time before you master its touchy input patterns. Even in landscape view, we couldn't get the hang of the Galaxy Tab's keyboard when it came to productive typing, so that's just one of the drawbacks to owning an Internet tablet.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Internet Browsing
Internet browsing is a much better experience on the Samsung Galaxy Tab than it is on a standard Galaxy S phone. First off, we can play YouTube videos and other Flash content in real time, right from within the page we're viewing. Usually, we end up having to view videos in YouTube anyway, due to the lag on an average Android 2.2-equipped phone, but not on the Galaxy Tab. Also, the Galaxy Tab has the ability to support up to 6 web pages being active at once, and we can even assign individual bookmarks to our home screens.
History, Most Visited, and Bookmark options are easy as pie to access, and the Galaxy Tab's ability to support pinch-to-zoom and double-tap-to zoom led to an excellent Internet browsing experience. Images could be saved to the MicroSD card or phone storage while browsing, and we could download most links/programs just like we could on a computer. Consider the Samsung Galaxy Tab Internet experience like Apple's, but without the restrictions.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Multimedia
With 1080p playback as discussed earlier, the Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless proved itself as a veritable movie machine, allowing us to take high-definition along with us anywhere we went. Of course, Verizon tossed in its V Cast Music and V Cast Song ID, VZ Navigator, and other Verizon moneymakers. Slacker Radio, Kindle for Android, BLOCKBUSTER On Demand presented by V Cast Video, and a trial version of "Let's Golf" came out of the box, but we would have appreciated a few free full games. That's where the Android Market comes in, allowing us to download oodles of games and other applications.
We really liked the Samsung Galaxy Tab's Music interface, which offered album art and organized songs. Albums, artists, genres, and more. We will warn you to monitor usage of multimedia like games and music while you're not using them, as they will drain the battery while lumbering in the background. Fortunately, the Samsung Galaxy Tab has a very good battery life that withstood a lengthy standby time and remained powered during a fairly heavy bout of usage throughout the day.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Camera
The main Achilles Heel on the Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless was its 3.2-megapixel camera, which cranked out a subpar performance. The Galaxy Tab also has a 1.3-megapixel front-mounted camera for self portraits and is capable of taking 720 x 480 Widescreen VGA videos, but that does not help the meager quality of the Samsung Galaxy Tab's digital imaging performance at all. We found that colors were pale, and the lens created a defocused haze around most of the subjects we captured.
We will say that there's nothing quite like carrying a 7-inch flatscreen monitor in your pocket, and we loved the ability to frame our shots with such a large panel. Oh, if only consumer camcorders and digital cameras offered such giant monitors! But alas, we're in the Tab world, so we can't have everything. The Gallery remains the same on the Galaxy Tab when compared to Galaxy S phones, and the camera interface contains a moderate amount of camera controls, including a Flash that acts as a video light.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Final Answer
The Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless is here, and it's giving the iPad something to quiver about. The Galaxy Tab may seem like a giant Galaxy S phone, as it is in Europe, but its Internet browsing, gaming, and productivity levels are on a level of their own when compared to a standard Android 2.2 phone. If you're stuck between the iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, we suggest considering the fact that the Galaxy Tab can connect to the EV-DO network. Also, the Galaxy Tab supports MicroSD cards for additional storage, offering the ability to mount the device as a computer and drag and drop files with ease. Yes, the screen is smaller on the Galaxy Tab, but its overall package edges the iPad out.
Either way you slice it, the Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless is a quality device, but if you're in a 4G LTE region, you might want to hold out for the 4G LTE Galaxy Tab. In the meantime, Motorola is bringing up the XOOM, and the iPad 2 is waiting in the wings. But if you want a tab right now, you can't go wrong with the Samsung Galaxy Tab for Verizon Wireless.
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