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The review about this product
Ok, the title of my review might be a little extreme but I stick by it. Anyone considering a Nook or Kindle should give this tablet a long, hard look. For an entry level, low cost tablet it has a lot of features the purpose built readers leave out. Not the least of which is this tablet is not tied to Barnes & Noble or Amazon. With this tablet you can get content from anywhere you want. Also, the Samsung has a GPS, front and rear cameras and a memory card slot. I believe the Nook has a memory slot too but the Kindle does not. The Samsung also has an IR blaster for controlling your home theater.
My only other Android device is my nearly 2 year old Motorola Droid X phone and this tablet makes my phone feel very inadequate in almost every way. The tablets screen is bright, crisp and clear and it is very responsive with little to no lag. I believe that this screen has a higher pixel density than many of the 10" tablets as it is nearly the same resolution as the larger tablets in a smaller screen. I was holding out for a high res 10" tablet but decided to jump on this one because I was tired of waiting. I am not disappointed. It will be interesting to see if I end up preferring the 7" tablet after I use it a while. It is very light, small and portable and the screen real estate is really quite usable.
Universal Remote:
I just got my tablet last night and setup my home theater easily. I am disappointed with the interface of the supplied remote app though and will look around for a better version. But at least the tablet provides the ability to do it. To be fair though, I did not spend a lot of time with it so it may be better than I think.
Kindle Reader:
The Kindle reader app is very nice as the text is sharp and it turns pages very quickly. I think anyone coming from an e-ink based reader will enjoy using this tablet as a reader as well. My wife has the e-ink Kindle and has often wanted a back lit reader instead of using a book light. This screen will not be as readable outdoors though but I think most of my and my wife's reading is indoors so there is always a trade off.
Streaming Music:
I have not tried other media yet other than Pandora radio. You do get a little hiccup in the audio if you are surfing data intensive apps like Google Maps while you are streaming music. This may be the result of my pitiful DSL connection at home though. Will have to try it on a faster broadband connection sometime to see.
Maps:
Google Maps looks great on this device. Fortunately this tablet has a GPS chip so location based services/mapping are possible. It is a great size for mapping and once I get a 4G phone with WiFi ability, I will try it out as a navigation device. Hopefully Samsung will come out with a car dock for this tablet. Google Streetview is very nice on this tablet as well.
Gmail:
The Gmail app is extremely nice on this tablet. Even in portrait mode you get the folder list down the left side and your email in the currently selected folder displayed on the right. On my phone, you only get one folder at a time.
Google Reader:
I use Google Reader as my RSS app and it is very fast on the tablet compared to my phone. I go cross-eyed staring at my phone for very long but I can tell from my limited use of the reader on the tablet that the tablet will be great. The reader is really one of my most used apps and a big reason I wanted a tablet.
Facebook:
What can I say, Facebook is much nicer on a tablet than on the phone.
Real Estate Apps:
I am currently in the market to buy a house so I have the Realtor.com and Zillow apps. Both are much nicer on the tablet than on the phone. The photos on the Realtor app are much larger than what Zillow provides though which is odd. Photos on the phone are ok, but are hard to tell much about. With the tablet, the photos are much more usable.
I may come back and add more to this review as I use the tablet more but in my 1 evening with it so far I can tell that I am going to love this tablet.
**Update 5/9/2012**
I got a chance to play with the tablet some more and have a few more observations to add.
YouTube:
YouTube looks great on this tablet. It will seamlessly flip from portrait to landscape without stopping the video. I personally think the YouTube app has a much better UI than the internet webpage.
Speakers:
The speakers are on the bottom of the tablet when the tablet is in portrait position. You have to watch that you don't rest it on your lap when listening to something using the speakers. If you turn it to landscape position, you have to watch that you don't cover the lower speaker with your hand. I found that if you hold the tablet with your fingers and cup the corner with the speaker it actually helps project the sound to you. I don't know where else they could put speakers as almost anywhere they are you will have to watch you don't cover them when you hold them so I won't complain about it.
Games:
What can I say, Angry Birds is awesome on a tablet. Words With Friends is nice as well. I haven't tried other games yet but expect them to look much better than they do on a phone.
7" vs. 10" tablet:
I don't know what to think about the size yet. I was trying to hold out for a high res 10" tablet that Samsung is rumored to be working on but got tired of waiting. I am really enjoying the light, small form factor of this 7" tablet though. So now I am not sure if I will want a 10" tablet or not. My brother has an iPad and that thing is a brick compared to this tablet.
WiFi:
I am a little worried about the people complaining about WiFi issues. So far mine has been working fine. It is indicating the same signal strength that my phone and laptop show. Maybe the problem is hit and miss but I hope if there is a real problem it is something a software/firmware update can resolve. But so far I have no complaints.
Battery Life:
I charged the tablet overnight and took it off the charger in the morning. I didn't use the tablet until I got home about 11 hours later. It was at 98% charge so it only drained 2% in 11 hours of no use. I used it for nearly 3 hours and it dropped to 66%. So 3 hours was about 1/3 of the battery life. That should translate to about 9 hours of battery life. I could turn the GPS off since it isn't needed most of the time, I also saw a tip about having it turn the WiFi off when in sleep mode and I have manually set the screen brightness to around 25% which is plenty bright indoors. Overall, I think it is going to have pretty decent battery life. I should get about 3 good evenings or a full day on a charge.
**Update 5/21/2012**
I have lived with the tablet for a couple weeks now and have a few more observations.
Screen Sharpness:
I got to compare it with my brother's iPad 2 this weekend and the screen on the Samsung is much, much sharper than the iPad. In fact, my dad's Nook was much sharper than the iPad with the Samsung being sharper than the Nook. The difference was amazing.
Browser Speed:
I was completely happy with the browsing speed of the Samsung until I compared it to the iPad. The iPad was much, much faster. Not sure why, but it is very noticeable. I installed the beta version of Google Chrome and it appears to be better than the built in browser but still not as fast as the iPad. But like I said, I was happy until I found out there was better.
Connection Issues:
I have observed the connection problem some people are reporting. If you hold the bottom left corner, the reception does drop down. As soon as you left off, it goes up 1 bar. But I also found out that my router was not operating at full strength. I had the old standby Linksys WRT54G but recently upgraded to an ASUS RT16N. As soon as I did, I noticed my cell phone and laptop were not showing nearly as strong reception as before. I am running Tomato on the router and discovered that you can turn up the signal strength. By default, Tomato is dialed back. My nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away so I dialed up to full strength. That upped my reception by 1 bar when covered and uncovered. So now I have better signal strength, even when I cover the antenna. I am not worried as I don't lose connection and it is showing a similar signal strength as my phone and laptop.
Overall, I love this tablet.
Take It Now ! Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7-Inch, Wi-Fi) 2012 Model (Personal Computers)
