Comment on Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus 16GB (Dual Core, Universal Remote, WiFi) Reviews by Traveler.
First impression, premium tablet at premium price.,
After reading a few theoretical reviews, I thought I would post a very early review based on one whole day of using my Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus (which I’ve updated a couple of times). I’ve rated it overall 4*, which is 5* for the Tab and 3* for a premium price. There are certainly less expensive tablets, but I think this one really does have class-leading features. It’s up to you whether you think the features justify the price or whether you want to wait for the next better-faster-cheaper version.
Not much to say about the design, it’s a slab but the build quality is excellent and it feels very solid. I bought this specifically because it’s a 7″ form factor, and I wanted portable and pocketable which this delivers. I’ve posted a picture of what’s in the box, it’s just the tablet, charger and cable [see photo on the product page]. Don’t plan on learning much from the “manual”, which is a tiny little booklet. One thing I can’t say is whether it has Gorilla Glass like the original Tab. I hope so, but Samsung doesn’t say much as Amazon shipped before the release date — heck, Samsung won’t even let me register it yet. The screen quality, brightness and resolution is excellent although I did wind up disabling auto brightness as I thought it kept things a little dark. Easily fixed by manually setting the brightness to about 60%. The auto setting was probably to save battery life, which seems excellent. Charged to 100% this morning, and after a day of light usage (web browsing, wifi on all day, an hour of music listening, dozen or so apps loaded, 15 minutes of navigation) I still have 51% remaining after a day of usage. [11/6] I’m still happy with battery life, but I will say watching Netflix looks like it would only last about 4-5 hours.
Honeycomb with this tablet is extremely responsive, and I didn’t find Touch Wiz intrusive. Actually everything pretty much just works the way you’d hope. GPS and Google Maps worked great, got sat lock in only a few minutes sitting on the passenger seat of the car. Local driving, but Google Maps cached enough that nav worked great. [11/6] In answer to several comments, the GPS works without wifi. Google Maps caches some local coverage, and there are standalone nav apps that have broader coverage. If traffic updates are important, you won’t get them with no wifi.
Tried the camera, it’s point-and-shoot cellphone quality but nothing approaching even my Lumix camera let alone a DSLR. [11/12] But apps like Barcode Scanner and Skype make good use of the cameras. The touchscreen is very responsive, and Netflix and Youtube looked great on my home wifi. No problems at all with any of the apps I downloaded, they all ran and looked great. [11/12] The 1.5.14 Pandora update fixes my previous UI complaint, so Pandora now looks as good as it sounds. If you want to pretend to buy this for work with a clear conscience, I also setup the built-in VPN client and was able to load a free RDP application (Pocketcloud) from the Android market to access our Windows servers just fine. [11/12] The Peel Smart Remote folks never answered their email support form (why bother to have it if you don’t respond?), but their 1.2.6 update did deliver basic support for my Time Warner/Motorola DVR so I’ve now had a chance to use the built-in remote. The personalized program guide is nice and I might actually use it. But the remote functions supported are pretty basic so I’ll still be using my Logitech Harmony – maybe they’ll create an app!
If you’re looking for a smaller tablet with all the bells and whistles, I think you’d be happy with this one.
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