Hardware review: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

No one can deny that we are living in the age of the tablet computers. Samsung, one of the leading computer and electronic manufacturer in the world, was one of the first to launch its 7-inch Galaxy Tab last year and now it is offering a 10.1-inch version with the latest version of the Google Android operating system, Honeycomb 3.01.

We have tested the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 version which comes with a 10.1-inch capacity touch screen that resolves 1,280 x 800 pixels, an NVidia Tegra dual-core 1 GHz chip, 1 GB of RAM, a 16 GB solid-state hard disk, and a 3.15 megapixel back camera and two megapixel front camera. It can be connected to 3G with a SIM card and used like a smartphone.

The first impression is that this tablet is sturdy and yet light with its slimline design, being just 8.6 mm thick. It does full justice to Android Honeycomb operating system. We have tested previous versions of Android on other tablets and we can say Honeycomb is truly the operating system of tablets and not the previous versions that were intended for smartphones with smaller screens and less processing power.

While we were busy testing the Samsung tablet i-Tech reported that Maltese users can now purchase paid apps from the Android app store. This came as a bonus for us as we could test the market on Honeycomb. Unfortunately, most of the apps we found had been written for previous versions of Android but we expect upgrades to cater for Honeycomb on the most important apps at least. The 10.1 screen made some old apps look like fish out of water.

We liked very much the screen real estate, the powerful processer, and the overall response to everything we threw at it, including large video files with a high resolution.

Wi-Fi performance was good and connection was seamless and we could even use the tablet as hotspot to connect other wireless devices.

Battery performance was decent but we did not like an important thing: it takes ages to re-charge, at the painfully slow rate of some five per cent per hour and a full charge will take almost 20 hours to accomplish. It takes much less time to discharge it with heavy usage.

There is no HDMI port to connect to a TV to watch a movie or pictures, but why would you need a TV screen when you have a 1 0.1 screen you can place a few centimetres in front of you?

The 16GB hard disk can fill-up very quickly with videos and large applications, but it’s very easy to increase the capacity with a micro SD card (maximum of 32GB).

There isn’t a USB port to connect other devices like a pen drive directly to the tablet but the tablet can be connected to the USB port of a laptop to transfer content very easily.

Our overall conclusion is that this is a serious piece of hardware that can easily compete with other tablets in the market.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 was made available by Vodafone Malta.