Hands-On Galaxy Tab 10.1

[runawayprisoner]

Whoop, looks like the Vietnamese did it again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdu5PVjCGo0

Here's a full transcript of the video from a colleague of mine, with some notes:

This is the new version of the 10.1" Galaxy Tab.
Here we have the main screen, the default interface of Honeycomb.
Please excuse me as I will go into more details about the hardware.
There's the bezel, then there's the 2.0MP camera.
At the bottom we have the 30-pin connector, with 2 screws on either sides.
There's a microphone right here (next to the right screw).
There's a speaker hole to this side.
On top we have a SIM slot for 3G.
Here's the 3.5mm port.
This is the MicroUSB (and?) memory slot. (weird, he made it sound like there was a MicroUSB memory card)
The volume up and down rocker is here.
Power button is right here.
On the left side we have another speaker hole.
So when we hold the device in landscape mode like this, we have one speaker to each side, stereo (sound?).
And all of the buttons are on top like this.
When you rotate the device to portrait, they'll be to the side, right-hand side.
Volume to the right, then (again?) in portrait mode, on top.
Here's the backside of the 10.1 Galaxy Tab.
On the top we have the 8MP camera and an LED flash to the side.
A tad lower we have the Samsung logo, and we have some information (texts?) down here.
The back feels smooth. Really smooth, and nice.
To detach the back cover, you have to unscrew the two bottom screws then lift it up.
This back feels like it's just begging for some leather cover.
The device feels light, very light. It's a joy to hold, though the build construction is not as solid as the iPad (2?).
You can see here how I can push it in quite easily, but it's very soli..., excuse me, ...light.
Overall, it's quite a delight to hold.
Here you can see how the 10.1" display is quite noticeably taller than the 9.7" display on the other side. Though it is also to note that the iPad is noticeably wider than the Galaxy Tab.
This is because the Galaxy Tab is 16:9 while the iPad is 4:3.
Bezel width of both devices seem to be the same, though the Galaxy Tab seems shorter on top than the iPad.
According to specifications, Galaxy Tab should be thinner than the iPad (2?).
My iPad has a leather back cover to add to the width so it's really hard to tell.
Design-wise, I prefer the Galaxy Tab because the Galaxy Tab seems lighter and thinner, while the iPad (2) seems square and hefty.
You can see (see what?) easier when (both devices are) held like this.
Regarding the weight, I can't quite remember the actual weight of the iPad, and I can't really remember the Galaxy Tab's, either, but the Galaxy Tab feels lighter, "much" lighter.
Today I didn't bring the XOOM, but it's obvious that the Galaxy Tab's screen is much better than XOOM's.
You may find the iPad's graphics larger because the Galaxy Tab's screen has a higher resolution.
I really like Honeycomb because I can do a lot of customizations to the interface, unlike the simplistic feel of the iPad.
With iOS, we only get icons and icons on the display.
With Honeycomb, you can customize a lot on the homescreen. You may add widgets, app shortcuts, change the wallpaper (I assume he meant live wallpapers), among other things.
There are so many... (customizations?)
I hope Samsung will release this device in Vietnam soon.

So, according to the video, looks like the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a nice device. Thickness seems equal to iPad 2, so that's a nice change. My main concern is how the guy mentioned he could... push the back of the device in, sort of like a pillow. Hopefully that's just a prototype perk, or otherwise, that'll be quite a major issue to me as a device this thin should be able to hold itself together.

Screen is nicer than XOOM, but we didn't get any remark against the iPad 2 right next to it.

Looks like stock Honeycomb, so perhaps Samsung gave up on TouchWiz, but we still can't be sure until the device ships.

All in all, a very compelling competitor with a really impressive spec sheet. Now to see if it'll address the software shortcomings that XOOM bumped into.

 

[ponyo]

That looks really slick. People are saying this device will ship with stock Honeycomb and Samsung will release an optional Touchwiz skin update later on. If so that should please both Touchwiz fans and haters. I really hope this doesn't have Tegra2. I don't care about game graphics performance but worried about its video playback performance. I don't want to re-encode my videos because of Tegra2.

Maybe Samsung is listening and learning afterall. They went back and redesigned second generation Galaxy Tabs and lowered the price after seeing iPad2. They released Gingerbread update for Galaxy S before anyone else. Now they might be making Touchwiz optional on Galaxy Tab.

 

[s44]

10.1 will be reference Tegra2 for quick release and compatibility. Unlocked bootloader, too.

8.9 will probably be Exynos. No promises given on bootloader, etc. And no one who's had an Exynos unit (i.e. one of the SGS2 demos floating around) has actually run any useful GPU benches on it.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Exynos was benchmarked by Anandtech a while ago...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4177/samsungs-galaxy-s-ii-preliminary-performance-mali400-benchmarked

The short of it is... GPU wasn't really that much, about on par with Tegra 2 at best, so regardless of whether it's Tegra 2 or Exynos, I feel the performance level is the same in every way. Tegra 2 gets better driver and likely better support with Honeycomb since it's reference hardware, so it's hard to tell if Exynos is really that much better.

 

[s44]

Oops, true, I forgot about that. The more recent SGS2 units seemed to have near-production firmware, though, so I would have liked to have seen new benches.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Here's another Exynos device that was benchmarked in GLBenchmark database:

http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedet...pro20&D=Hardkernel+ODROID-A&testgroup=overall

GLBenchmark 2.0 Egypt: 36.6fps
GLBenchmark 2.0 Pro: 45.6fps

(1366 x 768 resolution)

Compared to Anand's Galaxy S II benchmark:

GLBenchmark 2.0 Egypt: 16.2fps
GLBenchmark 2.0 Pro: 49.1fps

(800 x 480 resolution)

Reading more into that, it is obvious drivers were improved and Egypt gained a lot from driver optimization, but Pro didn't even faze. So perhaps Mali-400MP does have a good edge over Tegra 2, but as I noted, Tegra 2 is Honeycomb reference hardware, and if anything Honeycomb might perform better on Tegra 2.

Plus if such huge disparity can be caused by drivers, then bad drivers will exacerbate the results for Mali-400MP.

Edit: not to mention there are more games announced for Tegra 2 than for Mali-400MP. And if we don't count games, then what else is Mali-400MP good for?

 

[Aikouka]

Don't all of the Honeycomb tablets need to use Tegra 2 because that's what Google built their "hack job" around? Although, it's possible that the devices could be far enough in the future that Google will have a more universal build available.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Nope. Honeycomb can use anything. Manufacturers must supply their own drivers. Tegra 2 is used as reference.