Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android Honeycomb Tablet PC Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,906 words · ~9 min read
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the Galaxy Tab 10.1 so this is from the
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Android side of things what I would consider to be the closest equivalent to
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something like an iPad 2 in terms of the form factor the sleekness of the design
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and in terms of the well really the the
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look the style okay so the Galaxy Tab
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10.1 here we go so it's obviously a 10.1 in screen it's a 1280x 800 resolution
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which is pretty much part for the course 16x9 aspect ratio it does use the NVIDIA
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Tegra 2 chip which means that you do have support for games that require
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Tegra 2 see Samsung just says dual core processor 1 GHz time 2 but it also has a
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fairly powerful GPU on there as well so
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that's a good thing to note okay it uses a PLS display
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so just in case you were wondering what kind of display type it uses the ASUS
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uses an IPS panel this uses a PLS panel we've got Intel Adobe Flash Player we've
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got uh HD video capture and Playback so it does include a 3.2 megapixel front
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camera 2 megapixel back camera in terms of their photo taking capabilities and
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claims that you can capture HD video does support video chat and has a 7,000
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milliamp hour battery although that doesn't tell us anything about the
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battery life itself I wouldn't expect
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battery life to be quite as strong a point for this one as some of the bigger
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tablets because and this is important to note the Tab 10.1 is actually the
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thinnest tablet on the market by a
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wapping 2 of a millimeter compared to
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the iPad 2 so here we go there's the tab itself let's put that aside for now um
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and let's see what Samsung includes here do you want to just go back where you
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were there we go so Samsung has what is
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this is this a manual looks like a manual
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okay all right then maybe this manual wasn't meant to be read There we go
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finally got it open all right so the manual of information okay the Samsung
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Galaxy Tab health health and safety and warranty guide so here why don't we find
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out what the warranty is I'm just curious it's probably a one-year
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warranty that's pretty standard these days page 44 one year there you go cases
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90 days tablet one year batteries one year cool okay next we have uh sign up
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now to customize your Samsung phone experience okay next we have what looks
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like probably a quick start guide so shows you where all the buttons are shows you the basic functionality how to
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charge it you're going to have to charge it using the included adapter because
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like many tablets it does require more power than can be
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provided out of a standard USB port although some motherboards do include
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features that allow you to charge tablets and higher draw devices out of
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some USB ports so keep an eye out for that if you do have a tablet and you're
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upgrading your motherboard that's a pretty neat little feature includes a
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pair of headphones which have uh not only
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headphones on them but also here left right there we go also a microphone as
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well as a single button so you can actually press it once to play or pause
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or twice to skip a track so that's kind of a neat little function to build in as
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well and finally we have a charging cable charging SL do cable so this plugs
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into the presumably the bottom of the unit yes plugs into the bottom of the
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unit right here and then plugs into a charger or
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your PC all right so now it's finally time to
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have a look at the unit itself and in terms of the overall slickness of it it
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feels really nice to hold it's you know what I don't I don't want to I don't
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want to say it cuz I'm not sure but it feels lighter than most of the other
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tablets that I played with remember though a lot of how something feels is
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actually the ergonomics more than the weight so don't quote me on that because
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I haven't looked up the weight of this particular unit but it feels really
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really lightweight to hold on to for some reason all right so on the front
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here actually why don't I why don't I turn it on really quick here is our
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power/ standby button right up here on the side you can see that this guy is
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very very slim you know what I'm going to pull out an iPad too for comparison
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um give me a sec here guys so there you go there's the 2 mm difference in
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thickness now one of the other things things that is going to be far more
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comfortable about the tab is the fact that it is lighter I I can tell Almost
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100% the Tab 10.1 feels lighter than the iPad 2 which is great because a lot of
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the time you're not necessarily sitting at a desk with a tablet in front of you
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watching it you might be sitting on a plane holding it you might be laying in
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bed holding it like this whatever the case may be having a lighter tablet is
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definitely going to make for a better overall experience now one of the other
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things that really stands out to me about the Tab 10 .1 is the construction
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quality it feels like it's worth the $4.99 price tag which cannot necessarily
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be said about every tablet that's in that price range so even though it does
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have a plastic back this is a very smart design for a couple of reasons so number
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one one of my biggest complaints about the iPad 2 in terms of the build quality
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outstanding it just feels great it does it's true you can like it or lump it but
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it's true okay but this aluminum back
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every time I put it down I feel like I'm breaking it you
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know I feel like I'm damaging it which is kind of stressful uh I mean yeah you
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can probably get like covers for it but that defeats the purpose of having a
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super slim tablet don't you think you go and wrap it in like a big old case well
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why right you want something that covers the screen on the front and the back
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should be pretty much should take care of itself so the Samsung Tab 10.1 has a
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plastic back and it has a texture to it so what that means is I can take it and
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I can go like this and I don't feel uncomfortable about that because even if
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it gets a small scratch on it that's not going to be very noticeable at all this
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is the 16 gig version I have here today but it's also available in 32 gigs and
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let's cover a couple basic specs here uh before I get into the locations of all
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the different things on the tab 10.1 of which there are a few so we've got a
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headphone jack here which you can obviously use with the included uh
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headphones and microphone right there okay just like that and that also has
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that media control functionality that I talked about before we do have a front
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mounted oh I already talked about the uh the cameras didn't I but you've also got
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a flash on the tab 10.1 that is a very
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handy feature I actually do use the flash from time to time on my iPhone 4
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and the reason is cu if I'm trying to find my way in the dark I'll just turn
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on actually this is a really cool little app I have a little flashlight app just
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turn that on and uh I can find my way around right so
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that's kind of neat so having something like that is a cool feature even if you
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don't use it for photographs okay up at the top here uh you've got the power/
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standby button you've also got a volume rocker so that's down that's up you've
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got that guy on the side you find a speaker port on the bottom you've got
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your dock as well as what appears to be a microphone Port although I have not
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100% sure about that that looks like a microphone port and then on the other
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side of speaker so what you don't have on the 10.1 and I'm going to assume that
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this is partly due to to the very very slim very slick form factor is things
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like HDMI out okay that is not supported on the tab 10.1 we also don't see any
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support for a Micro SD or an SD card slot so these are compromises that you
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are going to have to make in terms of Elegance and since I would only consider
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the iPad 2 really equivalent to the Tab 10.1 in terms of its form factor then it
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doesn't have any checkboxes against it in terms of its competition because the
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iPad 2 also doesn't support external video out and also doesn't support uh
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external added
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storage now you can get a keyboard dock but right now it's only available from
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Samsung um so you know I wouldn't missen
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it's not like the transformer where the keyboard dock is pretty much a a brain
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dead add-on to it because it comes with the included battery pack and the extra
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functionality like the USB ports but if you did want a keyboard you could get
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that although really I'd recommend just grabbing a Bluetooth keyboard and
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pairing it to your Galaxy Tab because what I've found in my experience I've
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actually got a keyboard for the iPad 2 I never use it I I very very rarely
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actually do any serious email use on a tablet so I'm mostly focused on things
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like web browsing YouTube where you're just typing a couple little things and
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the keyboards included with Android the onscreen keyboards as well as iOS are
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more than sufficient for that kind of thing so this pretty much wraps up my
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unboxing of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 don't forget to subscribe to lonus Tech tips
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for more unboxings reviews in other computer videos actually one more thing
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it is available in a couple of different colors um I went with the darker color
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because I do believe it'll be a little bit more resistant to grunge buildup and
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for something as elegant and Slick looking as this you want to kind of look
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elegant and Slick 6 months down the road so that is why I did decide to go that
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route