Computerworld
- Android
devices -- both
smartphones
and
tablets
-- are getting increasingly affordable. With its new
Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) tablet, which goes on sale on April 22 for
$250, Samsung is obviously hoping to claim its piece of the budget-price
pie.
However, while the price is new and noteworthy,
there's not much else about the tablet that's fresh or exciting.
Don't get me wrong: The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) is a
perfectly fine device. It has an attractive form and solid performance. The
problem is that it seems like a step sideways -- or, in some ways, backwards --
from the 7-in. tablets Samsung already has available. And by simply
recycling and
remixing an existing concept, Samsung has doomed the product to being
quickly outpaced.
The many faces of Samsung's 7-inch Tab
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) stands alongside two
other current 7-in. Samsung Galaxy tablets: the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, available
for $350, and the Galaxy Tab 7.7, which comes with LTE connectivity and sells
for $500 with a two-year Verizon data contract (or for $700 with no contract).
Generally speaking, choice is a good thing -- but lined up next to Samsung's
other 7-in. offerings, the only significant distinguishing feature the new Tab
can claim is its price tag.
To be fair, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) does look a
little different from its predecessors. The tablet has a gray plastic back and
is slightly thicker than Samsung's other 7-in. devices, measuring in at 0.41 in.
compared to the 7.0 Plus model's 0.39-in. size and the 7.7 model's even svelter
0.31-in. waistline. It weighs 12.2 oz., the same as the 7.0 Plus tablet and 0.2
oz more than the 7.7.
The tablet feels good in your hands; it's not at all
slippery and is comfortable to hold, at least in the horizontal position.
Because of its size, I found the tablet a bit awkward to use vertically; in that
orientation, it's slightly too big to hold in one hand and slightly too small to
hold naturally with two.
The display itself is good but not breathtaking. The
Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has a 1024 x 600 PLS TFT screen -- the same kind as the Tab
7.0 Plus. It's easy on the eyes and certainly nothing to complain about, but
it's also far less impressive than the high-quality screens we've seen on other
recent devices -- including Samsung's own Galaxy Tab 7.7, which uses one of the
company's newer Super AMOLED Plus (1280 x 800) displays.
Hardware and performance
Under the hood, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has a 1GHz
dual-core processor along with 1GB of RAM. Curiously, Samsung won't divulge
exactly what type of processor the tablet uses -- a spokesman told me he
couldn't comment on the matter -- but I independently confirmed that the chip is
not Nvidia's Tegra 2 processor, which powers many of the current
dual-core
Android
tablets.
Compared to Samsung's more expensive 7-in. tablets,
the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) is a bit of a downgrade in terms of pure processing
power: The Tab 7.0 Plus runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM,
while the Tab 7.7 uses a 1.4GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM.
Regardless, the difference is fairly minor and the
tablet performed well in my hands-on tests. Apps loaded quickly, Web browsing
and page-zooming were fast, and the system generally felt speedy and responsive.
My only issue was with swiping through the five home screens, which felt far
less fluid and snappy than I've come to expect from using similarly powered
devices.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) comes with 8GB of
internal
storage, though my
device showed only about 4.3GB free immediately after initialization (with no
nonsystem apps installed). Samsung originally said the Tab 2 (7.0) would be
available in three storage options -- 8GB, 16GB and 32GB -- and
its consumer website still reflected that multitiered lineup as
of this writing. However, a company spokesperson told me that the 8GB model I
tested is the only version that will be available at launch.
Fortunately, the Tab 2 (7.0) has plenty of
supplementary storage options. The device has a microSD slot that supports cards
up to 32GB (no cards are included with the tablet at purchase). It also comes
with a one-year subscription for 50GB of
cloud-based
storage from Dropbox, but take note: If you want to keep that subscription
beyond your first year, it'll cost you $10 a month or $100 a year. Without
extending the subscription, you'll be defaulted back to Dropbox's free storage
level, which gives you 2GB of space.
In terms of cameras, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has an
adequate but not exemplary 3-megapixel rear-facing camera and a VGA-quality
front-facing camera -- the latter of which is a step down in quality from the
2-megapixel front-facing camera found on the other two 7-in. Galaxy Tab models.
The Tab 2 (7.0) also has a built-in IR port that, combined with the preloaded
Smart Remote
app, allows you to use the tablet as a remote control for your TV. I found
the function to be easy to configure and novel to use.
A new flavor of Ice Cream Sandwich
A "Mini Apps" button, which Samsung added at the center
of the bottom of the screen, brings up a menu of applications.
With the Tab 2 (7.0), for the most part, you're
getting the actual ICS-level interface with some arbitrarily changed colors and
fonts that make it look a little less classy and polished. Samsung added a
handful of features, too, such as a "Mini Apps" button -- found at the center of
the bottom of the screen -- that brings up a menu of applications, all of which
can be loaded in small overlay windows from anywhere in the system.
Samsung replaced the stock ICS Camera app with its
own, too -- a cosmetic change, more than anything -- and added a somewhat
intrusive screen-capture icon to the main system navigation area. (Ice Cream
Sandwich has a native screen-capture command that can be activated by pressing
the volume-down and power buttons together, making Samsung's addition rather
redundant.)
The Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) has Samsung's usual sets of
Hubs (interfaces for buying and managing music, games, multimedia files and
news/magazine content) and
bloatware as
well, but Ice Cream Sandwich gives you an easy way to
disable
and hide most of these if you don't plan on using them and want them out of
your way.
Bottom line
All things considered, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)
is a pretty good tablet at a really good price. However, I find myself wondering
why Samsung bothered creating it. The tablet bears no real improvements over its
eerily similar predecessors; the few changes that it does have are either
lateral or marginally regressive.
If the company's goal was to offer a respectable
7-in. tablet at a lower cost, I think a far more customer-centric approach would
have been to deliver an ICS upgrade and a $100 price drop to its existing 7.0
Plus model (which is still awaiting Android 4.0, with a vague promise but no
specific time frame for delivery). As it stands, the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) lacks
any "wow" factor and leaves Samsung's existing Tab users looking like
second-class citizens in a waiting game with no end in sight.
(A similar situation may unfold with the company's
upcoming Galaxy Tab 2 10.1-in. model, which is slated to be released on May 13
at a price of $400. Although review units weren't available at press time, it
appears that, like the 7-in. model, the Tab 2 (10.1) will offer few significant
changes over its predecessor -- which has also yet to be upgraded to Android
4.0.)
In addition, Google's I/O developers' convention is
just over two months away. Asus has already discussed plans to release a $250
quadcore
7-in. tablet between now and the end of June, and Google is rumored to be
working on a
next-gen
7-in. tablet that will cost in the $150 to $200 range and could be available
this summer.
In short, anyone in immediate need of a low-cost
7-in. tablet would do well with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0). But with
tomorrow's technology almost upon us at budget-level prices, it's hard to
recommend dropping that cash on yesterday's technology today.
