With their Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition Samsung have made a high-end tablet, that features the latest and greates in almost any aspect. In case of the SoC there is a Qualcomm Snapdragon quadcore with Krait 400 CPU, that clocks at 2.3 GHz and in case of the GPU we finde an Adreno 330 chip. Other than that there is 2560 x 1600 pixel display with 299 ppi pixel density and the back of the tablet has actually been covered with leather, which give this product a classy touch. So far we're rather curious if all these number together leave a lasting impression or if it's just yet another expensive piece of hardware.
Today we have a chance to check out one of
Samsung's high-end tablets, the Galaxy Note 10.1, in orded to see if it lives up
to its Galaxy name.
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Specifications
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
|
Software |
Android 4.3 |
|
Display |
10.1 Zoll, 2560 X 1600 Pixel, 299 ppi,
Super Clear LCD |
|
Input |
Touch Screen, Status LED |
| SoC |
Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400 |
| Graphics
Unit |
Adreno 330, 400 MHz |
|
Memory |
3 GB |
|
Camera |
8 M, 1080p@60ps (LTE Mode), AF, Led FLash |
| Front
camera |
2 MP, 1080p@30ps |
| GSM / UMTS / LTE |
Yes |
| WiFi |
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct |
| Bluetooth |
4.0 |
| GPS |
Yes |
| USB |
Micro USB 2.0 |
|
Infrared |
Yes |
| SIM
card |
Yes |
| SAR |
0.63 W/kg |
|
Battery |
8220 mAh |
|
Diemensions |
243.1 x 171.4 x 7.9 mm |
|
Weight |
547 g |
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Design
A first look at the
Galaxy Note 10.1 shows that the design is rather similar to the Galaxy Note 3
smartphone/phablet. Overall, it
could even be the bigger brother of Samsung's latest and greatest Android phones,
at least when the screen is facing upwards. The same story goes when you flip the tablet
around, you will notice that the back cover has been made from textured leather like the Note 3 and
it is a completly new design, at least when it comes to tablets. This gives the tablet a high-end finish and a quality
feel which you simply do not get with other tablets, but lets talk about this in the summer when we have +25 degrees
and sweaty hands.
When it comes to the display, Samsung is using Super Clear LCD capactive
touchscreen with 16M colors which covers the 10.1-inch panel. Next to the
Samsung logo, there is a front-facing camera. The usual buttons can be found on the right edge. In this case, there is the
SIM-card and SD-Card slots, S-pen stylus as well as one of the speakers. In the
left part we have a 3.5 millimeter jack and the second stereo speaker. On the back you
will find the main rear camera
with LED flash and in the top we see volume control, power button and IR receiver.
Regarding build quality Samsung really did a good job. When you are holing this device in your hands it feels very sturdy and it also feels like it has been milled from one piece although that
is not the case. In fact, the main chassis is made from plastic and there is a big additional aluminum plate providing the
tablet with additional stiffness and causing a higher quality feel.
Display
Display size is set at 10.1-inch and
thanks to
a WQXGA 2560 x 1600 resolution, which adds up to 299 ppi pixel density, everything is very sharp.
Reading text is especially a pleasure. Apart from that, Samsung has been using an 10-inch Super Clear multitouch sharp LCD
with 10-point touch, which offers a very wide viewing angle compared to other
panels and life-like colors. They are strong and the saturation is extremely good.
On another note, we had a closer look at brightness and it turns out that this appears to be the
Achilles heel of this tablet. The maximum value we measured was at 411 candela per square meter and average brightness was no more than
235 candela per square meter. At least black level was good with 0.47 candela per square meter. This level of brightness makes it hard for read text, when there is sunlight shining directly on the display. This is really a pity, since contrast is well above 1000:1 and therefore by far above average.
Camera
Despite the fact that tablets are usually not the most sophisticated devices to take pictures,
Samsung showed a nice camera performance on this tablet. Samsung decided to equip the
Galaxy Note 10.1 with two cameras. On the back there is an 8-megapixel one
with AF and LED flash which can capture pictures at 3264x2448 pixels and record
video at 1080p 60ps (LTE mode) and there is a 2-megapixel camera in the front
which is also able to
record videos with 1080p at 30ps. It is definitely the first time that the tablet camera surprised us.
Sharpness could definitely be better but the camera is
more than sufficient for snapshots.
When shooting a video we were actually quite surprised to see that colors are
actually richer. At 1920 x 1080 resolution and
60 fps the quality was actually decent. Still, the quality could be improved but the camera in the
Galaxy Note 10.1 can definitely be a match for most smartphones on the market.
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Performance / User Interface
Since this tablet is based on a
2.3 GHz Snapdragon with Adreno 330 GPU and 3GB of memory, there is plenty of performance available for anything you might possibly do with it. Thanks to the fact, that
it actually has 3GB of memory, the enhanced multitasking capabilities run smoothly. There is for example the possibility to stay on the home button for about two seconds and then you can switch tasks easily.
It is not just that there is plenty of performance, we also like the fact that the user interface is clean and the logic behind it is
quite easy to understand. As an example we can take the settings tab: on the left hand side, there are the different topics and
if you tap one, you will see the associated content on the right hand side. Arranging a navigation this way makes
things very tidy and you will not forget what was in the menu before. There are other approaches to this where you tap something and a new page opens. We actually prefer
Samsung’s approach in this case. Like all other tablets you lock/unlock the
tablet using the power button witch is at the top of the tablet.
This tablet comes with 3 different CPU speeds, depending on the SKU, including,
a 2.3GHz Krait 400 LTE mode, 1.96
GHz Cortex-A15 and also 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7 3G model and they are all quad-core
CPU. Ofcourse we have WiFi. and it is really nice that Samsung decided to go
with different
versions, and one the best features we found on Galaxy Note 10.1 is
a multi window which means you can have resizable two windows opened at the same
time. This is definitely a bonus when you have a 2560x1600 resolution on this
tablet as you
can open the internet browser in my tab and in the other one watch a movie.
Battery life
Samsung equipped the Galaxy Note 10.1 with a 8220 mAh battery pack, which
its more than enough to power a high resolution display as well as the quad-core
2.3 GHz Snapdragon SoC. When we were testing battery life, while constantly
playing movies, we notice that after 7 hours and 31 minutes the battery was
finally empty. In everyday use, which includes browsing, writing e-mails,
playing games, using apps and watching a few videos the battery went empty after
almost more than 10 hours. Compared to other tablets like the Nexus 7 or the
iPad, the Galaxy Note 10.1 is really a shining star when it comes to battery
performance and actually one of the highest we have seen so far, at least when
it comes to Android tablets.
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Benchmarks
Sun Spider Javascript Benchmark 1.0.2
| iPhone 5S |
473.5 ms |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
2014 Edition |
632.2 ms |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 |
656.8 ms |
| Nexus 5 |
763.7 ms |
| LG G2 |
878.9 ms |
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
942.8 ms |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 |
1'083.0 ms |
Browsermark 2.0
| iPhone 5S |
3'032 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 |
2'919 |
| Nexus 5 |
2'807 |
| LG G2 |
2'679 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
2014 Edition |
2'672 |
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
2'515 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 |
2'448 |
Vellamo
| HTML5 |
| LG G2 |
2'928 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
2014 Edition |
2'907 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 |
2'853 |
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
2'515 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 |
1'800 |
| Nexus 5 |
1'653 |
| Metal |
| LG G2 |
1'250 |
| Nexus 5 |
1'222 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
2014 Edition |
1'204 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 |
927 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 |
840 |
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
743 |
AnTuTu Benchmark
| Total |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
2014 Edition |
35'657 |
| LG G2 |
34'687 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 |
27'351 |
| Nexus 5 |
24'468 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 |
23'901 |
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
22'621 |
3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited
| Total |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 |
15'575 |
| LG G2 |
15'540 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
2014 Edition |
15'538 |
| Nexus 5 |
13'427 |
| iPhone 5S |
11'413 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 |
10'478 |
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
9'148 |
| Graphics Score |
| LG G2 |
17'525 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 |
16'962 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
2014 Edition |
15'360 |
| iPhone 5S |
15'296 |
| Nexus 5 |
15'145 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 |
10'385 |
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
8'463 |
| Physics Score |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
2014 Edition |
16'195 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 |
12'904 |
| Galaxy Note 10.1 |
12'763 |
| LG G2 |
11'129 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 |
10'818 |
| Nexus 5 |
9'610 |
| iPhone 5S |
5'862 |
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Conclusion
Overall the
Galaxy Note 10.1 is definitely a good tablet. Samsung made quite an effort to
keep the Galaxy name in top of the charts, starting with the screen, panel
quality, overall performance, camera performance and battery life.
We loved using NFC (Near
Field Communication) and this time it was really working great. The
Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition is definitely a perfect match of hardware and
software for a high-end tablet. The same story goes for the materials used and although the back has been made largely from
textured leather which looks just awesome. The display is definitely great and
with 2560x1600 resolution Samsung simply could not go wrong. We had some issues with brightness
on a sunny day, but that same problem plagues most other manufacturers as well.
In today tablet market where certain tablets
start at
€250, it might seem a bit steep to pay €594 for Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 16GB
LTE version and the
price can be considered as the only drawback of this tablet. Although it has a
slightly steep price, it still deserves five stars in our review as with all
those features, perfect screen and ample performance, the price simply can't change our
mind, as we think it worts every penny.
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