Nokia n8

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GENERAL	2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
	3G Network	HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100
	Announced	2010, April
	Status	Available. Released 2010, October

SIZE	Dimensions	113.5 x 59.1 x 12.9 mm, 86 cc
	Weight	135 g

DISPLAY	Type	AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	360 x 640 pixels, 3.5 inches (~210 ppi pixel density - Multi-touch input method - Proximity sensor for auto turn-off - Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate - Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
	Speakerphone	Yes
		- 3.5 mm audio jack

MEMORY	Phonebook	Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
	Call records	Detailed, max 30 days
	Internal	16 GB storage, 256 MB RAM, 1 GB ROM
	Card slot	microSD, up to 32GB

DATA	GPRS	Class 33
	EDGE	Class 33
	3G	HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, UPnP technology
	Bluetooth	yes, v3.0 with A2DP
	Infrared port	No
	USB	Yes, microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go support

CAMERA	Primary	12 MP, 4000x3000 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Xenon flash
	Features	1/1.83'' sensor size, ND filter, geo-tagging, face detection
	Video	Yes, 720p@25fps (720p@30fps via an update)
	Secondary	VGA videocall camera

FEATURES	OS	Symbian^3 OS, upgradable to Symbian Anna OS
	CPU	680 MHz ARM 11 processor, Broadcom BCM2727 GPU
	Messaging	SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
	Browser	WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds
	Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS; FM transmitter
	Games	Yes + downloadable
	Colors	Dark Grey, Silver White, Green, Blue, Orange, Pink
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS support; Ovi Maps 3.0
	Java	Yes, MIDP 2.1
		- TV-out (720p video) via HDMI with Dolby Digital Plus sound - Anodized aluminum casing - Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic - Digital compass - MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player - DivX/XviD/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player - Voice command/dial - Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF) - Video/photo editor - Flash Lite v4.0 - Predictive text input

BATTERY		Standard battery, Li-Ion 1200 mAh (BL-4D)
	Stand-by	Up to 390 h (2G) / Up to 400 h (3G)
	Talk time	Up to 12 h (2G) / Up to 5 h 50 min (3G)							Misc SAR  US 1.09 W/kg (head)     0.85 W/kg (body)     SAR EU                           1.02 W/kg (head)

Cellphones, Mobile Handsets

Nokia N8 review

The first time Nokia's N8-00 popped up on our radar was way back in early February of this year. On that chilly, misty morning, we learned of a mythical being capable of shooting 12 megapixel stills, recording 720p video, outputting via HDMI, and -- most importantly -- ushering in the promised Symbian^3 touch revolution. It's been a long road of leaks, teasers, hands-ons, and previews since then, but at long last, the legend of the N8 has become a purchasable commodity. All the early specs have survived, including the 3.5-inch AMOLED display, but the key question today, as it was at the beginning, relates to that all-new software within: does Symbian^3 succeed in elevating Nokia's touchscreen experience or does it drag down an otherwise stellar combination of high-end parts? For that verdict and much, much more, join us after the break.

Nokia N8 first unboxing

Nokia N8 hardware

Hardware

Let's not waste any time equivocating here, it'll be quite obvious to anyone with a set of eyeballs that Nokia has fashioned one of the most ruggedly handsome devices of recent memory with the N8. In a sea of identikit touchscreen-dominated phones, the N8 manages to stand out, thanks to its (mostly) aluminum construction, wide palette of color options, and atypical mixture of curvy sides and sternly straight lines at the top and bottom. The biggest distinguishing feature will of course be the protruding camera compartment on the back, which houses the world's largest image sensor yet seen in a smartphone, a Carl Zeiss lens, a Xenon flash, and a loudspeaker.

We've got no complaints to proffer about the apparent durability of the handset itself and that extends to this extra bump on the back, but there are a couple of notes worth making. Firstly, the N8 will spend most of its horizontal time resting on the camera section's bottom edge. In our time with the phone we noticed it generated an unpleasant screeching sound anytime we slid it across a flat surface and we imagine over the long run that portion of the body will suffer plenty of wear and tear. Additionally, we found ourselves inevitably fingering the lens every time we held the handset up to make a call. That was just the most natural place for our forefinger to go, which is hardly a deal breaker in itself, but something to bear in mind if you care to keep your imaging equipment immaculately clean (and if you read our camera section below, you probably will care).

We'd be remiss not to also note that the menu key at the N8's bottom left corner feels rather improperly placed. Nokia loves to tout its phones as being designed for single-handed operation, but reaching down to hit the menu key and access its multivariate functions was something of a treacherous activity. We nearly dropped this precious drop of aluminum a couple of times while trying to maneuver our digits over that button, and eventually settled on using a second hand when we needed it.

Aside from those somewhat minor points, the N8 really looks to be continuing Nokia's fine tradition of making phones built to last decades rather than mere months or years. The volume buttons are crowned with handy little nubs for blind operation, the traditional screen-locking slider is also present and accounted for -- coming with a nicely ridged surface and a finely tuned spring mechanism -- and is joined by something of a rarity in smartphones: a two-stage shutter button for the camera, which is also easy to find and operate.

Internals

Much has been made of the N8's use of a 680MHz processor in a 1GHz world, but those numbers are predictably beguiling. The N8 has a separate Broadcom GPU alongside its ARM 11 processing core, which takes over when things get graphically intense and delivers performance that rarely left us feeling underpowered. Couple that with Symbian^3 being able to exploit the graphics processor to perform hardware-accelerated OS animations and graphics, and grunt should altogether be quite adequate for the tasks the N8 is intended to perform. 720p movies were certainly no challenge for this phone. A lot more worthy of critique might be the 256MB memory allowance, which halves what other new phones are coming out with, but again, the argument can be made that Symbian^3 is an inherently more efficient platform and the lower number on the spec sheet doesn't seem to have had a correspondingly negative impact on real world use. In our experience, spanning multiple N8 devices, we only saw a "memory full" error message once -- while viewing a video file on the phone with the calendar open in the background.

Suffice it to say, you won't be lacking for options with the N8.

The array of additional features is pretty comprehensive too, with 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0 plus A2DP, GPS (both the real and assisted kind), USB On-The-Go support, a 1200mAh battery, 16GB of built-in storage, and of course a MicroSD slot for adding up to 32GB more. Light and proximity sensors are joined by an accelerometer and magnetometer in ensuring that there's no unfilled nook or cranny within the N8's aluminum body. Suffice it to say, you won't be lacking for options with this handset.

It's also worth pointing out that a recent teardown of the N8 showed it to be quite friendly to user repairs, thanks to the use of Torx screws throughout, with the battery compartment in particular being only two of those fasteners away from being pried open. It's reassuring to know that even when Nokia moves away from the traditional user-replaceable battery design, it still offers a cell that is accessible to the somewhat more motivated owner. We didn't have the chance to test the battery out in full, but our time with the N8 made a good impression -- we were typically able to get more than a full day's use out of it, though do beware overusing that Xenon flash. The camera was the biggest power drain for us, with its oversized lighting unit predictably being the chief culprit.

The FM transmitter included on the N8 made us smile with nostalgia, as it hearkens back to a time when we actually cared about FM radio waves. In itself, it's a pretty hit-and-miss affair. The hit is that the setup is an utter cinch, asking you only to select the same frequencies on your Nokia and the nearest boombox you've got lying around, while the miss is the fact that we got an awful lot of noise and distortion while trying to listen to our music. Eventually we did position our phone just right for almost flawless playback, but it's a temperamental affair and would require a bit of patience and commitment from the user determined to squeeze every last cent's worth out of his 1985 Technics hi-fi. On a less flippant note, we reckon drivers will really appreciate the transmitter's inclusion, particularly those who have to rent regularly, as it gives them a connectivity mode with unmatched backwards compatibility.

Even happier news were found on the video transmission front, where we were able to drop a downloaded .mkv file off from our MacBook Pro and onto our N8 just through OS X, without recourse to any additional software, before exploiting the phone's HDMI connection to pump the video out to our home cinema projector. It was easy and straightforward, and having Matroska format compatibility right out of the box is very nice indeed.

Display

We've got two words for you: Gorilla Glass. We had to confirm this with Nokia since nobody seems to have bothered to make an official announcement on the matter, but yes, the N8 comes with the bulletproof scratch-resistant glass that's garnered so much admiration since making its mainstream debut on the Motorola Droid. We scratched, clawed, poked and prodded the N8's front, but nothing we did caused it any discomfort. That's just what we've come to expect from these Gorilla Glass screens, which offer a real sense of assurance when plopping your expensive gadget into a pocket or in a bag that includes more than just fluffy toys.

What lies beneath it is a 3.5-inch AMOLED display stretching to 640 x 360 resolution. That's obviously not the densest panel you can own anymore, but neither is it a slouch. The N8's vibrancy and color saturation look highly accurate while the auto-brightness guesses correctly most of the time and gives you enough power -- unless you've got the sun shining directly down on the phone, of course -- to get on with your Symbian^3 business. That resolution is really the only thing holding this display back, but it's not like Nokia can do too much about it now.
 

Camera

Camera

Nokia has a long history of milestone imaging devices (the N91, N73, N93, N95, N82, and N86 all come to mind), and is the number one camera manufacturer in the world by sales volume. While the N95 set a new standard for cameraphones when it was launched in early 2007 and remains competitive today in terms of photo quality, every Nokia cameraphone since then has only delivered small upgrades. Enter the N8, with its 1/1.83-inch (12 megapixel) sensor, Carl Zeiss autofocus lens, mechanical shutter, and Xenon flash. Without mincing words, this is a phenomenal camera, and the N8′s raison d'être. It marks a significant step forward for cameraphones, and improves upon the N86 (Nokia's last imaging flagship) by a wide margin. Contrary to devices like the iPhone 4 which take comparatively pleasing but artificial pictures, the N8 produces extremely detailed and natural shots.

Nokia N8 sample pictures

Color balance and light metering are superb. The two-stage shutter button feels wonderful, and locks both focus and exposure when half pressed.

Pictures captured with the N8 contain a tremendous amount of information and leave the door wide open for some serious post-processing. Color balance and light metering are superb. The two-stage shutter button feels wonderful, and locks both focus and exposure when half pressed. This gives the more advanced user plenty of creative flexibility in re-framing shots and/or playing with exposure. As to the less talented among us, we did note that the use of the physical shutter button (instead of the provided onscreen capture icon) introduced an extra bit of camera shake into our results. That wasn't universally the case and trained professionals could perhaps show us how to hold it right, but it did arise as an issue in our earlier hands-on with Nokia's new flagship.

The N8's LED-assisted autofocus is the fastest we've ever encountered on a cameraphone, but focus distance is somewhat limited by the wide-angle lens, with the macro starting at 10cm (four inches). Low-light performance, while generally quite impressive, sometimes exhibits more noise than expected. We talked about this with Damian Dinning at Nokia (the man behind the development of the N8 camera), who explained that the goal was to preserve detail at the expense of some noise, thus allowing more wiggle room for post-processing. While this is a reasonable approach, we'd like to see a setting to enable additional noise reduction. With the flash turned on, the N8 is pure Xenon magic. Night shots from macro to about two meters (six feet) look fantastic with the flash.

The N8 records video in 720p at 25fps. It performs better than the Motorola Droid X, but the resulting footage is choppier than the iPhone 4 and Samsung Wave, which both record at 30fps. Instead of autofocus, the N8 uses an active hyperfocal system which keeps objects in focus from 60cm (two feet) to infinity. While this works well most of the time, it means there's no macro for closeups. Audio is captured in stereo and sounds extremely clear, even when recording in loud environments. The N8 was recently hacked to record video at 30fps with continuous autofocus, and to take pictures at 100 percent JPEG quality (the default is 85 percent). Hopefully, Nokia will make some (if not all) of these features available in a future firmware update.

While not as simple as the iPhone 4 or as polished as the Samsung Galaxy S, the N8 camera interface is reasonably intuitive for long-time Symbian users, and provides plenty of useful settings, such as flash control, scene mode, face detection, exposure, white balance, ISO (100/400/800), sharpness, color tone, and contrast. There's no touch-to-focus, and no panorama setting, although the latter is supported via a separate app (see our sample shot here). The onscreen zoom slider is easy to touch by accident and seems redundant since the volume rocker also controls the digital zoom. Nokia provides functionality to edit and tag photos and videos, but strangely no direct way to upload content to sites like Flickr or YouTube, other than via email, of course.

In the end, the N8 camera truly is a photographer's delight. It excels at taking pictures and is competent at recording video. Still, there's room for improvement, and we're hoping Nokia steps up to the challenge. If you're looking for more sample shots, our own Myriam Joire took her N8 to Decompression in San Francisco last weekend and captured some beautiful pictures, while the untouched full-res version of our gallery above can be found in a zip file right here.

Speaker / earpiece

Sound is another feather in the N8's resplendent hat. The speaker is loud, bordering on booming (for its size), and produces crisp and punchy output. When placed on a flat surface, the rear-firing audio port did a fine job of bouncing sound back off its resting place and into the atmosphere around you, but it was less accomplished when placed on softer landing zones. We managed to disarm it almost completely by innocently placing it atop a cushion. You might say that's a small shortcoming and you would indeed be right. For those cozier moments, you can just make use of Nokia's bundled headset, which features a pair of noise-isolating ear buds that are a clear cut above the mediocrity typically thrown in with phones. It also has an in-line music remote plus a built-in a mic for some old school handsfree telephony.

Call quality on the N8 was similarly above average, with our direct comparison to the iPhone 4 showing a slight, but distinguishable, advantage for Nokia's handset. While voices sounded a tad bit tinnier on the N8, they were also more natural, making the iPhone sound "digital" by comparison. Not that it should come as any sort of a surprise, but Nokia has clearly taken care of the fundamentals with aplomb here.

Software

Nokia and the Symbian Foundation have been met with a unique challenge: the platform has needed to evolve in ways that prevent it from breaking many years of architectural compatibility.

Looking at the spec sheet, the N8 is notable not just for its epic camera hardware, but also for the fact that it becomes the first Symbian^3-based device to hit the market. Of course, Nokia and the Symbian Foundation have been met with a unique challenge that Android and iOS really have not thus far: the platform has needed to evolve in ways that prevent it from breaking many years of architectural compatibility. A very real example of that comes in the form of Avkon, Symbian's UI framework, a framework that has existed since Series 60's creation in 2002; odds are many of your old non-touch S60 applications don't work on S60 5th Edition or Symbian^3, but the fact that any of them do is a testament to the fact that Avkon soldiers on just as it did back in the pre-5800 days. For devs, Avkon's relative stability has made it easier to develop Symbian apps with some assurance that they'll work for years to come -- an important point for attracting high-quality software to the platform.

Nokia N8 UI shots

That's not to say Nokia's been standing still. The company has been slowly preparing itself, its users, and its developers for a clean break from Avkon to Qt starting with Symbian^4 and MeeGo, and to make that transition a smoother one, preview implementations of the Qt framework have been available for quite some time both on S60 5th Edition and on Maemo. In other words, Nokia has given devs plenty of time to wake up, convert their wares to Qt, and deploy them right now -- no need to wait for the first Symbian^4 devices to come out in 2011 and go through several weeks of panic as customers realize that none of their prized apps will install. The N8 supports Qt out of the box.

That's great, but there's still a big problem: to call Symbian's third-party app ecosystem "primitive" would be an understatement. Like the backward compatibility issue, part of this malaise stems from S60's nearly decade-old roots -- a time when phone storage could be measured in kilobytes, not gigabytes. Back then, users had to accustom themselves to trawling websites and forums to download .sis files (or purchase them from vendors they may or may not trust) and transfer them to their phones -- only to repeat the process when updates became available. Put simply, app discovery was nigh impossible (ironically, Nokia helped pioneer the managed app clearinghouse concept with its Download! service, but never bothered to do anything useful with it).

 

 

Ovi Store

More recently, Nokia has all but solved those shortcomings with Ovi Store, and we found Ovi Store 2.0 -- the new version that ships with the N8 -- particularly pleasant to use. Actually, back up: it doesn't ship with the N8. There are a few hooks in the operating system (looking for more UI themes online, for instance) that will prompt you to visit a site where you can download the Ovi Store installer, but it's not in ROM. That's a problem that RIM has had prior to BlackBerry 6, but they've now corrected it -- it's mandated that all BlackBerry 6 devices ship with App World pre-installed, the company tells us -- and we'd recommend Nokia does the same. This is how consumers expect to get their mobile apps now, and there's simply no reason for Nokia to pretend that there might be a scenario where you don't want it. It's fine that Nokia still allows you to install your own .sisx files if you're into that sort of thing -- in fact, that flexibility is one of the platform's big advantages -- but the only way for Ovi Store (and other Ovi components, for that matter) to achieve success is through ubiquity. Nokia's got a massive installed base and is selling literally hundreds of thousands of new phones each day ... it makes no sense for Ovi Store not to be instantly available on every one of them -- the ones running Series 40 and Symbian, anyway.

Of bigger concern, though, is that once you get the Store installed, it's a little light on big names. Don't get us wrong -- it's far better than the early days when paid wallpapers and themes outnumbered actual apps by a wide margin, but there are still glaring holes in the inventory that would make it difficult or impossible to beef up a seasoned Android or iOS user's N8 with enough functionality to match what he'd had before (or even come close). Easy example: where's the official Twitter app? Yes, Gravity is quite good, but we dare you to find another modern smartphone platform where you need to pay $10 for a kick-ass Twitter client. Another example: Facebook's in the Ovi Store, but it's not showing up for the N8 at the moment for some reason ... and regardless, it's not a true native client, but a somewhat wonkier web runtime. Google services are weak too -- the Gmail app is a barebones Java client (if you've used the BlackBerry app, you've got an idea of what that's like), the Google Maps app is optimized for the 5800 (there are several places where it asks you to press the nonexistent Send button) and lacks multitouch capability, and if you're a Google Voice user, you're pretty much out of luck ... we were able to track down a year-old Python-based third party client with mixed reviews, but nothing even close to an official app. You might also miss major streaming services like Pandora and Slacker.

Considering that Symbian still commands the largest installed base globally of any smartphone platform, you might say it's really strange the Ovi Store doesn't get far more respect from the big names. It's pure conjecture on our part, but we think there are a few reasons for it. The root cause is likely the legacy we've mentioned -- as a smartphone platform, Symbian is relatively ancient, and its users and developers are still acclimatizing themselves to the brave new world where both free and paid apps flow like water through a well controlled central source. Secondly, Symbian's in a transitional phase right now where developers need to support both touchscreen and non-touchscreen form factors, which essentially means two entirely different user experiences and twice the design work. Thirdly, Nokia's global dominance might actually be working against it here -- localizing apps to the countless markets where Nokia does business can be a huge pain, and outside North America, Nokia's market share is so well distributed that you have little option but to take on the challenge (an interesting side effect of that: many of the reviews we saw in the Ovi Store were in languages other than English).

For entertainment, you've got the all-important Angry Birds, and Electronic Arts has made a big commitment to the platform with key titles like The Sims 3 and Need for Speed.

It's not like the Ovi Store is barren, though. Services like Qik and Fring -- both of which got their start on S60 -- are in there, and you'll find popular names like Foursquare, OpenTable, and YouTube. For entertainment, you've got the all-important Angry Birds, and Electronic Arts has made a big commitment to the platform with key titles like The Sims 3 and Need for Speed. The biggest problem might be with home screen widgets; most handsets Nokia currently sells (and nearly all devices in users' hands right now) still don't support them, so developers seem to be lukewarm on creating the content at this point. At our count, there are just 14 widgets available for download, which supplement the 16 that Nokia supplies in firmware -- some of which are lame like a Phone Setup widget (essentially a shortcut that takes up the entire width of the screen) and dedicated CNN and Reuters RSS widgets, so they don't really count towards the total (you can create your own RSS widgets by subscribing to feeds from the browser).

Home Screen

But enough about the Symbian ecosystem -- let's get into the trenches. Overall, you can think of Symbian^3 as a refresh of S60 5th Edition / Symbian^1, designed in part to ease some very specific pain points of 5th Edition's early days and generally continue to make the platform more touch-friendly than ever. The first thing you'll probably notice is that you've now got support for multiple home screens, configurable between one and three. Depending on how you roll, you might be able to get by on just one screen -- but that'd be a lot easier were it not for the fact that Symbian^3 still only allows one widget size that takes up the entire width of the screen in portrait mode. We'd love to see these guys go the Android route and allow developers to choose a size that makes the most sense for their widgets; depending on the functionality and style, anything from one-by-one to four-by-four can make sense. This is still better than iOS by a mile, of course -- we'll take widgets with limited layout options over no widgets any day.

When we played with the N8 and its Symbian^3-based stablemates at Nokia World last month, we perceived the long delay between swipes and home screen changes as sluggishness; at the time, Nokia insisted it was a feature, not a bug. Pauses of any sort on a phone are rarely good, however, and Nokia seems to have taken the complaints to heart because the delay is nearly imperceptible on the production firmware. We'd note that there's still a minor learning curve here if you're coming from an iPhone or an Android device because the screens don't move with your thumb -- rather, you execute a swipe gesture, then the screen changes. Takes some getting used to.

UI elements

Early 5800 and N97 users might remember that the UI felt extremely rickety; it was obvious that Nokia needed more time to get its touchscreen ducks in a row. Over time, those devices' firmwares have improved, but you can look at the N8 as a culmination of all those efforts so far. Finally, the stylus (or plectrum) never feels necessary here -- which is an especially good thing, seeing how the screen is capacitive and it doesn't come with one -- and the entire interface features inertial scrolling and single-touch selection. We can't tell you how frustrating it was on the 5800 to not know whether a list would scroll under our thumbs or whether tapping an item would activate it or merely highlight it ... but all those inconsistencies appear to have been thoroughly squashed. We really couldn't find anything to complain about in that regard.

There are also small touches, random bits of intelligent design, sprinkled throughout the platform. Most of these aren't new, but they still make us smile when we come across them on a Symbian device. We still love Turning Control, a feature more recently picked up by a few other devices on other platforms here and there, which lets you silence your ringer or snooze your alarm just by flipping the phone over (the Gorilla Glass should save you from any potential for scratches from that maneuver). We also appreciated that the N8 has a screensaver that makes smart use of OLED's property of self-illumination: it's a very dimly lit outline of a clock and date. The remainder of the screen remains black, and therefore consumes zero power. We imagine the feature drains very little juice, and it's worth it just to be able to see the time as soon as you pull out your phone without fiddling with any buttons (yes, it's almost impossible to see in sunlight, but you can't win 'em all).

Browser

The browser is a mixed bag. Many folks will recall that Nokia was one of the first companies to really deeply embrace WebKit on mobile; in fact, in its early days, it was usually regarded as the best web experience you could get on a phone. Problem is, Nokia failed to iterate the browser to keep up with the times, and not much has changed with the N8 (your first clue is that the UI is largely carried over from S60 5th Edition). Symbian^3 adds low-level support for multitouch, and the browser is the biggest beneficiary of that; we're happy to report that both pinch- and double tap-to-zoom work really well -- they're generally smooth and fast. Scrolling is inertial and pretty well calibrated, but it tended to get jerky when rendering complicated desktop-optimized elements (think engadget.com). Like Nokias before it, the N8 features built-in Flash Lite, which rendered both embedded ads and movies with aplomb. We're sure they were to blame for some of the jerkiness when navigating sites, but when playing YouTube videos from within YouTube's site, everything came through smoothly.

The browser is one of the places where the N8 is definitely bumping up against the raw limits of its 'mature' processor.

Fundamentally, the N8's browser seems better-equipped to handle mobile-optimized sites than desktop ones. Of course, the same could be said of every phone, regardless of platform, memory, or processor -- but nowadays, Android, iOS, webOS, and Windows Phone 7 can all generally render them with reasonable performance and offer decent tools for navigating, whereas the N8 is really pretty bad at it. It repeatedly crashed loading engadget.com for us (though the mobile version worked fine, thank goodness), regularly ground to a halt while scrolling, and didn't look as good, largely because text isn't anti-aliased regardless of size or style. As far as we can tell, the browser is one of the places where the N8 is definitely bumping up against the raw limits of its "mature" processor -- it might not be possible to eke enough juice out of it to make a mobile browsing experience that can hang with the best at this point.

Ovi Maps, Messaging, and Email

Speaking of multitouch, let's take a look at a prominent app that doesn't have it: Ovi Maps. Mapping is one place where it's awfully hard to go back to a single-touch experience after you've had the opportunity to pinch and zoom (the Android 1.6-powered Dell Streak comes immediately to mind). Once you get past that, though, we immediately noticed how much faster the app loaded and AGPS lock was obtained than in any other Nokia device we've ever used. We're not sure if the improvements are borne from the app, the N8, or a combination, but we don't care -- it's good, and it helps put Ovi Maps within spitting distance of Google Maps' usability. On that topic, Nokia helps match (and in some ways exceed) Google Maps' built-in places directory by integrating a number of services, including WCities, Lonely Planet, TripAdvisor, Expedia and TimeOut, all of which expose location information for points of interest that can be sent straight to the map.

It's good, but there's some weirdness in Ovi Maps that still holds it back from being truly great. For one, there's no way to search your contacts from within Ovi Maps. Strangely enough, you can choose an address visually using Ovi Maps when adding an address to a contact, but we couldn't find a way to then use that address as a navigation destination. The traffic data situation is similarly perplexing: when navigating in the US, we kept getting traffic information for German autobahns, which ... wasn't particularly useful. Confusing the situation further, there's an integrated service within the app called TrafficFlow that shows a map with colors indicating -- you guessed it -- traffic flow, and the data is actually showing for our local area, but it doesn't integrate with the actual navigation map. That's right, it's a totally separate, unrelated map -- you can't see this traffic information while navigating, you've got to go up to the Ovi Maps main menu and go into the separate TrafficFlow service. Not terribly helpful.

The email and messaging apps aren't much different than their S60 5th Edition equivalents, but one change really stood out for us: the N8 at long last includes a "conversations" mode for reading text messages in a threaded view. It's exactly what you expect -- alternating bubbles calling out messages that you've sent and received, all grouped by contact. What sets Nokia apart from the competition here is that it's preserved the single-message view as well; we can't imagine too many people prefer it, but if you fall in that camp, it's there for you. No need to panic. Oddly, we get an error when trying to send emails using Nokia's in-built Exchange support to connect up to Gmail, but it doesn't matter too much -- the phone supports Gmail accounts (along with a variety of other types) right out of the box, so you'll just use that for email and the Exchange connection for contacts and calendar.

Media

As media goes, neither the photo nor video viewing apps are terribly notable in their functionality -- they simply get the job done without much flair. It'd be great if Nokia had some sort of native movie rental / purchase ecosystem, because the app provides a link to go straight into the video section of the Ovi Store ... but alas, it's all indie content of unknown quality (some paid, some free). As for DivX, the official DivX Mobile Player for S60 5th Edition kept producing "general errors" when we tried to play video, but it's all good: all the sample DivX media we had on hand played without drama through the N8's built-in player, proving once and for all that Nokia has thrown a DivX codec in here. Great for the HDMI out, right? The photos app has a slideshow mode, but otherwise, there's not much to note -- you can send shots via MMS, email, or Bluetooth, arrange them by album, tag them, or export them for editing (more on that in a bit).

All in all, there's no mind-blowing functionality here, but it gets the job done admirably.

The music app appears designed to show off some of Symbian^3's upgraded graphics capabilities with a slick three-dimensional (if not overtly CoverFlow-like) album cover viewer that automatically engages when you rotate the N8 into landscape. You can select from a handful of preselected equalizer modes from inside the app, toggle the FM transmitter at a frequency of your choosing, and export songs straight to ringtones -- a drop-dead obvious trick that the iPhone should've learned eons ago. All in all, there's no mind-blowing functionality here, but it gets the job done admirably -- and the N8's sound, as we've already said, is superb both on headphones and through the powerful, resonant loudspeaker.

We'd mentioned the photo editing app before, and this is one of the neat ways that the N8 differentiates itself: it ships with really capable photo-editing capabilities in ROM. The photo editor -- which is a separate app entirely from the photo gallery -- lets you rotate, resize, crop, and adjust colors, saturation, contrast, and so on. You can also draw, add fake photo frames, make red-eye adjustments, and apply basic filters like sepia, charcoal, emboss, vignette, and the like, and you've also got a handful of optical effects like pincushion. It's relatively fast, efficient, and usable, and we can safely say you won't feel the need to buy any other photo editing suite for the phone.

The video editing app isn't quite as awesome. We found it tended to bog down a lot, and as far as we can tell, there's no way to save projects -- it's a one-and-done sort of operation. You can intermix photos and video clips on your phone with audio tracks to make new videos and add text captions (in the trademark Nokia font, of course), but we came away feeling like this one probably wouldn't get too much use unless you were desperate to throw something slick together for an MMS.

Keyboard

Many of the remaining apps that ship with the N8 are carryovers from phones gone by -- so rather than look at those, let's talk a bit about some of the OS services that affect you system-wide. First off, they keyboard remains a huge sticking point for us, just as it has been in S60 5th Edition devices of old. The biggest issue is that there's no QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode -- your choices are triple-tap or T9, just as they were in your phone from eight years ago. It's only when you change to landscape that you get full QWERTY. Predictive text in landscape is off by default, but we found that we did better with it on. Thing is, there doesn't seem to be a way to get the phone to replace your typing with the top suggestion when you press spacebar -- you have to manually select it, which we found slowed us down a ton. Sometimes you just have to trust the prediction, and Nokia doesn't seem to be willing to let you do that. Perhaps our biggest keyboard beef, however, is the fact that Symbian^3 still doesn't let you see any UI while the keyboard's in use -- regardless of whether you're in portrait or landscape, it completely covers the display with a full-screen keyboard and input box. That can be especially disorienting on websites when you're not certain you've tapped in the right textbox.

On a brighter note, Symbian^3 has really stepped up its multitasking game -- something the platform has already been doing pretty well for years. Pressing and holding the menu key below the display brings up a strip of cards -- effectively snippets of each app's display -- which you can swipe through to decide what to switch to or close (by hitting the "X" in the corner of the tile). Simple, right? The card view concept might be played, but it most certainly isn't played out -- this is quickly becoming the way to properly do a multitasking experience on a mobile device, and we're happy to see Symbian adopt it (just as Maemo already had).

Wrap-up

You know it, we know it, and Nokia sure as hell knows it. The Finnish mobile-making team shot itself in the foot with its N8 launch purely through a bungled execution on the software front. It's not unreasonable to believe that the hardware for this device was ready as far back as April -- which shines through with the perfectly thought out and built handsets our review team was provided with -- but delay after delay on the Symbian^3 front meant the awesomely specified hardware didn't see the light of retail day until, arguably, too late. Had this phone come out earlier this year, during what we might refer to as the pre-EVO era, its 720p video, spectacular camera, and high-end construction would have returned Nokia to the title of smartphone leader all on their lonesome. Seriously, the hardware is that good.

Let us also be clear about the software: we can say in no uncertain terms that the N8 is easily the best Symbian device that Nokia -- or any company, for that matter -- has ever made. Unfortunately, by evolving at a glacial (and largely superficial) pace, Symbian itself continues to cater specifically to a market of individuals who were early smartphone adopters five or more years ago. That's a market whose continued loyalty only stands to shrink, not grow. And at a time when 720p video recording is no longer novel and 3.5-inch screens are starting to look a bit on the small side, even DSLR-like image quality isn't enough to justify a phone without a fantastic and thoroughly modern user experience to match. Symbian^3, sadly, regrettably, heartrendingly, isn't there yet.

MeeGo, your move.

Additional reporting done by Chris Ziegler, Myriam Joire, and Thomas Ricker.

 source: google & engadget.com

Tablet PC

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Tablet PC:

Tablet PC or Laptop – Which To Buy?

Before even beginning the comparison, I would like to tell you that you have to make a personal choice here. After all, what one might like in a tablet PC, someone else might not like. The same applies to the laptop. The best method is to make your own decision on the two, after learning of their merits and demerits in comparison to each other.

Speaking of functionality, both the tablet PC and laptop are on par with each other. You get the same kinds of applications and the same kinds of features on both. There are also special features included for either of the two mobile computing systems, like the snipping tools for the tablet PCs, which allow you to circle a portion of the screen display and email it directly to someone. Or, the note tools on the laptop which make it quite easy to take notes during a meeting. Both of them are equally good where their functionality is concerned, and that makes the choice much more difficult.

That is what – I will write about the advantages and disadvantages of the two in relation to each other, and then it is up to you to make the choice. So, here I go.

What tablet PC's can do for you

Tablet PCs are great. If you are a mobile person, and you have never considered getting a tablet PC in the past, now is as good a time as any to start checking them out - the technology is cutting-edge, the usability is superb, and prices are starting to drop.
There are two main types of tablet PCs: convertible and slate. Convertible tablets look a lot like normal laptops except the screen can be rotated all the way around and laid down flat across the keyboard. You then input information through the screen using a stylus. Slate tablet PCs include only the screen interface - though they are fully integratable with peripherals like keyboards and mouses, the computer itself does not have them. Both types are viable options, depending on your personal preferences and what you'll be using it for.
As with any technology, tablet PCs have advantages and disadvantages. Thanks to the last few years of development and enhancement, the disadvantages are shrinking in number, and the perks are becoming more and more enticing.
Advantages of Tablet PCs Far and away, the best thing about tablet PCs is their mobility. You can take and use them anywhere you go, the same way you would take a notebook and pen. That means that when your boss bumps into you in the hallway and gives you a number of assignments, you can write them down. In meetings you don't have to hide your face behind the monitor of your laptop because you can lay the tablet PC flat on the table. For students, this mobility is great - you can study your notes while you're waiting in lines or even in the car.
Tablet PCs let you use digital ink to store handwritten notes, graphs, charts, and pictures. You don't have to worry about taking your laptop and a notepad and pen to meetings or classes. Using the stylus, tablet PCs record your handwriting and drawings. They can convert your handwriting to text if you need to turn in an assignment typewritten.
All of the money you have been spending on pens, pencils, highlighters, notepads, papers, binders, folders, staples, and paperclips stays in your pocket. Because of the digital ink option on tablet PCs, much of the need for paper supplies and writing utensils is eliminated. You can keep all your notes on your computer.
Finally, one of the advantages of tablet PCs over regular laptops is that you don't lose any functionality from your computer. Tablets operate on similar platforms and run many of the same programs. In fact, many programs integrate all of their normal functions with digital ink, so you can add notes to documents and even email your handwritten notes to someone.
Disadvantages of Tablet PCs Despite my obvious zeal for tablet PCs, I recognize that there are still some disadvantages. First is the price. The prices for tablet PCs are coming down quite a bit from when they were first released, but on average, you can expect to spend more for a tablet PC than for its equivalent laptop. Depending on the bells and whistles you're looking for, expect to pay anywhere from $1,000 on up.
The handwriting-to-text conversion does not always work the way you wish it would. Just like speech-to-text systems require a trained style of speech to work properly, tablet PCs recognize a trained penmanship easier than the way you may write naturally. A lot of the kinks in these conversion systems have been worked out - but don't plan on handwriting your next novel expecting to be able to convert into a print-ready copy with no problems.
Finally, their smaller size is both an advantage and disadvantage. They are much more mobile than their laptop counterparts, but the viewing area is also smaller. Likewise, the keyboard also shrinks down to accommodate the smaller size, so if you feel like your fingers are already cramped on a laptop-sized keyboard, you'll want to make sure you're going to be able to use the tablet PCs before you buy one.

About the author Nick Smith is a client account specialist with 10x Marketing - More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. For organizational software that will help you take full advantage of tablet PCs, visit GoBinder.com.

Advantages of Tablet PC versus Laptop

• The primary advantage of the tablet PC is that it is lighter than most laptops. They are also smaller in sizes, which means you can take them quite easily tucked under your arm from one place to another. Most laptops need to be lugged wherever you go. Tablet PCs score on account of their lightness of weight.
• The tablet PC can be laid flat on the working surface. This is ideal when you are in a conference. The laptop screen needs to be kept vertical and that might obstruct clear view of the person sitting in front of you.
• The tablet PCs take their input basically with the help of a special pen. Your handwriting is the input. That can be a good choice if you are doing something artistic. You can fine-tune your input better with a pen than with a mouse or a touchpad.
• Over time, you will learn to use the pen in the right manner, and even customize the pen to your tablet PC. There are different gestures that you can apply to the pen, which will produce different kinds of results. Eventually this will become easier for you than creating results with the keyboard and mouse.
• Finally, it must be said that a tablet PC becomes more personal to the user than a laptop. Since everyone has a different style of holding and using pens, the tablet PC will become unique to the user, and even the user will become unique to the pen. In fact, there are handwriting recognition applications that will train the tablet PC to understand your handwriting and convert it into text to up to 99% accuracy.

Disadvantages of Tablet PC versus Laptop

• Some people might find the screen size of the tablet PC too small in comparison with a laptop. The maximum size the tablet PC screen can go up to is 14.1'.
• Another handicap with a tablet PC is that it does not have an inbuilt optical drive, though you can connect it externally. But this could be a deterrent to some users. The reason behind not including the optical drive is to maintain the low mass of the device.
• A tablet PC is not good if other people besides you are planning to share it. The tablet PC understands your handwriting and writing gestures, and it may not understand those of others. For that reason, tablet PCs are good only when single users intend to use it for their entire lifetime. Laptops can be used by any number of users without such concerns.
• There are more chances of screen damage to tablet PCs than to laptops. This is because of the kind of input they take, with the pen device. You will need a special screen guard for the tablet PC installed when you purchase it.
• Technically, inputs with tablet PCs become slower than those with laptops. The reason here is that tablet PCs take handwriting inputs, and that cannot match the speed of the keyboard and mouse, which the laptops use.
• Tablet PCs are also costlier than laptops. That must be one of the clinching points in making your decision, but you do need to check out the features that they provide too.

Tablet PCs versus Laptops – The Final Word

After evaluating the pros and cons of both mobile computing systems properly, you can make your choice. It depends on what you really need to have. There are also hybrid laptop tablet PCs available in the market today, which are basically tablet PCs, but you can attach a keyboard and mouse to them, and use them in a vertical position just as you would use a traditional laptop. Incidentally, these are also the better selling of all tablet PC varieties.
By Neil Valentine D'Silva

Why Buy a Tablet PC?

Tablet PCs are the ultimate convertible computer; you have a beautiful laptop with a 12.1-inch screen (on average), a keyboard to type away and a mouse trackpad to navigate the screen. But swivel the screen around and you’ve got a fully functional tablet, much like the Apple iPad. Unlike the iPad’s somewhat limited iOS, the tablet PCs we looked at run a full version of Windows 7.
This system is the ultimate dual-purpose computer: it’s a laptop and a tablet, with all the features commonly found in both. This includes a physical keyboard and mouse trackpad, but also sensitive touchscreen and multitouch features found in tablets.
But what’s the advantage of this “convertible computer”? Why not just buy a laptop or a tablet, or both? Well, cost for one thing. Most people buying a tablet like the iPad have a standalone laptop or desktop, for a more robust computing experience, plus to store more files, photos, etc. Much more than the iPad could possibly hold. The cost of buying two separate systems adds up.
Then there’s the convenience factor: why have two separate computers when the tablet PC can do both, equally well? If the on-screen keyboard is too much to deal with when writing long papers or reports on the tablet, switch the system back to the laptop to get some work done.
The Apple iOS is limited, as are some of the more netbook-style tablets, and the processors, amounts of RAM and hard drive capacities are usually slim. It’s tough to get serious computing accomplished. The tablet PCs run full versions of Windows 7 and come with at least 1 to 2GB of RAM, with some units able to take up to 8GB. Hard drive capacities are good, if not great at up to 500GB, and most of the systems we looked at are running the latest and greatest Intel core i3, i5 or i7 processors.

Tablet PCs: What to Look for

We highlighted above a few of the more important items when choosing a unit. We’ve broken them down into the categories we used to rank them in our reviews.

Ease of Use
How easy is it to work with the tablet PC's hardware and software? How sensitive is the touchscreen display?

Design
How is the overall design of the system? Is it thin or thick; sleek and modern, or clunky and dated; how’s the screen resolution; and what are the overall dimensions and weight?

Technical Specifications
These refer to what type of processor is running, RAM amount, hard drive capacity, battery life, wireless (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G) and other features.

Help & Support
What’s the length of time on the warranty? One-year minimum, or three? Can users buy a longer warranty? We also take a look at what types of help and support are provided, such as phone and email contact, live chat, users forums, a user’s manual and a FAQs/Knowledge Base.

We hope our checklist and reviews can help you choose the best tablet PC, be it an affordable but powerful model featuring the latest Intel Core processors, such as the Fujitsu LifeBook TH700 or the HP EliteBook 2740p. Perhaps you'd prefer something smaller, lighter and more netbook-like (but with an Intel processor and Windows 7), such as the viliv S10 Blade. Be sure to check out our articles related to tablet PCs.


 Overview:
Simply the best mobile PC ever
Have you ever seen someone try to balance his or her laptop on one arm while typing with the other? The Tablet PC's compact, convertible design allows you to comfortably use your computer in small spaces-even while standing up. Tablet PCs also include wireless Internet support and a long battery life.

Interact with people, not your PC
Due to its convertible design, you can sit across the table from someone and take notes without having your PC act as a dividing wall. It's perfect for sales meetings, or any meeting in which you don't want technology to interfere with the personal dynamic.

A truly personal computer
Express yourself with your own handwriting. Personalize messages to friends, family, and co-workers-even if they don't have a Tablet PC. With Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and MSN Messenger, you can send handwritten notes, drawings, and even add your handwritten signature to the end of your e-mails. Tablet PC puts the P back in PC.

Take notes easily
Whether you're in class or in a meeting, you can quickly jot down notes-from mathematical formulas to flow charts. Because they're electronic, you can reorganize your notes and search them later, and leave the paper behind. With Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 you can synchronize your notes with audio recordings and presentations to create binders of multimedia information.

Take advantage of Tablet PC-enabled software
Check out the Tablet PC Software Showcase for hundreds of third-party software applications that help business users within specific industries or roles, as well as students, gamers and home users. A number of these products are award-winning in their category

Make comments quickly and naturally
With Microsoft Office System, you can mark up Word documents and PowerPoint presentations-and share them with those who don't have a Tablet PC. Emphasize your point in business presentations, class lectures, and photo slideshows using the pen to highlight and draw right on the screen. 

Top 5 Tablet PC

Num. 5:  BlackPad



RIM is said to enter the tablet market with their very own BlackPad (mock-up pictured above, thanks Simon!). Expected to run the new OS 6, the BlackPad which will make the entire BlackBerry experience much more touch-friendly. Let’s hope so, because a heavy-menu based tablet is not going to be terribly appealing when you’ve got so much competition out there. The BlackPad is rumored to have a 1GHz processor, a rear and front-facing camera, Flash 10.1 support, and a screen size somewhere in between 7 to 9.7 inches.
We’re thinking the BlackPad could make a nice companion device to your Blackberry Torch, or whichever new OS 6 device comes out at that point. I can promise anyone that I won’t be getting this device, but I’m still very interested as to what RIM has up their sleeve with this tablet. BlackBerry users, we’re sure you’re foaming at the mouth for your own BlackPad, but there are still many more tablet options to consider…
Num. 4: Samsung Tab

Samsung has no intention of slowing down their push to become a serious competitor in the Android space. The Korean company is said to bring a portable media player to market, as well as a tablet, dubbed the Samsung Tab. The Tab is said to sport a 7 inch display (hopefully Super AMOLED), 1.2 GHz Cortex A8 CPU and Android 2.2 (Froyo) with the TouchWiz 3.0 skin running on top. Though TouchWiz isn’t the greatest skin to have on a tablet, it’s definitely not the worst, and does lend to a very usable user interface.
We don’t have too many hard specs on the tablet, but its said to be released sometime soon, possibly as soon as next month. If the Samsung Tab actually does end up shipping with a Super AMOLED display, as found on their Galaxy S line, it will definitely be a hard choice, given the competition. Speaking of which…


Num. 3: iPad 2

You thought the iPad wouldn’t make this list? Even if Apple’s iPad is essentially a big iPod Touch, it’s impossible to deny the simplicity and sexiness of the device. We really don’t know what we could expect from the next iPad, but it will likely sport at least one camera on the device. We’re also betting on larger RAM stores and possibly a higher-resolution display (hey, we can hope, can’t we?).
You can’t really call iOS 4 a feature of the next-generation iPad, as the existing tablet will be upgraded to iOS 4 in Fall 2010, but you can bet that the iPad 2 will come with it pre-installed. We’d like to see the Retina Display on the newest version of Apple’s tablet, but that would likely be too expensive for most consumers. Not to mention that would cut into the 50% profit margins that Apple enjoys at the moment. So, right now, we don’t think we’ll be seeing such a display in the iPad 2. What I’d love to see is a smaller version of the iPad, and a 7-incher may just be right around the corner. It would also be nice to see some connectivity ports on this thing too. You know like the USB ports on that are more than plentiful on competing tablets…
 

Num 2: PalmPad/Hurricane

Unlike with the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, WebOS will likely be a hit on the rumored tablet from HP. The webOS UI on a big screen is itself something that many people have been waiting for and we may not have too long to wait for it. Codenamed Hurricane, we’ve been expecting a WebOS-based tablet since we first got word that Palm had been acquired by HP. The tablet could materialize as the PalmPad, if trademark filings from HP are any indication of the tablets true name.
Multitasking is a dream on the WebOS, and those cards would look nicer than ever when displayed atop a big, high-resolution display. Rumored to hit the shelves in early 2011, the PalmPad may debut with WebOS 2.0. We’re not sure what the newest version of the OS may bring us, but it’s likely to bring some much-needed upgrades, and some new features in tow to help it catch up with the likes of iOS and Android. Expect to see the gesture bar that you’ve come to love (or hate) on previous WebOS devices, but as far as hard specs go, we know nothing.

Num. 1: Notion Ink Adam


The Adam from Notion Ink is definite the tablet I am holding out for. This tablet sports every feature you could expect from a tablet, and it does it with style. The Adam may not be as sexy as some of the previous tablets, but it packs a punch where others fall short. The Adam is the first tablet we’re hearing of that will sport a 10 inch Pixel Qi display, which can be used in a full color mode, or a black and white e-reader-like mode when the backlight is off, which can offer you days of use. The Adam has gone through a handful of delays, but the launch window is still set for before the end of 2010. (We’ll believe it when we see it)
The Adam is the only tablet we have finalized specs on, some of which include: Android 2.2 (Froyo), 3.2 megapixel camera that swivels 90 degrees, USB, HDMI, SIM card slot, MicroSD slot, docking port, 3G connectivity, WiFi (b/g/n), and the number-crunching powerhouse that is the NVIDA Tegra 2 Dual core Cortex A9 processor – that’s two applications processing cores that each run at 1Ghz! There will be three different models, and all are said to be, “cheaper than the most basic iPad model.” Sign me up!
So those are our top pics for tablet, but there are many more out there. Let’s hope we start seeing these things pronto! What did you want to see make the list? Hit us up in the comments!





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Tablet PC-05:
 Samsung Galaxy Tab

The story of the Galaxy Tab has been quite a saga, to say the least. In fact, it was actually back in May that we first heard rumblings of Samsung's plans to unleash a 7-inch Android tablet much like its Galaxy S phones, but it was only after months of painful teasing -- including a cruel look at just its packaging on the Engadget Show -- that Sammy finally unveiled the Galaxy Tab to the world at IFA. The Tab certainly packed the specs -- a 1GHz processor, full Flash support thanks to Android 2.2, dual cameras, support for up to 32GB of storage and WiFi / 3G connectivity -- to put other Android tablets to shame, and our initial hands-on with it only had us yearning for more. Without pricing and availability, however, the story was at a cliffhanger. Of course, those details trickled out over the next few months, and here in the US, Samsung finally announced that all four major US carriers would be getting Tabs to call their own. Verizon then finally took the lead in announcing pricing, and revealed that its Tab would hit contract-free for $600 -- Sprint followed with the same no-contract pricing along with a $400 two-year contract option.

Indeed, it's been quite a long journey, but even after all of that, some of the major questions are still left unanswered. Does the Tab provide a more complete and polished experience than all the other Android tablets out there? How are Samsung's specially tailored apps? And ultimately, has a tablet finally hit the market that can rival Apple's iPad? We think it's about time we answer those questions and finally open what might be the most important chapter of the Galaxy Tab story -- the official Engadget review. We knew you'd agree, so join us after the break.

 We had some very nice things to say about the Samsung Galaxy Tab during our first review of the Android tablet. In particular, we loved its speed, effective multi-tasking and the mobility that comes with a seven-inch screen. Unlike the iPad, users can comfortably hold the Android-powered Galaxy Tab with one hand. Ultimately, we gave the device four stars, and early adopters must have agreed with our conclusion, considering Samsung has shipped one million units just weeks after its US launch, and a month since its European debut. With the holidays approaching, we thought this would be a good time to revisit the Galaxy Tab and review some of its features and key apps, especially the ones the carriers are promoting, including video conferencing, media streaming, and the Android operating system. Those looking for a general review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, including detailed comments on its design and browser experience, should check out our full Tab review. Just be sure to navigate back here for a detailed look at the Galaxy Tab's features. Samsung Galaxy Tab Specs

• Screen: 7 inches
• Resolution: 1024 x 600 
• Operating System: Android 2.2
• Processor: 1GHz Cortex A8 
• Graphics: PowerVR SGX 540
• RAM: 512MB
• Storage: 2GB on board
• Storage Expansion: microSD  (16GB card pre-installed, supports up to 32GB)
• Connectivity: 3G, Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
• Networks: Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, US Cellular
• Camera: 1.3 megapixels (MP) front facing, 3MP rear camera
• Weight: .84 lbs
• Dimensions: 7.48 x 4.74 x 0.47 inches (WHD)
• Cost: $400 with two year agreement, $600-$650 without, carrier dependent

The Galaxy Tab is a large device that feels awkwardly placed in a zone between the category of smartphone and netbook. It acts as a smartphone more than a computer, but its size makes me want to treat it like a touchscreen computer rather than a smartphone. It’s a confusing place to be for a device, and only as time goes by will people begin treating it as its own unique category that can’t be compared to either smartphones or netbooks/notebooks. For a device that ranges between $400 and 650 depending on which carrier you buy it from, it sure has a rather glossy and plastic feel to it. No metal, no rubber, no soft materials whatsoever. This is nothing surprising for a Samsung device, as its main driving force in designing a new device is making it look sleek and sexy. After all, if you dont’ like looking at your phone or tablet, it’s not worth buying, right? While most Samsung phones that use this material feel as though it’s going to break, that glossy plastic on the Tab doesn’t make it feel like it’s going to break into pieces the first time you drop it on the floor. On the contrary, the Galaxy Tab is incredibly sturdy and solid, and I feel as though it will last a long time with good use.

Certainly, Samsung was very wise in choosing Gorilla Glass for the touchscreen display, because you can’t get any tougher a screen than that. Given the 7-inch display, it’s absolutely essential to make sure it’s as protected as possible. The most important question that has been asked of me is how easy it is to hold in my hands and move around with me. I was skeptical at first glance, wondering the same thing: as much as I love the idea of a tablet, where the heck can I put it? I can’t really carry it around in my pocket as easily as a standard phone. To answer the first part of the question, it’s very easy to hold in my hands because I don’t need both hands to keep it steady. The 7 inches does come to close to being too large to hold with one hand, but it was designed to be portable nonetheless. A device becomes much less portable when it requires use of two hands. The ability to keep the Tab in the palm of your hand is tremendously handy. And at 13.4 ounces it’s still light enough to use it at any angle without my arms getting tired. As for taking it around with me wherever I go, even though it may not fit in my regular pockets, it fits nicely in my coat pocket. If you wear cargo pants or just like oversized pants pockets, it may possibly fit in there too. Other than that, it still fits in nooks and crannies whenever I’m in my car (it fits easily in the glove compartment so it’s out of the way) or at a friend’s house. In other words, I can still hide it easily enough without showing the entire world that I use the Galaxy Tab. In handling the Tab I was impressed by how simplistic the tablet was on the outside. Samsung tried to keep the sides and back completely uninterrupted or littered with unnecessary buttons. The whole left side, in fact, is completely smooth (only a small hole for the mic resides there) and the only 2 physical buttons found on it are screen lock/power and volume up/down. There’s a 3.5 mm headphone jack on top and a MicroSD slot on the right side, and a proprietary charger with speakers on the bottom. One part to the Galaxy Tab that was completely off base is the proprietary charger port. It’s not a MicroUSB or anything Samsung has used before. It looks a lot like the same charger Apple uses on all its devices (ha, you thought I was going to mention the iPad, but I tricked you!), and the only theory I can come up with for doing it this way is that a MicroUSB port doesn’t provide enough power to sufficiently charge a larger device like the Tab. It is, after all, a 4,000 mAh battery that’s supposed to play movies for up to 7 hours.  

The keyboard is a feature that can be rather intimidating when you first use it. Going from typing on a standard-sized smartphone to the Galaxy Tab is a huge step when considering this thing stretches out over a 7-inch screen. I use Swype on all of my Android devices, and portrait mode feels like the ideal size to do Swype on. Landscape, however, is stretched out too far. For having so much screen real estate to use up, the keys tends to be too short and wide for my tastes; I would prefer having taller keys because it meshes with my hand easier. At least when I mess up on a word I can easily go back using a built-in cursor feature that enables me to slide the cursor to whatever point in the sentence I want to go to. This cannot be said about most other Androids I’ve used. Fortunately there are more keyboard options than just on-screen, because the Galaxy Tab allows support for Bluetooth keyboards and includes a keyboard dock. Software and OS of the Galaxy Tab The Galaxy Tab smartly came with Android 2.2, aka Froyo, installed in-box. This means we can has Flash Player 10.1 on our Tabs and enjoy plenty of videos and websites that we normally can visit on the computer but not our smartphones. On top of Froyo Samsung throws in its ageless TouchWiz User Interface, the one that never seems to get old. It adapts to the Tab surprisingly well; it looks exactly the same as you would find on the Galaxy S with plenty of room for all the apps you would ever need and enough space between them that you’re not going to accidentally enter the wrong program. Unlike most other Android devices, the TouchWiz app tray swipes sideways instead of up and down. It certainly does give off the aura of an iOS device, so if you a user of one you will definitely be very comfortable with the Galaxy Tab. However, one thing that causes the Tab to stand out from the Android crowd is, again, its size. When using the Tab you will notice some significant differences in the way different apps are set up, and I absolutely love it. Several native apps now give you two panes of information, and putting the Tab in landscape mode enhances the experience greatly. Email is one such example, where you can choose to view your selected inboxes on the left side and the actual email you have chosen on the right. Pinch-to-zoom can be used on the right side, which is wonderful when you have attachments you’re trying to view.The calendar doesn’t have a second pane, but it’s still amazing how much more organized you appear when you see your calendar on a Galaxy Tab. The messaging app has two panes, similar to the email app, and the right side gives the full conversation you are currently viewing. When looking at the music app in landscape, you also see the same two-pane effect, the left side showing the list of albums or artists while the right side shows more detailed information about each album or artist and the songs they contain. These are just a few examples. A large number of apps are becoming tablet-friendly. In other words, porting a regular Android app into the Tab without much extra effort will show off the app as if it’s on a 4” touchscreen, so you see the app only show up smack-dab in the middle of the screen, with plenty of background showing through on the borders. However, more and more apps are getting in the tablet mode, with the apps being adapted for the 7-inch display and taking more advantage of all that space. Facebook is one example of an app that takes up the entire display; Touiteur and Tweetdeck also do their best to use up every possible square inch. Scores of developers are doing the same exact thing, helping the Galaxy Tab become a wonderful experience for those who use it. Differences between carriers Samsung’s product placement team must have done a very persuasive job of convincing the carriers — all of them — that they need to carry the Tab. They’re doing something right, if every major carrier in the US plus multiple carriers across the globe are carrying it as one of their flagship devices. This amount of competition between these carriers is very much welcome, and rather refreshing to have such an open and available device in a world of exclusivity. 

 

 

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 Samsung Galaxy Tab

 

 

pple have just introduced their new, second generation iPad, the iPad 2. With this move, the tablet tussle has just tightened further this year. While there are a lot more tablets looming large on the horizon, the main fight right now is between the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Apple iPad 2. Which of these is better and why? Here is a comparison between the iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Design and Weight

The latest Galaxy Tab comes with a fabulous 10.1 inch display, while the Apple iPad 2 includes a 9.7 inch display. Both weigh the same, that is, 1.3 pounds. But the difference here is that that Galaxy Tab measures approximately 0.43 inches depth-wise, while the iPad 2 measures 0.34 inches.

Resolution

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 comes with 1280x800 resolution, while the iPad 2 offers 1024x768 resolution. But considering the size of the screens, the resolution of both the devices is relatively more or less the same. There is hence not much to compare here.

Processor Power

The iPad 2 comes with the powerful new dual-core 1GHz A5 processor, which makes the device much faster than imaginable.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is also powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor. Interestingly, the A4 chip used in the original Apple iPad had been designed by Samsung, which is known and acknowledged to be the largest part manufacturer for Apple.

Operating System

The Apple iPad 2 runs iOS 4.3, which makes the browser much faster. Besides, this version of the iPad brings with its enhanced AirPlay and iTunes Home Sharing features. iOS 4.3 also provides  an improved version of Apple’s proprietary Nitro JavaScript, meaning that the program runs faster on all iOS-based devices.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 runs Android 3.0, also referred to as Honeycomb. This gives it powerful and effortless multitasking and easily customizable widgets.

Memory-Wise

The Apple iPad 2 offers a choice of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB internal memory. The Galaxy Tab, on the other hand, offers only two choices, 16GB and 32GB.
Neither Apple nor Samsung have so far revealed the RAM on their latest devices. So we will have to await more information on that.

Camera

Both the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the iPad 2 come with 2 cameras. The former includes an 8MP rear-facing and 2MP front-facing camera. Apple have yet to reveal specifications on their cameras.
Additionally, Samsung is believed to be offering 1080p video capture support on its new device.

Battery Life

The Apple iPad offers 10 hours of battery life. There are no details yet on the battery life of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. But we all know that Android 3.0 would offer enhanced battery life in tablets running its OS. The Motorola Xoom also offers 10 hours of battery life, so maybe we can expect the same with the latest Galaxy Tab too.

Pricing

The pricing is the vital aspect of difference between the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Apple iPad 2. The iPad 2 is priced at $499 for the most basic 16GB WiFi version. The price for the best 64GB WiFi + 3G model is $829.
Android 3.0 tablets have so far been quite expensive. The Motorola Xoom, for instance, is priced at $599 with a 2-year contract and at $799 without contract. The 32GB WiFi + 3G model of the iPad 2 costs only $729.
Considering the above aspect, one has to wonder if the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be priced competitively enough.

In Conclusion

While both the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Apple iPad 2 come with their unique advantages and disadvantages, only time will tell us which of these will end up as the ruler of the Tablet World.