This week’s mission was to review the new Samsung Galaxy Tab. So, yesterday I went into my local Carphone Warehouse for a look, and all I can say is ‘WOW’!
The 7” TFT LCD touch screen is impressive and the Tab itself is quite simple but elegant in design. For me, the Galaxy Tab is definitely not pocket sized, and nor does it fit easily in one hand. This does not detract from the design of the handset, as its thin profile makes it easy to hold while using, or slip into a handbag when not in use. The lack of buttons on the front of the Tab makes for a functional yet beautiful device, which only gets more impressive when you power it up.
The layout of the menus is familiar to anyone who has previously used an Android device, and I found that the Froyo software seemed to run smoothly, however this is no doubt due to the inbuilt 1GHz processor. Like most Android handsets, the Galaxy Tab has multiple customisable home screens, and a selection of widgets from which to choose.
Text input on the Galaxy Tab is simple, with a large, clear keypad and auto rotate in all directions. This is a feature which I have never seen before, and one which I was very impressed with. The addition of Swype text input is also a welcome one, and makes life on the move even easier. I found the touch screen to be very responsive and the obvious benefit of the capacitive screen is the pinch to zoom feature, which is extremely handy for web browsing and image viewing.
The 7” display is fantastic for media, with video playback being ultra clear and image viewing super crisp. The media experience is heightened by two stereo speakers which provide a faultless audio accompaniment to all videos, and superb quality for music playback. The Tab also has a 3.5mm headphone jack, eliminating the need for buying dedicated headsets. The included Music Hub application compliments all of this by allowing the download of various tracks directly to the device, with lists of the Top 20 tracks, albums and artists to make searching even easier. With an inbuilt 16GB memory and the ability to add a further 32GB microSD card the options for media storage are endless.
The Music Hub is not the only app preloaded on the Galaxy Tab. The device I used included Allshare, Sky+, Thinkfree and Reader’s Hub. The Allshare app allows the user to wirelessly transfer media to supporting devices including PC’s and compatible mobile phones. The Sky+ app allows the use of the Sky+ Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) in order that information about programmes can be viewed and a message sent to your Sky+ box, enabling the remote recording of your favourite programmes. Thinkfree is a document viewing application, meaning you never have to be out of touch with any vital documents. Finally, Reader’s Hub gives the user the opportunity to download a selection of e-books, magazines or even newspapers, all at the touch of a button.
The Galaxy Tab includes a 3mp camera with HD video recording and an LED flash. A secondary 1.3 mp camera is located on the front of the device to allow for the making of video calls. The handset supports many different video playback formats, without the need of additional encoding.
The Galaxy Tab features Flash support, so that high content web pages such as YouTube can be viewed easily. It also includes SNS support as found on my Samsung Wave, meaning that contacts, email and social networks can be synched easily.
With all these amazing features, the Samsung Galaxy Tab is definitely 7 inches of pure genius, which really does allow for a Life Without Limits.
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