The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 ($499 for 16GB, $549 for 32GB) is the first tablet to actually change my workflow. It's the only 10-inch Android tablet with clear consumer advantages over the iPad . It's sure to become a cult classic for its three killer apps: split-screen note-taking, pressure-sensitive drawing, and a universal living-room remote control. Those features elevate it above other Android models to make it an Editors' Choice for large-screen tablets.
The 10-inch Android tablet dilemma has been that they don't generally offer advantages over the iPad that consumers care about. Yes, Android tablets do things the iPad doesn't do: They generally sport removable memory, configurable home screens, and the ability to run Nintendo emulators. But those geek-centric advantages have largely been outweighed by the iPad's massive third-party app superiority. (The dynamic with 7-inch tablets is different, because they look better when running apps designed for 4-inch phones.)
That ends here. The Galaxy Note 10.1 does real, useful things the iPad can't do. Let's get the basics out of the way and I'll explain.
Physical Features, Networking, Etc.
The Samsung Galaxy Note is a 10.1-inch tablet of average size and weight at 10.3 by 7.1 by .35 inches (HWD) and 21 ounces. It has a wraparound chrome bezel with stereo speakers on either side of the screen, as well as a larger gray bezel cradling the 1280-by-800 LCD screen. One thing's clear: this will never be mistaken for an iPad. The screen is bright and sharp, although it's not as high-res as the screens on the new iPad and the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700. Text will look grainy if you're coming from one of those tablets, but fine if you're coming from any other device. The screen also gets very reflective outdoors because of the additional pressure-sensitive layer.
The Power and Volume buttons are on top, along with the microSD card slot and an IR emitter that becomes key when you use the Note as a remote control. On the bottom is the irritating, proprietary charging port, and the 5-megapixel camera is on the non-removable plastic back.?
The Note's stylus slips unnoticeably into a slot in the corner. It comes with several extra tips. The stylus, which Samsung calls an "S Pen," works with the Wacom-enabled screen to pull off tricks involving proximity sensing, pressure sensitivity, and palm rejection that you won't find on any other desirable tablet today. (The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet also has a pressure-sensitive stylus, but it has a lot of other problems.)
The Galaxy Note 10.1 connects to the Internet using Wi-Fi 802.11b/g on the 2.4 and 5GHz bands. It also has Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS/GLONASS. The Bluetooth connected to both headsets and keyboards without a problem. Battery life was 5 hours, 42 minutes of video playback at max brightness on the 7000mAh battery, which is on par with the new iPad but behind the TF700's 7 hours, 17 minutes.
What Makes The Note Special
The Note isn't quite like other Android tablets, because of three important features.
The first is that pressure-sensitive stylus. Used with the right app, it has both pressure sensitivity and palm rejection, which means you can rest your hand on the screen, take notes, and sketch. It's much more responsive than a standard capacitive stylus on an Android tablet, too. Third-party apps tend to support pressure sensitivity but not palm rejection. The tablet comes with Adobe's PS Touch, which supports pressure and palm rejection but has trouble registering subtle dot touches on the screen. The simpler Drawing Pad app has no problem with dots or pressure, but doesn't have palm rejection. Ditto with Evernote's Skitch.
Then there's split-screen. Six apps can be run side-by-side, each taking up half the screen: the Microsoft Office-compatible Polaris Office, S Note, the video player, the photo gallery, email, and the Web browser. Add the "mini app" desk accessories which pop up from the bottom (Alarm, Calculator, Email, music player, S Note, calendar, task manager, and world clock) and you can actually have three apps on the screen at once.
Combine split-screen and note-taking, and you suddenly have a very useful tablet. I spend a lot of time in a lot of meetings. Now I'm able to pop up Google Reader on the left and jot down notes on the most relevant stories from RSS feeds on the right. Or pop up a promotional YouTube video on the bottom and take notes on what it's showing on top. This is the first digital note-taking device that has made me want to drop my trusty Livescribe Echo .
S Note isn't perfect. It has handwriting recognition, but you can't retroactively go back and recognize notes you took before you turned the mode on. It won't sync audio notes with written notes that way Livescribe does, which is a real bummer and makes it much less useful for interviews. But the split-screen feature is just killer for meetings.
Finally, the Note 10.1 is a home entertainment remote. The Note comes with Peel Smart Remote, which has had some serious bug-fix upgrades since I first saw it on the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus??last year. It controls TVs, DVRs, and home stereos. This year, it connected easily to our Sony TV and Dish Network Hopper and displayed a colorful array of what's on TV.
General Android Performance and Multimedia
The Note 10.1 is also a state-of-the-art Android tablet running Android 4.0.4 with heavy Samsung TouchWiz customizations. We anticipate it'll eventually get an upgrade to Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" (as the 2GB of RAM looks specced to support that upgrade) but don't hold your breath. The Note's quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos processor benchmarked extremely fast on Web browsing, general processing and simple graphics benchmarks, only falling short of Nvidia's Tegra 3 on Taiji, a more advanced gaming graphics benchmark. Along with the lack of Nvidia's exclusive high-end games, that underscores the fact that this is a business-creative tablet rather than a gaming tablet.
TouchWiz on here is stuffed full of Easter eggs. The calendar, music, and video players have all been given thoughtful, paned interfaces which take advantage of the screen size. Don't like the full-sized keyboard? You can switch the keyboard into "floating" or "split" modes, smaller keyboards with different screen arrangements. Various auto-sharing options come into play if you're lucky enough to have a room full of Galaxy Notes or Galaxy S III phones.
Samsung tries to make the Note a media tablet by promoting its Music Hub, Media Hub, and Game Hub stores, but none of them are compelling. They're a slightly overpriced music store, a perfectly average TV-and-movies store, and a short list of games. Fortunately, the tablet works fine with Nook, Kindle, Netflix, and Google Play, so the media bloatware is only a minor concern. There still aren't as many tablet apps for Android as there are for iOS, especially when it comes to games and creativity apps. We're recommending the Note 10.1 primarily for the apps that come with it straight out of the box.
Performance overall is pretty swell. The Note comes in 16GB and 32GB models, and you can expand memory with up to a 64GB memory card in the top-mounted slot. The video player supports H.264, MPEG4, and WMV videos at up to 1080p resolution without breaking a sweat, and the music player supports all the usual formats. The front-mounted speakers are nice and loud. HDMI output requires a $40 adapter, though.
The 5-megapixel main camera and 1.9-megapixel front camera are decent examples of the field. Both cameras record sharp 720p video at 30 frames per second outdoors and in. The main camera takes decently balanced images with no blur, although they could be a wee bit sharper. The front camera takes sharp and clear photos in good light, grainy and noisy photos in poor light, both at an odd top resolution of 1392-by-1392.
Conclusions
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 can actually make your life easier. If you spend a lot of time in meetings, you think in images, or you want to use your tablet as a home remote control, the Galaxy Note 10.1 has features that are perfect for you.
The current Apple iPad is still our top recommendation for basic tablet users and folks who mostly want to browse the Web, read books, and play games. Its Retina screen makes the text on Web pages look gorgeous, and the Note can't match the great selection of tablet games for iOS.
But the iPad's primary pressure-sensitive stylus accessory, the Adonit Jot Touch (which we'll review in the future) costs extra and doesn't offer the sensitivity and palm rejection of the S Pen, and the iPad can't do the Galaxy Tab's marvelous split-screen trick. For offering compelling features found nowhere else, we'll let the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 share the Editors' Choice award for large tablets with the Apple iPad.
More Tablet Reviews:
??? Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (Wi-Fi)
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