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Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Samsung has created a tablet with what we believe has the best look, feel and construction of any of the major tablets. It’s less than a half-inch thin, but comes in at 1 pound, 4 ounces and with an “even” build and center of gravity so that it’s easy to hold with just a few fingers. (for more, watch CRN's video review of the Galaxy Tab 10.1)
With Samsung’s legacy in the electronics space, it was welcome but not surprising that the sound coming from its speakers filled a room nicely without a tinny quality and its display made several hours of work a comfortable experience for the eyes.
Never before have their been so many, new client platforms hitting the market all at once—each with advantages and disadvantages and each living, seemingly, in their own universe. Between Apple’s iOS, the Google-led Android OS, HP’s webOS and BlackBerry’s BlackBerry PlayBook OS, there are literally scores of decisions about which is the best solution in a given scenario.
You need to consider three basic questions:
Is this decision more about the last 20 years, the next 20 years or a little of both?
Are tablets really necessary to get the job done, or get it done better and more competitively?
Will it add, or eliminate, cost and complexity?
Like with the iPad 2, the Galaxy will require you to adapt to life without external devices like a USB drive or SD card. We have never found this to be a deal breaker for day-to -day use alongside a desktop or laptop, but it requires new use patterns that might not fit all. Apple has addressed this issue through its MobileMe cloud storage and its forthcoming iCloud. While the Galaxy doesn’t provide such a push-button solution, we don’t believe it's a deal-breaker here, either.
The Android ecosystem does provide apps and services that we've previously reviewed— like the cloud-based file server service Egnyte—that can address the storage gap.
In building the Galaxy 10.1, Samsung went with the 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor; while it gets the job done well enough in terms of performance, we found its battery life to be stellar—up to 18 hours with real-world use.
The important features for many business work: Microsoft Exchange support, Flash support and support for VoIP including Skype. Videoconferencing is supported in both Skype and Google Talk; Bluetooth is fine.
This tablet also integrated quickly with our enterprise, was simple to operate and is price-competitive. It passes our cost-and-complexity test nicely.
Technical Stars: 4
Channel Stars: 5
Price: $484 for 32 GB (street)
NEXT: Fujitsu Stylistic Q550
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