Available starting today is the all new Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10-inch
tablet. Thanks to Samsung we’ve got it right here to put through the
paces and check out the newly refined design and speaker grill
placements. It appears Samsung is taking two approaches on tablets. One
being a more budget-friendly Tab like the Galaxy Tab 2 7-inch and the 10
we have today, and then their top end will be the quad-core Galaxy Note 10.1 coming this summer. This new slate is clearly a media consumption device, and it works great. Read on for our full review.
The Tab 2 10-inch was rumored to be delayed in favor of a quad-core
processor but that wasn’t the case. Instead Samsung has opted for a
cheaper 1.0 GHz dual-core processor (not a Tegra 2 like the original Tab
10) but instead a Texas Instruments dual-core chip. Don’t worry though
folks, it performs great and is being offered at a friendly price
starting at $399 for the 16GB model. We’ll start with the hands-on and
tour video below then dig into the details.
Hardware
With the new Tab 2 the hardware has seen a few design and internal
changes but for the most part is very similar to the original Galaxy Tab
10 from Samsung last year. What you’ll get here is a different
processor, a sleek design, better speaker placements and a lower price
point. Like mentioned above, under the hood is a 1.0 GHz dual-core
processor, 1GB of RAM, and it comes with 16GB of internal storage.
However Samsung did provide a micro-sd slot for additional storage. Then
we have the usual 3 megapixel camera on the rear, and a 1.3 front for
video chatting and self portraits.
Samsung has taken what they learned from the first 10-inch model, their recently released Galaxy Tab 7.7 LTE,
and the smaller Tab 7 and added everything into one. Gone is the cheap
feeling plastic back and instead we have a brushed aluminum designed
plastic back that feels very durable. Then they’ve added the SD slot,
and the Infrared port from the older 7-inch model for controlling your
home theater or TV.
All of the controls are actually up top with nothing on either side
of the slate. We have from left to right the power and wake button,
volume up/down, micro-SD slot, Infrared eye, and the 3.5mm headphone
jack. The front half has a dark grey shiny aluminum while the back keeps
that brushed rugged and durable look. I’m actually a total fan of this
latest model and it might be my favorite Galaxy Tab to date.
I’ve always hated the rear or bottom facing speakers on tablets, especially if there’s only one like the Transformer Prime.
The new Galaxy Tab’s have been improved and offer a pair of front
facing stereo speakers. The new Galaxy Tab 2 10-inch model we have here
today by far has the best audio of any tablet I’ve tested to date. They
are clear, crisp, and get extremely loud. Not only that but you don’t
have to worry about your hand covering them up during use. This makes
the tablet much easier to hold, gaming is loud and exciting, and
streaming Netflix (which comes pre-installed) is better than ever.
The 10-inch screen is still only 1280 x 800 like most tablets
available, and isn’t AMOLED but sure is bright, vivid, and seems to have
similar viewing angles to most Samsung tablets. Their displays are
never much of an issue anyways and always are good quality with Sammy.
The lightweight design also doesn’t add any weight over the first Tab
10, and it’s much lighter than the heavy quad-core ASUS Transformer
Prime.
Software
Samsung has released these tablets with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
for the OS. With their own tablet-optimized version of TouchWiz over
the top that offers impressive widgets, screenshot features with edit
mode, and a new keyboard that is actually really nice to type on
compared to the stock ICS tablet keyboard. The changes are lightweight
and performance remains strong and usage is swift.
Like mentioned above, Samsung appears to be going for a cheaper
consumption device here and will be targeting the high range with the
10-inch note. The Galaxy Tab 2 comes pre-loaded with tons of media apps
such as Samsung Music Hub, Music Player, a custom video player, Netflix,
a photo and video editor, as well as Peel smart remote to use the
Infrared. Clearly this is all about consuming media with this WiFi
tablet and so far I’ve done plenty of that. Playing games and watching
movies is awesome with the improved speakers up front.
Performance
Being only a 1.0 GHz dual-core processor this is actually one of the
lower spec’d devices released in the past 6 months in the dual-core
category. With everything lately coming with 1.2 or 1.5 GHz dual-cores
or higher at first we questioned Samsung’s choice. After using this for
the past week I can safely say so far I don’t miss the speeds. Usage is
solid, performance is great for movies, games like Grand Theft Auto III
and more. Sadly we can’t access those TegraZone THD games because
they’ve moved from NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 to a Texas Instruments processor,
but most games are still available in the Google Play Store.
Obviously you can see where she lies in regards to benchmark tests
such as AnTuTu. With many devices including the quad-core ASUS
Transformer Prime blowing past its results, but that was sort of
expected. Only scoring 3000 in Quadrant this is hardly an improvement
over the original, more of an additional option for those in the market.
Needless to say, from my video above you can clearly see performance is
still stellar even though benchmark results are low. For $399 this
tablet rocks.
Camera and Battery life
With the new Tab 2 the camera isn’t anything great, just like all of
Samsung’s tablets. I guess they don’t see a need to offer a better
camera and the Tab 2 comes with the same 3.2 megapixel camera all the
others have. Their smartphones have excellent cameras but tablets are
another story. I’d hardly consider this a con though, as I rarely if
ever take pictures with my tablet. Below is a few pictures for those
curious on the performance. As long as you have enough light it will
take a few pictures with ease that are worthy of Facebook and the likes.
Battery life however is pretty awesome. Samsung’s equipped this slate
with a 7,100 mAh battery and I’ve manged to get nearly 3 days of casual
usage from a single charge. While usage will vary from user to user
this is on par if not better than most tablets on the market — as long
as you don’t watch Netflix for 6 hours a day.
Wrap-Up
From the media apps and widgets, Netflix, Peel Smart Remote and more
it’s clear that this tablet is made to play and enjoy media. Offering
hardly any difference over the original other than mainly the speakers
and Ice Cream Sandwich coming stock — this tablet is about the same. I’d
say I was disappointed with how similar they are but I’m not. For the
price they’ll be asking ($399) this is an great tablet experience. The
hardware is excellent, build quality is top notch and creak free, and it
comes with the latest Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich operating
system.
If you were wanting or expecting a powerhouse Ice Cream Sandwich
tablet or gaming machine the Galaxy Note 10.1 will be their flagship
quad-core tablet once it’s made available later this summer. If you
don’t want to wait, for the price point your options are this tablet or
the Transformer Pad TF300. It does offer a quad-core processor but it’s
not as premium feeling, has a plastic design, and isn’t as thin and
beautiful. If you want the work horse the TF300 is for you, if you’d
like a thin and awesome overall experience the new Galaxy Tab 2 10-inch
from Samsung is worth a look.
Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below and check
out all of the pictures from the gallery, as well as previous coverage
or comparisons from the links below.
source
androidcommunity 
All right, so the Samsung Galaxy S3 has already made waves worldwide with its global release,
and some folks are still trying to figure out how it works, S-Voice and
all, while others have already made this their favorite new smartphone
without any exception. Of course, there will also be pockets of
resistance and naysayers huddled together, but they are not the focus of
today’s story – that the Samsung Galaxy S3 source code has been
released. Running on the Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich build with the
new TouchWiz interface, this rollout of the source code will make life
easier for new Developer ROMs to be programmed and worked on. If you are
interested at taking a look at the source code yourself (and making a
few tweaks along the way), then you can download it from the official source here. Alternatively, there are more than 20 Samsung Galaxy S3 firmware versions to be downloaded from this site as well. As usual, before meddling with arcane lines of code, do perform a backup of your smartphone beforehand.
It was just yesterday
that we talked about the possibility of Finnish smartphone
manufacturer, Nokia, having the intention to introduce a special kind of
waterproof coating on their upcoming Lumia as well as PureView devices.
I guess that is a rumor that has gotten out of bounds, so it is good to
see that Nokia has stepped forward to deliver that grain of salt you
have all been waiting for – by refuting such claims for a waterproof
smartphone. According to Conor Pierce, Nokia’s VP for Western Europe, he
mentioned about Nokia’s research heritage, which included a waterproof
coating for its devices, while rolling out the more affordable Nokia
Lumia 610 to journalists there. Something got lost in translation, I
believe, and those with a more imaginative mind decided to put two and
two together in order to get five – which was clearly not the case.
Nokia clarified that Conor “did not say that Superhydrophobic coatings
would be coming to future Pureview and Lumia devices.” OtterBox need
not worry about their bread and butter then
Verizon’s Android 4.0.4 update for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus could be considered to be long overdue by some, and last we checked
it was available as a direct download from Google which had to be
flashed onto the device, making the update highly unsuitable for the
less tech savvy. Well it looks like after all the waiting, rumors and
speculation, Verizon has finally updated its website with information on
the IMM76K Android 4.0.4 update. The update has since been approved so
we can expect Verizon to begin rolling out the update over the course of
the next few days. According to the support page, this is a relatively
small update and is just under 40MB in size. It will bring about several
bug fixes and shouldn’t take too long to update and install, so be sure
to check your Galaxy Nexus for the notification on the update! In the
mean time details about the update along with instructions can be found
at Verizon’s website.
