75
Criteria
Comments
Rating
- Features Pretty comparable to most other tablets: front facing camera, rear camera (why?), no extra storage slots.
- Display The display is great. Equally as bright and crisp looking as my iPad 2. I'm not totally a fan of the 16 x 9 form factor, but it's growing on me.
- Battery life Horrendous. Yes, it's because Android sucks at it. I mean, if I have to turn off bluetooth, wifi, background apps, dim the screen, run task killer, why use it?
- Ease of use It's Android! So, take that for what you will. That said, the hardware buttons are kind of confusing and I find the volume rocker does opposite of what I want.
- Storage capacity I have the 32GB model and that's good enough for me!
- Design and form factor The design is great! Slightly thinner than an iPad 2, great to look at. But the 16 x 9 display is weird for reading things. Great for video, bad for the web.
- Portability (size / weight) Pretty light and portable. When I pick it up, I'm always surprised at how light it is. I have no complaints here.
- Durability I haven't totally tested it, but the plastic back and giant glass panel on the front don't give me much confidence in its durability. But nor does any tablet.
Detailed review
I think this is the first truly attractive looking Android tablet. Sadly, the version of Honeycomb on this tablet is rather buggy and feels rushed (Samsung claims it's running stock Android 3.0 -- but some weird bugs between this and a colleague's Motorola Xoom make me think there's been some tinkering).
Something I should note that wasn't mentioned in the criteria above: The rear camera on this thing is atrocious. Yes, it's 3 megapixels, which means it has about 3x more resolution that the camera on the iPad 2. But it is every bit as bad in terms of quality. Slow to shoot, horrible results.
Front camera is great though. At 2 megapixels, you can actually do HD video chats with other people and the quality is much better than the iPad 2's front facing camera.
One thing that struck me, coming from an iPad, is how bad the battery is in this device. Sitting on my desk at work, the battery will lost nearly 50% of its charge over the course of the day -- and that's without me interacting with it.
Charging the device is equally bad (and I'm definitely experiencing some strangeness): It takes an entire work day for me to charge it, and even then it isn't 100% charged. Something is going on with Android that is tarnishing my experience with this tablet.
Gizmodo recently called this the first Android tablet for humans. I don't necessarily agree. It's close (the hardware itself is pretty top notch as far as today's tablets go), but it's not quite there yet.
Something I should note that wasn't mentioned in the criteria above: The rear camera on this thing is atrocious. Yes, it's 3 megapixels, which means it has about 3x more resolution that the camera on the iPad 2. But it is every bit as bad in terms of quality. Slow to shoot, horrible results.
Front camera is great though. At 2 megapixels, you can actually do HD video chats with other people and the quality is much better than the iPad 2's front facing camera.
One thing that struck me, coming from an iPad, is how bad the battery is in this device. Sitting on my desk at work, the battery will lost nearly 50% of its charge over the course of the day -- and that's without me interacting with it.
Charging the device is equally bad (and I'm definitely experiencing some strangeness): It takes an entire work day for me to charge it, and even then it isn't 100% charged. Something is going on with Android that is tarnishing my experience with this tablet.
Gizmodo recently called this the first Android tablet for humans. I don't necessarily agree. It's close (the hardware itself is pretty top notch as far as today's tablets go), but it's not quite there yet.
good review!
16 people find this review helpful
review history
- 2011-05-19
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Edited comment on Design and form factor
Rated Design and form factor a 4
Rated Storage capacity a 5
Rated Portability (size / weight) a 5
Edited comment on Portability (size / weight)
Updated detailed review
Edited comment on Durability
Rated Durability a 3
Edited comment on Ease of use
Edited comment on Storage capacity
Rated Display a 5
Edited comment on Features
Rated Ease of use a 3
Edited comment on Display
Rated Features a 4
Rated Battery life a 2
Edited comment on Battery life
Edited comment on Durability
Edited comment on Storage capacity
Rated Storage capacity a 5
Rated Design and form factor a 4
Rated Portability (size / weight) a 5
Edited comment on Ease of use
Rated Durability a 3
Edited comment on Portability (size / weight)
Edited comment on Design and form factor
Rated Ease of use a 3
Updated detailed review
Edited comment on Battery life
Rated Features a 4
Edited comment on Features
Edited comment on Display
Rated Battery life a 2
Rated Display a 5
Edited comment on Design and form factor
Rated Design and form factor a 4
Rated Portability (size / weight) a 5
Edited comment on Durability
Edited comment on Storage capacity
Rated Durability a 3
Edited comment on Portability (size / weight)
Edited comment on Battery life
Rated Storage capacity a 5
Rated Display a 5
Rated Battery life a 2
Edited comment on Display
Rated Ease of use a 3
Edited comment on Ease of use
Edited comment on Features
Updated detailed review
Rated Features a 4