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

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."

Comments

Well

[zero.kalvin]

"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

[garcia]

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

[amiga3D]

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:Well

[blahbooboo]

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

[PCM2]

Why do ppl always claim IPad has more apps for it ? Knowing the filtering with respect to installing software on the ipad as well as the almost mandatory use of objective C and the limitations in the available API sets to access hardware ... why whould it carry or have the capability to carry more software than an andoid device ?

Because more people write iOS apps than Android apps? Because the iTunes App Store has more apps in it than the Android Market? This is a strange question. Sure, people could theoretically write more apps for Android than iOS... but they don't.

Re:Well

[Kral_Blbec]

Unless you are going to install every app in either market, that is a moot point. Most of the apps in both are worthless.

Re:Well

[iluvcapra]

The $429 16GB Galaxy Tab you're looking at is not the 10.1, but the small-screen kind. The price of a 16GB Galaxy Tab 10.1 with no 3/4G is $499, identical to the iPad 2.

Re:Well

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Um, the ipad can connect to both HDMI and VGA monitors now. Sure, you do have to buy adapters but you have to do so for many android devices too.

Re:Well

[iluvcapra]

That's not completely reasonable -- Android is free to be used on any carrier network and by any handset manufacturer, so I'm told this spurs competition and improves consumer choice.*

If there are six people writing mortgage interest calculator apps instead of two, it's pretty clear which market has better competition and consumer choice. The fact that 3rd party developer revenues on the Android store are significantly less than on Apple's store, leading to less developer interest, less choice and competition, and more ads and undesirable misfeatures (like customer data gathering) despite having a more open market, is a perverse but real outcome and directly attributable to the business model.

(* Set aside for a moment the fact that any Android phone without "Nexus" in its name is more locked-down than an iPhone.)

Re:Well

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Objective C isn't a requirement.

you can use c and c++ too.

Re:Well

[camperslo]

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

[iluvcapra]

Okay I pulled those numbers out of my ass. On the App Store we got 174 "mortgage interest" , and on the Android Market we have 234. OTOH, on the Android Market about 50 or so of these apps are just branded "$reatlor Mortgage Calculator" apps like this one and another 50 that are just RSS feed readers of some guy's blog on the financial crisis. All of the Apple store apps were legit, destinguishable calculators from a variety of vendors.

Re:Well

[cduffy]

(* Set aside for a moment the fact that any Android phone without "Nexus" in its name is more locked-down than an iPhone.)

My LG P-999 (aka T-Mobile G2x) would beg to differ with you. So would my phone before that (an HTC Hero) and my phone before that (an HTC Dream).

Also -- missed the announcement from HTC they would be unlocking their future bootloaders?

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

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.

Re:Well

[UnknowingFool]

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:Well

[UnknowingFool]

Why do ppl always claim IPad has more apps for it ?

Maybe because Apple got at least a year start than Android when it comes to tablets. That and all iPhone/iPod Touch apps work on the iPad without having to recompile. They are not optimized for an iPad screen but they will work. Android did not have that advantage as Honeycomb is different enough from previous phone Android releases where they are not guaranteed to work. They may work but it is not guaranteed.

Knowing the filtering with respect to installing software on the ipad as well as the almost mandatory use of objective C and the limitations in the available API sets to access hardware

And why would any consumer really care about which languages their apps are programmed in? Developers care. With a huge library of apps when launched, developers will develop for iOS due to the large number of consumers.

Speaking of stability and quality ? Honestly i have used an Ipad and yes it crashes and yes things sometimes just - no not - work ... like with other OS-ses.

Can you name exact instances? Seriously Win 7 crashes sometimes on me. Not as much as XP did. By your metric, it is unstable as well.

Interoperatibility ? Man, android is built using linux ... linux is interoperable with anything ... much more than IOS. but yes with Apple stuff, sure, there you are right.

Um have you actually tried to update Android? Depending on the manufacturer, you might have a good experience or a terrible one. And it's all linux. Interoperability indeed!

You are right that an IPad matches better with IPhone and MacOS but have you tried using it in a non-apple world ? Really hard !

I use 4 different OS's on any given day from Windows to OS X to (non-Apple) Unix to Linux. Have you really tried OS X (not Mac OS) because I suspect you haven't if you can't get the name right.

Re:Well

[t2t10]

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, but entire categories are missing because Apple doesn't allow them.

Sorry, I'm willing to pay extra for an Android tab. Having the Samsung 10.1 come out with the same size and price as the iPad is more than good enough for me, not despite Android but because of it.

Re:Well

[greentshirt]

I'm a university student working in cellular sales part time and I can tell you that the trend I see is actually the opposite. People come into the store due to Apple marketing, wanting an iPhone. They are sometimes shocked that a touch screen demo phone they are playing with isn't actually an iPhone, but is a Windows Mobile 7 or Android device. Many people have no idea what a phone OS is or that there are touch screen phones that are not iPhones.

That being said, however, even the most basic users quickly see the advantage of Android over iOS. When people try Swype for the first time, it blows their mind. When people see live wall papers for the first time, it blows their mind. When people see home screen widgets for the first time, it blows their mind. When I show people my own Android device which is running a custom launcher called ADW EX, and how quickly and easily I can change my theme to look (and behave) like an iPhone, or like a Nexus S, or any other presets I've configured, it blows their mind.

For customers who don't care about any of that, and just want something easy, Windows Mobile 7 seems to offer a very strong alternative to iOS. It is extremely simple to use, well laid out, and the devices I've used have been blazing fast.

At this point in the game, both Apple and Microsoft are extremely concerned about Android. Google had a master stroke in creating and developing Android and providing it for free. They have gained unprecedented hardware support and once Google voice spreads to the rest of North America, and the world, it will only shake things up even more. I'm certain Google's hardware coup played a part in the Microsoft / Nokia merger, and the potential of Google voice must have played a role in the Microsoft purchase of Skype.

Betting against Apple is usually a suckers bet because they sell an image, not a product. That being said, my prediction for the mobile world five years from today is a landscape where Apple is marginalized to cult followers and the rest of the market is split fairly evenly between Google and Microsoft. I think Microsoft will fight for mobile as if their survival depended on it, and Windows Mobile 7 is probably the most iPhonesque non-Apple OS I've seen thus far. Will be fun to watch.

Re:Well

[Divebus]

It's not about "not choosing an Apple product", it's about the veneer of Android looking impressive enough to make people think it's just like an iOS product. There's no visible unified ecosystem for Android like there is for iOS and you, my friend, are in the tiny minority of people who will sudo apt-get install git-core.

Anyone who has asked me about what to buy has had a few concerns, none of which had anything to do with whether it went with their shoes. The days of "cool factor" and "impressing their friends" were done a few years ago, so that's a bullshit argument. Their concerns are about security, whether it works with their media and whether the cell service is any good. Security in Android is as good as buying your apps out of the trunk of a car in Baltimore. Some even know that their Android device is in danger of never upgrading beyond what it is out of the box (like the Xperia X10 which wouldn't get past Android 2.1 when it was only 3 months old). Most people want an appliance that just works and lets them do what they need without any hacking around - and nobody has asked about an "evil corporation". Just you.

Exactly what do you suppose is "evil" about Apple? Their stuff works because normal people can't really screw it up? They've kept the RIAA at bay with pricing (they wanted like $2.50 per song)? They've created a platform where developers can make real up front money instead of needing to annoy their users with ads? They're pushing the technology envelope and putting things unimaginable a few years ago in the hands of people who don't have to live in their mom's basement and eat boogers to use it? They've figured out how to make something light and responsive with 11 hour battery life for a reasonable price? They're trying their best to keep users safe from exploits rather than allowing anything and everything to load and run?

If any of that "evil" goes against your grain, certainly do something else (as you have). I like hacking as much as the next geek but the vast majority of people who use anything technical REALLY need to be hooked in to that which you think is "evil".

Re:Well

[thegarbz]

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

[itsdapead]

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 until you've held both - its very noticable) and adding cameras was the ideal "bump" - enough to drum up new business and keep ahead of the game without pissing off iPad 1 owners (who I guess will mostly wait for iPad 3). Apple also used the time to come up with their own videophone system (which is about the only point of having cameras on a tablet).

Its called marketing strategy, and everybody does it. It can be annoying, but its one reason why you get to buy nice things at reasonable prices.

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[PCM2]

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.

Re:I have one of these

[PCM2]

Keyboard: Get SwiftKey. It's much better, and you can long press for most punctuation and numbers.

To clarify, I was using the stock Samsung Keyboard that's the default when you start the machine. You can revert to the Android keyboard, which at least solves the apostrophe problem, but isn't a whole lot better. I'll look at SwiftKey. On my Android phone I use Swype.

Touchscreen: I found this for almost all touchscreen devices. Luckily, now you can just pinch-zoom in, click, pinch unzoom.

If only it was that easy. Seriously, trying to click that control is hell. Enough to frustrate a sensible person to the point that they wouldn't use that device anymore.

I also recommend Battery Snap. It keeps data and displays a graph of all battery usage, so you can easily see what, where and when your battery was draining.

One thing that does seem really good about the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the battery life. I don't know how much continuous use it can handle, because I've never run it out. I've left it sitting around, unused, for a week or so and there's still some life left in the battery the next time I pick it up.

Re:I have one of these

[PCM2]

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...

[FyRE666]

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 with a passion, and the fact I'm forced to use it with the iPad, but there's little that's challenging the iPad at the moment...

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[Wumpus]

A cheap device you don't use is better how?

Re:Not a fan boy, but...

[brunes69]

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.

What about the Eee Pad?

[dogmatixpsych]

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:What about the Eee Pad?

[Graymalkin]

None of the movies I've ripped with Handbrake work on my iPad? Shit I guess the HDMI adapter I just bought doesn't work either! Why didn't you tell me I couldn't do those things before I bought it?

Wait, you're full of shit and I can do all that with my iPad. Does the iPad also take 20 minutes to copy a 17MB file?

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[samkass]

HDMI... cables, how quaint. I stream video wirelessly to the TV via the $99 Apple TV (which also has the best Netflix UI of any device out there) from the iPad2. If you don't want to stream wirelessly, though, I suppose you COULD buy the HDMI cable for the iPad2. I also have a ton of stuff downloaded off the TiVo as well as movies ripped from Handbrake. I'm not sure why you think the iPad can't do this stuff... it does it better than anything else around.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[tepples]

VLC for the media

I thought VLC had been pulled from the App Store for GPL violation.

jailbreak for the emulators

Until Apple fixes the vulnerability that allows a jailbreak. The advantage of Android, which I admit may in practice be only philosophical, is that the owner of a device doesn't need to exploit a security hole just to use a device as he intends.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[brunes69]

Perhaps his point is you don't have to use special software like Handbrake or buy special cables to use HDMI. All this stuff works out of the box on any Android tablet, including playing any format under the sun. I like Moboplayer for this.

Re:What about the Eee Pad?

[brunes69]

Er.. so? I can stream from my Asus TF-101 to any DLNA device under the sun, not simply an Apple TV. I can stream DIRECT TO MY TV, which is a Samsung flatscreen that has DLNA support.

But really this has nothing at all to do with the parent since you can't compare plugging in an HDMI cable to streaming to some external device? It is not even remotely the same thing. (Also, the iPad does not even have an HDMI port, you have to BUY an ugly and cumbersome external dongle).

Price Performance

[dlinear]

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.

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

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:Dear Companies making tablets,

[iluvcapra]

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

*cough*advert!*cough*

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Another Slashvertisement! Ready pitchforks!!!!

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[UnknowingFool]

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?

Not Apples to apples he he

[TheBrutalTruth]

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 optimized applications for Android, and I doubt it will catch up. Too much HW fragmentation, on the phones and tabs. I'm not a huge fan of the lock in (I see no need to jailbreak my iOS devices, can't resist getting root on Android - why???) but it has obvious benefits to the consumer from a consistency perspective. I know what I'm getting for the money with iOS - with Android on tablets I just don't yet. Funny that they are taking a different approach with ChromeOS - the new machines are identical spec (yes, built "shinier") to my cr-48 (don't knock it unless you have one - I can do 90% of what I personally use a lappy for on it - and ChromeOS gets better constantly).

Re:Dear Companies making tablets,

[ColdWetDog]

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....