There is one certainty in the world of computing: the tablets seem to lose quietly and their popularity, probably because smart phones are becoming bigger and make blurred the boundaries between the two types of devices. Despite this drop in popularity, both manufacturers do not seem to drop the song into the tablet market: Samsung and Apple
The Korean firm has relaunched an offensive on the market recently with the Samsung Galaxy S2. which aims to replace the previous model, but also to increase sales and brand awareness of Samsung in this market. Having the 9.7 “version of the Tab S2 since now a little over a week, I have enough experience to be able to give you my opinion on the product.
Design and finishing
If you have already seen an iPad Air, you’ve already seen the Tab S2 because it uses the same philosophy of ‘look and feel’ that the tablet of Cupertino. The general design is the same, the location of the “Home” button (which in the case of tablet Samsung, is flanked by a multitasking button and a return button), the screen ratio and resolution are the same.
For someone who did not appreciate at all the finish and look of the previous version of the tablet of Samsung, it was not difficult for Samsung to do better in my eyes because my expectations were rather low. Despite strong inspiration on competing models, I have much appreciated this new model.
> Samsung Galaxy S2 vs S Tab
> Samsung Galaxy S2 vs S Tab
> Samsung Galaxy S2 vs S Tab
The tablet has a substantial design and construction: it is very thin and light. At the finish, it is no match to the iPad Air 2, according to my standards. This plastic (in this case, it is better quality than previous plastic Galaxy Tab, say), although having advantages in terms of weight and flexibility / toughness, quality the grip is far from that of the Apple product. So it is a better experience of handling some previous Samsung products, but it lacks the premium aspect, although it allows the tablet to earn points by its lightness and ease of transport. Oh, did I mention that it has a slot for a Micro SD card? It’s not every day that we see this at a Samsung flagship device
Take example on a Apple tablet for design does not only have advantages. Locations speakers now stands on each side of Micro USB port, so that when holding the tablet in landscape mode, you can easily mute the sound. With respect to the fingerprint reader, as mobile products Samsung for over a year, it is in the “home” button. Now activated by simply pressing the desired finger on the sensor, I must say it is light years above the old mechanism on which we had finger swipe. Although I find that touch id still ahead in terms of recognition accuracy and speed, this is a significant improvement versus the old process. One of the things I was most upset with the sensor in this tablet is that when a fingerprint is not recognized, it takes a few seconds that seem so endless to make another attempt.
Screen
With a new screen of 9.7 “with aspect ratio 4: 3 and a 2048 × 1536 resolution identical to the Air iPad, the new tablet from Samsung is now tackling for use other than viewing video content. The screen quality also plays in his favor: although I am not a fan of AMOLED displays, often too bright and unnatural colors, this Super AMOLED display is very nice
We find. good viewing angles and a large palette of color and, as usual AMOLED screens, perfect black that will inspire even the regulars and fans of LCD screens. Above all, the high resolution in a screen of 9.7 “allows the tablet to have a pixel density of 264 pixels per inch, making the details of the image and the very clear typography. However, at equivalent density, the arrangement of subpixels causes is greater clarity on LCD compared to the Super AMOLED.
Performance
For reasons that I do not know, Samsung decided not to integrate its latest Exynos 7420 processor in the Samsung Galaxy S2, as in his Galaxy S6, but a processor of last year: the Exynos 5433. The latter, if you recall , was present in the international edition of Galaxy Note 4. I must say it is a disappointment because the processor is not match for more recent competitors.
For example, the A8X iPad Air 2, dating back to last year, the 5433 Exynos beats down the line: even a massive overwhelming advantage in the CPU and graphics over 2 times faster. It is just amazing that this tablet is the flagship tablet of the Korean company with this kind of rather old processor. In terms of benchmarks, the tablet is at the same level as the Snapdragon 810 in Geekbench (CPU benchmark and RAM), but at the graphs in the graph benchmark GFX Bench and Epic Citadel, the tablet plunge in free fall is easily eclipsed by what has been announced for some time. It is also well within the broader benchmark AnTuTu.
In use, this can be reflected in a few places. For instance, Chrome may have slowdowns when scrolling on some websites and interface of the Briefing menu also has difficulty providing a scroll and faster loading. It also happens sometimes that the latter briefly freezes when going left of the home screen to access it.
Despite improvements in Samsung software on the tablet, with analysis I notice that the system itself (without any background application or anything) takes roughly 49% of RAM 3GB of the tablet, which may adversely affect the level of multitasking performance. So there has been a RAM optimization problem in the tablet while an iPhone 6 Plus is very functional at the level of multitasking with only a meager GB of RAM. However, the applications open with a very reasonable rate and multi-window works well overall.
About the gaming performance, the fact that the tablet has fewer pixels than the previous version using considerably at the gaming. On 8 and Asphalt 5 Modern Combat, for example, the Galaxy Tab S2 was relatively successful despite the occasional jerks. By cons, when I launched Epic Citadel, the graphics of the highest quality application gave a hard time to the tablet, by lowering the frame rate within 20 or 10 frames per second in some places, while in average was 30, which is far from exceptional and fluid.
Run
During my testing period, I was able to test the autonomy Tab S2 in many types of scenarios:. as much in regular use in intensive use
On average, it could last between one and two days, but if you push the use of play, video editing or other intensive activity, the tablet may have difficulty reaching the day of independence, especially if we mix this intensive use in ordinary use (web browsing, media consumption, social networks, etc. ).
The Galaxy Tab S2 therefore has a good battery life, but it remains at that level below that offers the iPad, which is still a reference in the field.
Connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy S2 contains all modern network connections: Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac with MIMO (2.4GHz / 5GHz), Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1 LE. A connected version of the tablet will hit the market soon, but we have no confirmed date for the moment.
There is also the presence of a GPS chip (with GLONASS) in the tablet, although a little more substantial. Two omissions from Samsung are the NFC, which seems to have disappeared from Samsung tablets for a while, and that allowed the infrared port to control the television, for example. This is especially bad for those who often use their tablet in the living room.
In general use, is nothing negative to report in terms of network performance, and I did not detect any major difference with my iPad Air 2.
OS
In the operating system, you have the right to a version of Android 5.1.1 modified in the same way as the Galaxy Note S6 or 5, with the TouchWiz overlay. The interface has been reworked from the older generation with visual changes. Thus, unlike previous years, the overlay is much lighter and much fewer applications / Samsung unnecessary functions are present. Nevertheless, as I mentioned earlier, the RAM consumption is very high for no valid reason and even with no open application.
TouchWiz embeds several useful functions including multi-window, which allows to have two applications open simultaneously for multitasking with greater productivity. It is noteworthy that Samsung offers this feature for several generations of devices when it arrives on iPad with iOS only 9 this year.
Despite the usefulness of this feature, I met several bugs downright interface of preventing the use of certain apps, like Facebook for example. With other applications like YouTube or Chrome, everything was functional. It is even possible to have an application in floating window over the two applications already present on the screen. Another thing that many appreciate is the support for multi-user, making possible sharing tablet without mixing information and user accounts and that many iPad users would like to have, do not hide.
Despite these features practical , another is not: the Briefing. This news feed this to the extreme left of the home screen and powered by Flipboard and represents, as for me, undesired I’ve never used it. Fortunately, it is possible to disable the application from the Application Manager in order to avoid that it uses resources.
It is interesting to note the presence of shortcuts leading to the Galaxy store Apps to download various apps Office suite, while Skype, and OneNote onedrive were already pre-installed in the tablet originally not possible uninstall. If we can understand that there is a contract behind the relocation of applications, we are left with the situation where Samsung includes its own application taking notes while OneNote is preinstalled and non-erasable. Similarly, the Galaxy Apps shop is still present and living with the Google Play Store I could go on for a while but to summarize it is frustrating not to be able to uninstall some applications.
To summarize the software, c ‘ is a good step forward that Samsung is at the interface and the bloatware having lost some useful functions present in previous iterations of its tablets. The interface and navigation in the software are much more fluid than in the older generation and a lot of credit for this improvement is the software that performs better. However, optimizations are still needed: the software is resource intensive and many of these applications are duplicates
Camera
As with virtually all tablets, the camera remains. weakness in the product. With a resolution of 8 megapixels for the rear camera and 2.1 for the front, the Samsung Galaxy S2 is no exception: its cameras produce good images in low quality, especially in terms of color and clarity, which appear to be correct or wrong randomly.
Despite a reasonably fast focus, some of the photos seem to have been developed after post-observation meeting. In some scenes, over-exposure is striking, as the camera does not seem able to manage the scene. It also does not hope to do pictures at night.
However, I was pleasantly surprised to a photo that I took the dog my roommate, I liked the result. In short, the camera is not the best but in case of extreme necessity, it can help. It will however not the camera that will allow you to start a professional career on Flickr.
The rear camera provides a video in 1920 × 1080. Again, nothing will dazzle person in terms of quality but may help if needed.
Media
If you are multimedia fans, the Tab S2, although very versatile, has some gaps in the field. First, the aspect ration screen 4: 3 is not ideal for the consumption of video content as a black frame will be present to adjust the screen to read the video format. Second, the fact that both speakers are now on the same side is a disadvantage because it is very easy to cover and practically mute the tablet. If you thought getting rid of speakers problem by simply plugging headphones, know this: 3.5mm jack port is located directly adjacent to one of the speakers then the thread may be cumbersome if you hold the tablet listening to some media. Bluetooth headphones are recommended.
The tablet comes with 32 or 64 GB of internal storage but fortunately supports Micro SD cards up to 128GB so it is relatively easy to transport its entertainment library with the tablet .
We can regret that, like the iPad or other tablet competitors, the focus has been on the design at the expense of multimedia features. If we can understand the choice of screen ratio to suit most purposes, the rollback level speakers is disappointing.
Conclusion:
I think we’re in an interesting situation right now where Samsung decides to completely change the look of its tablets to be closer to what his competitors. To be honest, I think it’s a good thing, I always preferred the tablets in 4: 3 rather than 16:10 or 16: 9.
At the outlet level hand and general use, everything is better and generally only the video consumption is less enjoyable. We have here, do not hide, a good product from Samsung but could have been better if there had been some improvements, such as a more recent and powerful processor, high-end finishing and the speaker front or side top each side of the tablet.
To finish this test, I think I can say that this tablet is a good base for the future of Samsung tablets, and is a nice alternative to Apple tablets. Unfortunately for Samsung, the price of its product is very similar to those of its main competitor, which may not help as consumers often turn to a product to greater awareness, the product does not have enough differentiators. The choice will therefore be, as often, mainly at the OS used.
OS and software part
8
Camera (photo + video)
6
Goodies:
- Thin and light with good grip
Screen with good viewing angles and a wide range of colors
Software enhancements that make the experience more positive than before
Sensor fingerprint incredibly better than the previous
Cons:
- System-on-Chip-old
Build quality could be much better
Design inspiration empty
Bloatware imposed in the
software
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