By Nigel Powell
Thursday April 7, 2011
David Kerrigan, Head of Mobile Broadband, said that this ‘was the year of the tablet,’ so we asked Nigel Powell of the Red Ferret to do a guest post for us to test out a Samsung Galaxy tab on Three. He’s taken a close look at everything the tablet has to offer to see how it fits in your day-to-day lives.
To read Nigel’s blog head over to The Red Ferret here.
So the world’s gone tablet crazy, and no, I don’t mean aspirin. Everywhere you look there’s yet another svelte tablet computer hitting the shelves, led of course by the mighty Apple iPad. I tend to shy away from tech hype, so the current media enthusiasm for this new handheld format has sort of passed me by. Even so, I was happy to put aside my lofty indifference when asked to take a look at one of the latest tablet products to reach our shores, the Galaxy Tab from Samsung.
The first surprise comes when I open the box, for what I encounter is not the expected flimsy cheapo plastic product, but a very impressively crafted handheld computer. The whole thing reeks of attention to detail, sleek lines and a solid glass screen which screams out quality. Ho ho ho, someone is taking this market seriously methinks. Newcomers to the tablet genre should understand that unlike many of its rivals at the lower end of the price scale, the Tab is designed along the lines of a high end smartphone, since it comes with an integrated SIM card slot like a conventional mobile phone.
This smartphone motif feeds across to other areas too. The controls are what you’d expect, a volume rocker, power on/off, standard 3.5mm headphone socket, microSD slot etc, and because the Tab uses the Android operating system, you benefit from an immediately familiar user interface. There are no surprises, which makes it easy to get to grips with. Just charge it up for a few hours, slot in the SIM and memory cards and you’re basically using a 7 inch screen mobile phone. Handy!
There are some other nice touches built in like the cool Swype data entry tech, which lets you enter text by swiping your finger across the on-screen keyboard. It’s very fast and a great option for clumsy fingered typists. The tablet also comes with the Android Market, from where you can instantly download and install from a range of over 130,000 free and commercial applications to spice up your life.
So how is it to use, I hear you ask. Well, it’s actually again surprisingly nice. The capacitive touchscreen is gorgeous, silky smooth to navigate, and probably the nearest to an iPad screen in terms of responsiveness I’ve used. It doesn’t have that delicious top class resolution that Apple users now expect, but it’s not far off. I won’t bore you with tech specs, but suffice to say I found it impressively snappy in performance terms, although you’ll need to upgrade the browser
to Dolphin HD to really get the best out of surfing speeds. Web browsing is definitely more fun with extra inches on the screen.
Battery life is supposed to be 7 hours continuous while watching a movie (oh yes, Flash video is supported, so yay for some YouTube fun) but it’s probably safer to expect a days action per charge for intermittent web and WiFi use, which suggests it will deliver less for more frequent 3G data and GPS use. The quality of the main 5 megapixel camera is what you’d expect from this type of product, which means fairly average results in badly lit scenarios, and I’m still bemused by the fact that no Android tablet appears to have cracked the simple video call feature properly. Why on earth can’t we use Skype video calling along with these twin cameras? Madness.
So overall? Pleasantly surprised. For those with a yearning for slinky flat portable computers, this is probably as good an option as any on the market, and who knows it may just save you the odd headache as well along the way.
SOURCE: http://blog.three.co.uk/2011/04/07/guest-post-samsung-galaxy-tablet-review/
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