
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1: An Embarrassing, Lazy, Arrogant Money Grab - aaronbrethorst
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/08/21/samsung-galaxy-note-10-1-review-an-embarrassing-lazy-arrogant-money-grab/
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w1ntermute
Why are people paying so much attention to Samsung tablets? They're shit,
multitasking aside.

 _Get the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity already_. It's got a 1080p screen, is
the 3rd iteration of a technically good (if not commercially successful)
tablet line, has essentially stock Android, will receive quick software
updates to new Android versions, and costs $500.

~~~
sciwiz
Correction, the Infinity's screen is 1920x1200.

Stick to ASUS for Android tablets, great hardware at good prices. The $500
model is the 32GB version. Also, to reiterate the quick updates, ASUS updated
the TF300 model to JellyBean this week (1 month turnaround from 4.1 code
release)

~~~
hyperbovine
But 1080p == 1920x1200, yes?

~~~
jcitme
No. 1080p is 16:9, or 1920 by 1080.

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ricardobeat
> Loud, front-facing stereo speakers. These should be standard equipment on
> all phones and tablets.

Then you don't hear anything when your phone is lying screen down (which is
very often). This was a major flaw in many older Android phones, I had a Dext
and wouldn't hear the alarm in the morning - took me a while to figure it out.

The rest of the article is just full of mindless rehash of popular opinions.
_Tablets are supposed to be media consumption devices_ , but he praises multi-
tasking split screens and a stylus. Seriously, browser and e-mail on a 10"
screen? I can barely do it on 13".

> I'm monitoring my ram […]

What? You don't want a tablet, you want a miniature version of the computer
you already have. You should be thankful you don't have to care about RAM
usage anymore, leave it to the machine!

~~~
Karunamon
>You should be thankful you don't have to care about RAM usage anymore

Until such time as the machine cares about it in such a way that doesn't
degrade performance (multiple seconds to launch apps vs tenths of second post
killing some extras), I will continue to stay on top of RAM usage.

~~~
msh
the ipad handles this without slowing down...

~~~
Blara
isn't that due to just showing a splash screen and loading the app in the
background? I'm sure I read it somewhere. Anyway it is a smart way to make
hardware feel faster and more responsive, I did the same when developing an
embedded touchscreen.

~~~
msh
No, more due to a agressive suspending of background processes. A app cant run
in the background if it's not doing something that absolutely need to run in
the background.

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jfb
I like a good screed, and this was a good one. The best polemics come from a
jilted lover, and this has that wonderfully venomous tone.

------
EwanG
I suspect you may see more of these through the end of the year as folks who
had big plans for Android tablets realize that the non-iPad market is about to
be "owned" by Windows 8. While i have my issues with Win 8 the idea of a
tablet where I can use real programs, and not just apps, for the same price as
an Android tablet makes my next purchase a no-brainer (insert/insult joke
here).

~~~
mindstab
Except aren't most of these hypothetical tablets running on ARM so the actual
software on the market now that will run on them is 0. Some stuff will get
recompiled in ARM for them, but far from all of windows software out now. So
we'll see.

And real apps aren't designed for tablet. So we'll see how much fun running
desktop designed apps on a tablet really is.

I'm sceptical.

~~~
tmurray
it's not just that you have to recompile for ARM; that would be too easy.

Third-party apps on Win8 ARM are Metro-only (or whatever Microsoft is calling
Metro now). So okay, port to Metro, you think! Well, you can't use the Win32
API _at all_ in Metro apps. It's simply not available. Instead, you have to
use the Win32 replacement, WinRT, which is a somewhat-crippled version of
Win32 (want to load a dynamic library at runtime? too bad! static libraries or
bust!) which is very different from Win32 in terms of API design.

I can't see Win8 being a serious contender in the tablet space anytime soon. I
get the impression that Metro and ARM are being used as an excuse to push
WinRT because various groups at Microsoft don't like Win32, but the sudden
total lack of applications or backwards compatibility is going to hurt them a
_lot_.

~~~
tedunangst
iOS does not appear to have suffered from its lack of dynamic library support.
It's funny people bring this up, because iOS Cocoa is crippled in _exactly_
the same way.

~~~
vidarh
But in this case the issue is that it is one of many things that makes it
harder to port existing software, and so the shared lineage with Windows
matters a lot less.

------
short_circut
I honestly stopped reading when I read "Terrible even by Samsung's low
standards." I don't feel like the author was being objective and was looking
for anything wrong. Fanboys are inherently unobjective

~~~
dustywusty
I agree with your point, but I also feel as if the author was spot on with
this assessment. I recently purchased a Galaxy Nexus, and one of my biggest
hold-ups was the build quality versus the Nexus One.

It's really not acceptable that an expensive flagship phone, or tablet, is
made out of this kind of cheap plastic.

To put it in perspective, the Nexus 7 is also made of only plastic, but the
perceived quality is so different it's absurd.

~~~
short_circut
He probably was spot on with several things. I read a good bit of the rest. I
have the galaxy note phone. The first time I saw the ad for this tablet all I
could think of was how awesome it was. It is good to see negative opinions
sometimes though

------
vitriolix
THIS:

So my message to Samsung is: If you can't do this correctly, stop skinning
Android. You've been trying and failing for so many years and nothing good has
come of it, so just stop. Even when you have a good idea, like split screen
and floating apps, you don't control the right parts of Android to make it
work. So just accept it and leave the OS development to the professionals. You
can't add any worthwhile functionality at the layer you normally change, and
you have no taste for design. Stock Android is so good now, messing with it is
like getting a fully-cooked meal from a famous, 5 star chef, and then
smothering it with ketchup. So stop.

------
CrazedGeek
A more positive (and, IMO, more objective) review:
[http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/15/samsung-galaxy-
note-10-1-...](http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/15/samsung-galaxy-
note-10-1-review/)

~~~
thought_alarm
That Engadget piece is the _least_ objective review I've read.

The problem with general tech sites like Engadget is that they can't call a
turd a turd because it will alienate half their readership and bring on
accusations of being an Apple shill. A least The Verge had the guts to rate
this turkey 5/10, although their review was still way too kind.

But no one will accuse androidpolice.com of shilling for Apple, so they're
free to write an honest review, and not sugarcoat real and unacceptable flaws.

This device is priced like an iPad, but it is clearly and thoroughly
outclassed by Apple's hardware and Apple's software. So what then are
Samsung's strengths, exactly? Beside their ability to dupe people into
overpaying for inferior "me too" products, I mean.

~~~
CrazedGeek
"it is clearly and thoroughly outclassed by Apple's hardware and Apple's
software"

Unless you want expandable storage, different connectivity options, a
digitizer, a more customizable OS, actual file system access, etc. One size
most certainly doesn't fit all.

~~~
simonh
Sure, but if the implementation of those and other features are rubbish then
how much does checking those boxes count for?

I'm not making any judgements here, that's for the reviewer to decide, but
surely in general the quality of the implementation matters, no?

------
nmridul
I don't agree with the Aluminum body. I agree with Samsung's decision to go
plastic because it reduces some more weight.

I've the 5.3 inch Notes and its light. Even though the back cover is plastic
(its a thin plastic) its not so cheapo plastic. I feel it reduces extra couple
of grams more from the device weight.

~~~
radicaldreamer
Durability matters much more for portable devices than a few grams of
difference in weight.

Not everyone treats electronics with kid gloves, especially portable devices.

~~~
vetinari
One more reason to use plastic. It is not fragile and absorbs shocks from
impact just fine.

~~~
sbuk
Depends on the plastic used.

~~~
vitriolix
Absolutely. The galaxy tab 10.1is really nicely made... sounds like they
deviated when they shouldn't have here.

------
wmf
Is the Galaxy Note 10.1 the same as the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1? I'm confused by the
naming.

~~~
icegreentea
No, they are different. The Galaxy Note 10.1 is based on the Galaxy Note which
was a humungo phone (or tiny tablet) that came with a stylus (so its like a
notepad get it? eh eh?).

~~~
wmf
So is the difference just the stylus? Because they _look_ the same.

~~~
icegreentea
From a specifications standpoint, you could imagine the Note 10.1 as being
something of a successor of the Tab 10.1. Despite the angry review, it does
pack improved (roughly one generation ahead) hardware compared to the Tab 10.

------
nitrogen
_Samsung didn't design this to look good, they designed it only to not look
like something else, and it shows._

Or maybe they designed it to work well with a pen.

Wacom-style handwriting and drawing are two things I enjoy with my oldschool
tablet PC that I've been waiting for someone to add to a tablet.

~~~
ricardobeat
<http://adonit.net/product/jot-touch/>

<http://www.jajastylus.com/>

~~~
nitrogen
Those both look very cool. The one thing they lack that Wacom has, however, is
hovering.

------
tedunangst
When I read a review like this, I'm amazed Apple is bothering to sue Samsung.
How could they be scared of this? But then I wonder if part of the motive is
more like "you are _sooo_ bad, you embarrass the entire world of tablets, and
we are going to shut you down as a public service".

~~~
rimantas
Probably. Something along the lines "if your product is crap but looks very
much like our product, people will think that our product is crap".

