The Galaxy Tab is Samsung's 7 inch Tablet touted to be a full-fledged, compact communication and entertainement device. It packs a 1024 x 600 pixels into a 7 inch SVGA screen which makes for an impressive Pixel Density(PPI). At maximum brightness, it's suitably vibrant, and there are numerous options to adjust the contrast and saturation, if you like your Tab to be drenched in colour. If you are someone who spends plenty of time watching movies/videos on portables but hate the eyestrain that comes with it, the Tab is your perfect commuting media device.
The Tab supports Readers Hub and renders access to a huge collection of magazines, newspapers and other literary content. At 0.84 pounds, the Tab is considerably commuter friendly compared to the iPads rather bulky 1.6 pounds. Both the iPad & the Galaxy Tab sports a 1 Ghz processor but the Tab sports twice the RAM(512MB) compared to iPad's(256MB). Also, the iPad takes a neat punch in the face when it comes to multitasking, regardless of what Apple fanboys might argue, the iPad is just not designed to handle multiple apps. When it comes to the software, the Android 2.2 Froyo OS packs a whole lot of goodies, which includes full-multiasking, unrestricted app access and Adobe Flash support . Android open tethering approach is another deal-clincher, it basically lets you connect your laptop to the web using the Tab's 3G connection, without having to shell out more dough. The Galaxy Tab might lose out on the looks factor but its certainly more agile, feature packed and packs more bang for buck comapred to the iPad.
There were concerns around porting the Android 2.2 into Tablets, considering it was developed for smartphones, but the Galaxy Tab decimates all apprenhensions and manges to run the Android 2.2 near flawlessly. The device comes with five customisable home screens , which you can cramp with all sorts of widgets & app shortcuts. The bottom part of the screen sports the dedicated shortcuts to the Web browser, email and the menu. The interface is simple, powerful and customisable, also, swiping through the menus is quick with almost negligible lag.
Another advantage of watching videos on the Tab is the simple drag & drop functionality, thanks to its 32GB expandable memory , getting videos onto the Tab is a quick and the device supports a broad range of video formats, including DivX & Xvid formats . The same goes for audio even if you have you have a massive music library, getting those tracks onto the Tab is a fairly quick process, without the need for any secondary software. As with video, the Tab supports a huge range of audio formats, including OGG, FLAC & AC3 formats.
Switching from portrait to landscape orientation is almost seamless, via the built-in accelerometer. The Tab really excels when it comes to certain usability areas, like the onscreen keyboard. When held in the portrait orientation, its extremely easy to type away using only your thumbs. The 1Ghz processor adds to the overall responsiveness, coupled with the haptic feedback & Swype input , you can type away on the Tab much more comfortably than the iPad. Another neat feature is the 'Active Applications' widget, it lets you monitor every app thats currently running and how much memory each one is consuming, allowing to shutdown RAM-hungry apps to free up more memory.
Thanks to Android 2.2, the Galaxy Tab supports Adobe's Flash player which gets you access to a huge collection of online videos. The Tab loads & plays most of the online content rather smoothly and even handles random pausing & skipping without any isssues. On the back of the Galaxy Tab is a 3-megapixel camera with an LED flash and thanks to the snappy interface, you wont have to wait around for the menus to load, itcan also capture video at 30 fps.
The Galaxy Tab also serves as a phone, however holding a 7-inch device to your face isn't all that fun, thankfully Samsung includes a set of headphones with in-line mic for wireless communication. The Tab also lets you makevideo calls over 3G with the front facing 1.3MP camera just above the display.
The phone & camera function makes the Galaxy Tab a perfect choice for long travels, especially if you don't want to lug around a seprate smartphone, laptop and a tablet. Throw in Google Maps Navigation , and the whole package becomes an appealing prospect for those who want big-screen Web access on the move . Thanks to the Android Market, Tab users will indeed have quick access to thousands of downloadable apps . Once you've found an app, you're only one button press away from downloading it, and, once installed, it'll automatically appear on the applications menu.
With all the multitasking capabilites it packs, one would expect the battery life to take a hit, but the Galaxy Tab's 4000 Li-Po battery handles pretty well, Samsung claims an impressive 7 hours of video playback , possibly the most CPU intensive application you can throw at the device. It's expected that the Tab would easily last couple of days of normal usage without wanting to be plugged in.
No comments:
Post a Comment