Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

We’ve had several encounters with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 before but this time, we actually have a review unit in our hands (and I know a lot of people are eagerly waiting for this tablet to be released in the Philippines).

After unboxing the 10.1″ Galaxy Tab, the very first thing you’ll notice with the tablet was how thin and light it is. In fact, it’s as thin but much lighter than the iPad 2. Of course, all of that can be attributed to the plastic construction of the tablet, compared to the aluminum of the iPad 2.

The variant that we have here is the 3G + WiFi model (with the SIM card slot easily accessible from top right side of the device).

Here are some things I observed from my initial tinkering with the device:

• The display is bright and crisp; the colors are vivid and vibrant. The black bezel isn’t that much thicker compared to the iPad 2.
• The back panel is made up of pearly white plastic, has a glossy finish and is accented with silver lining on the sides and around the camera.
• Speaking of the camera, I was hoping it would be just half as good as the Galaxy S or S2 but the one they had on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 isn’t any good — still grainy even on well-lit conditions.
• The rear camera is only rated at 3.2-megapixels (2048×1536 pixels) and the video recording is only up to 720p (1280×720 pixels). The front-facing camera has a resolution of 1600×1200 pixels (around 2MP). There’s an LED flash beside the rear camera.
• There’s no external microSd card slot but system info says it has 16GB internal storage and another 16GB of internal SD storage giving it a total of 32GB.
• The charging port uses some sort of a proprietary USB (similar to that of the Dell Streak 5 and iPad/iPhone).
• I got a Quadrant benchmark score of 1367, almost half the score of the Galaxy S2 (2622) but still better than the Galaxy S (962). I guess the high screen resolution made it harder to get a higher score.
• Samsung used some sort of tablet-friendly TouchWiz UI for the Galaxy Tab. It’s not much of an eye-candy but is functional. Besides, it really didn’t change much what Honeycomb offered out of the box.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 GT-P7500
10.1″ display @ 1280×800 WXGA screen
NVidia Tegra2 1.0GHz dual-core processor
724MB memory (actual)
16GB/32GB internal storage
3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash
720p video recording
2 megapixel front-facing camera
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
3G/HSDPA
6850 mAh battery
GPS w/ aGPS support
Android 3.1 Honeycomb

Samsung Galaxy S II Review

The Samsung Galaxy S II is the phone the Korean firm deems the successor to its best smartphone so far. And with a 1.2GHz processor, super-slim chassis and feather-light innards, it's easy to see why.

The dual-core race is set to heat up massively over the next few months, with the LG Optimus 2X already released, and the Motorola Atrix, HTC Sensation and iPhone 5 all set to bring the tech to market too.

Coming in at £35 a month and £519.99 SIM-free, the Galaxy S 2 isn't the cheapest phone out there by a long chalk – so let's see if it can match up to that larger price tag.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 is almost impossibly thin when you pick it up – dimensions of 125.3 x 66.1 x 8.5mm mean it's one of the thinnest smartphones on the market at the moment, rivalling the likes of the iPhone 4 and Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc for the title.

It's crazy-light too – when we show you what tech is rammed under the hood, you'll be amazed that it all goes in a device that weighs only a shade over 100g (116g, to be precise).

Samsung clearly traded the premium feel an all-metal chassis might have brought to keep the grams off the Galaxy S2 – pop the battery cover off and you'll find you're holding a piece of pretty flimsy plastic.

However, most of the time you won't be removing this and it fits nicely into the contoured chassis – the mesh feel on the rear also helps keep your hand from getting warm during extended holding.

The other thing you'll notice when you first pick up the Galaxy S2 is the screen – at 4.3 inches it's hard to miss, and when you turn it on the Super AMOLED plus technology hits you square in the eyeballs (once it's got through the toughened Gorilla Glass).

We called the Samsung Galaxy S "the best phone on the market for media" when we reviewed it, thanks to its first-gen Super AMOLED screen. Now the Galaxy S2 has definitely improved on that, with a superbly crisp and vibrant screen.

The only problem is a slightly schizophrenic auto-brightness - if you try and save battery by having the sensor monitor ambient light levels, then the screen decides to bounce about with light levels even in same conditions.

UPDATE: Samsung has released a fix to solve this problem already, so forget about it. Un-read what you just read. We could delete it, but that would be lying to you.

In the hand, the Galaxy S2 sits much better than we'd have expected, given the whopping screen on offer, and that's mostly down to its slim depth.

The front of the phone is pretty sparse, with the home key the only piece of furniture on offer. This rectangular button flanks two touch-sensitive buttons – Menu and Back – so there's no room for contextual search here.

The volume keys are located on the left-hand side, and the power/lock key is on the opposite flank; both are easy enough to hit without error, and crucially the travel on the power key is softer so that it's much easier to hit when you're juggling it in the palm – compare that to its predecessor, where you could accidentally drop it trying to shut off the screen.

The 3.5mm headphone jack lives on the top of the phone, bucking the lower placement on other 4.3-inch screen phones, and the microUSB slot (which also doubles as an HDMI out port) lives on the bottom.

The only other element of note is the 8.1MP camera with single LED flash on the rear – it's slightly raised, but not so much that it disrupts the Galaxy S2 when you're placing it on a table, thanks to a rear lip to help you hold the phone.