Posted by Matthew in General | 0 Comments

Why should I buy the Galaxy Tab 10.1?

This is something we all ask ourselves  time to time when a new device comes out in the market.

Of course, we all want the top-of-the-line product. So we have a right to ask ourselves that!

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a very lightweight tablet (lighter than the iPad 2) and a larger tablet as well, coming around at .33” in Thinness (Compared to the iPad 2,which is .34”), and has a 10.1” screen, Hence the name, with a 1280×800 LCD Resolution.. It weighs in at 565g, (26 grams LESS than the iPad 2). This tablet measures 256.7x 175.3 8.6 mm in size. It’s very sleek looking with a choice of a white back or a metallic gray on the back. It offers the same 3.5mm Headphone jack as most other devices.

Read More

Posted by Nick in General, News | 1 Comment

Quick Look: Android Market July 2011

A few days ago, Google announced that they intended to update the Android Market for all devices running 2.2+. This of course means a polished and beautiful new Market for the original Galaxy Tab. Over the past 24 hours leaks of the apk have to trickle out all over the internet, and it’s expected that Google will push an official update in the coming days.

What can users expect? Well for starters the new Market is beautiful, very Windows Phone 7-esque, which as far as aesthetics go is a win for the Android community. What’s better is that the new market finally brings the full Market experience found on the web portal to phones (and 7 inch Samsung tablets). From the homepage you have access to apps, games, books, and movies. From my early test runs I’ve found that the new Market looks as good as it sounds. Google’s entire catalog of book and movie rentals are here, and organized into smart categories as well as sections for top rentals and staff picks.  Apps and games are now two separate categories which is better for the platform in the long run, and means better organization for users. There are reports of users being unable to rent movies because of being rooted or hardware issues. Just know that you will not be able to rent movies if you are rooted. Expect the Market app to update in the coming days.

And if you can’t wait that long, here’s a download of the new market APK
 Download: Android Market July 2011

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in General | 0 Comments

Galaxy Tab 10.1 Benchmarks

Image Credit: Phone Arena

I know there are a lot of benchmarking junkies out there and only want the device with the best score. As of right now the Galaxy Tab 10.1 seems to be scoring as high or higher than all other Honeycomb tablets.

Linpack

Single Thread: 25-30 MFLOPS
Multi-Thread: 50-55 MFLOPS

Quadrant Standard

Score: 1400-1600

CF-Bench

Native MIPS: 854
Java MIPS: 42
Native MSFLOPS: 489
Java MSFLOPS: 263
Native MDFLOPS: 300
Java MDFLOPS: 170
Native MALLOCS: 17081
Native Memory Read: 2627
Java Memory Read: 236
Native Memory Write: 1246
Java Memory Write: 597
Native Disk Read: 339
Native Disk Write: 460
Java Efficiency MIPS: 4%
Java Efficiency MSFLOPS: 53%
Java Efficiency MDFLOPS: 56%
Java Efficiency Memory Read: 8%
Java Efficiency Memory Write: 47%
Native Score: 9251
Java Score: 1664
Overall Score: 4698

Smartbench 2011

Productivity Index: 3246
Games Index: 2322

AnTuTu Benchmark

Score: 3730

Most of this is like a foreign language to me, but hopefully it is helpful to you.

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in Featured, General | 1 Comment

The right way to implement cameras on a tablet

Image credit: LaptopMag.com

Ever since the first time a camera was put on a tablet consumers have wondered, “why?” It is a very good question. Tablets are often clunky and large making it difficult to snap a decent picture. The whole concept is illogical. It was customers who originally demanded them. For example the first iPad did not have any cameras, but customers cried on the internet for them. The following year Apple put cameras on the iPad 2 and people were happy at first. Then they realized that the cameras had no purpose and forgot about them.

No manufacturer has capitalized on the correct way to implement cameras on a tablet.

Video calling is the main use of cameras on a tablet, not posting blurry pictures of your desk on Twitter. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 has a 3 megapixel, auto-focus camera with an LED flash on the back that is probably on par with smartphones a year or two ago. The front-facing camera is even worse. It loses a megapixel and is fixed-focused instead of auto-focused. A fixed-focus camera is utterly useless. We would have been much better off with them putting the somewhat ok camera on the back onto the front and completely scrapping the original front-facing camera.

Cameras are not the thing that are holding back video calling. The clients themselves seriously degrade the video quality. Is it too much to ask for a 720p video chat?

In summary, tablets should not have a rear-facing camera and should have a decent lens on the front.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below or on our forums.

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in Featured, General | 5 Comments

Should you upgrade to the Galaxy Tab 10.1?

The new Galaxy Tab is out and you might be thinking about trading in your original Galaxy Tab for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. There is a lot of good things about the 10.1, but is it right for you?

Why you should

1. Display - The screen is larger and the resolution is higher making it much better for watching movies or browsing the web.

2. NVIDIA Tegra 2 - The Galaxy Tab 10.1 packs a powerful punch with the NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipset. Its dual-core architecture makes the original Galaxy Tab seem as slow as molasses.

3. Honeycomb - The original Galaxy Tab runs Froyo/Gingerbread, which were both designed for phones originally. Samsung did make some customizations to the software to make it more tablet-friendly, but at the end of the day Honeycomb is for tablets and Android 2.x is for phones.

4. Tablet Optimized Apps - There is a growing number of apps designed for Honeycomb that take advantage of the large screen that will not work on the original Galaxy Tab.

5. Tegra Zone - NVIDIA has restricted THD games (Tegra HD) to phones or tablets with the NVIDIA Tegra 2. It might make you angry, but the only way to play those games is if your device has a Tegra 2 processor.

Why you shouldn’t

1. Portability - The seven inch screen on the original Galaxy Tab makes it extremely portable. It can even fit in some back pockets.

2. Phone capabilities - The international version of the original Galaxy Tab can double as a phone. It works perfectly with a Bluetooth headset.

3. Price - You already own the original Galaxy Tab, so you would have to shell out $499 to $599 to buy the new one. Even if you sold it, then you would only make around $250.

So what do you think? Is it worth it to upgrade?

Posted by Kyle Dornblaser in General | 0 Comments

A Few Months Later – List of Apps That Don’t Scale up to the Galaxy Tab’s Resolution UPDATE – Sadness

On the first day of 2011 I started to construct a list of all the apps that did not scale up properly to the Galaxy Tab’s resolution. I asked for your help and boy did I get it! Now a few months later we take another look at the list.

Back then it seemed like half of the apps in the Android Market were not capable of scaling up and it just looked terrible. Sure you could use Spare Parts to force it, but that just caused problems. I have gone back and checked every application on that list and found that nearly all of them scale up perfectly.

Check out the master list.

The ones that scaled up flawlessly have been crossed out. Most of the others have at least made improvements to their app for higher resolution screens, but it still looks slightly wonky on the Tab’s display.

I for one am psyched that developers have made such strides in these short months. If you have any other applications to add to the list, then please leave a comment on the list’s page.

Update: RLJSlick pointed out that one of the apps actually still wasn’t working. I went inquiring and installed spare parts. I got it back to how it should be, with it not scaling properly. Then I went and tested each app and most of them still do not scale all the way. Now I have to figure out why my Tab was scaling them even without Spare Parts installed. Maybe a Sprint OTA Update installed something to force full screen. Have any other Sprint Tab owners noticed that the apps on the list do take up the whole screen? Thanks.