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Samsung Galaxy Tablet 2 Review

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Recently, through sheer blind luck, I was able to get a hold of one of these excellent little devices. A friend sent it down (he prefers his iPad) so I was able to play with it a bit before handing over to the wife for her amusement. The Galaxy Tablet is a 7" tablet, much like the Google Nexus I recently reviewed and use almost continually. At first blush here are the differences I noted:

  • the user interface is different (naturally). I feel that the Galaxy's is more polished, looks crisper but is a lot more busy. The QWERTY keyboard interface for example has the numbers above it and the keys are smaller on screen than the Nexus.
  • SD Card slot - upgradeable storage is a nice thing indeed.
Weight, size and battery life appear comparable. My wife loves it. She wasn't convinced initially about a tablet and didn't think she could find a use for it. As a non-technical person it seemed like another gadget to her. Now though she uses it for Pinterest, Facebook, eBay, email and generally web searching.

The Galaxy Tablet is a fine piece of hardware, but I have to criticize the interface. It is not as user friendly as the Nexus and this was actually a factor that led me to purchase a HTC One X over the Samsung Galaxy SIII recently. Navigating through some of the menus has been a pain, and initially finding in the Yahoo Mail app the Create Email option was not straightforward at all. That being said, now I've played more with it it's quite good.

I recommend the Galaxy Tablet to anyone who needs 3G or LTE connectivity as the Nexus doesn't appear to offer this. WiFi connectivity is very good on both devices and the Galaxy has a bright easy to read screen. Occasionally the light sensitivity gets a bit annoying as it dims the screen unnecessarily, or makes it too dark, but otherwise it's very good.
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