Microsoft Surface Tablet vs Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1)
In the past couple of years, Samsung has made their name shine on the mobile market due to their various products like mobile phones and tablets. The introduction of Android operating system was integral in gaining this dominant position. Although, before Android, there were operating systems that Samsung used for tablets and phones, tablets were least successful while the mobile phones were competitive with Nokia products. As far as we are concerned, Samsung released a tablet with Windows XP tablet version as the operating system, and that was a failure. This was primarily because there was no apparent synchronization between the hardware and software. The hardware was more towards that of a PC with shorter battery lives and heavier package. The software, on the other hand, wasn’t really optimized to the touchscreens, and it was more of a mediocre adaptation as a tablet operating system. After that and some other failures on tablets from the Samsung’s end, Android finally gave them a safe turf to play. As of today, Samsung Galaxy tablets are among most demanded tablets in the world.
While all this progressing was happening, Microsoft kept watching and observed the way market changed. Their operating system was, and still, is the most sought OS in the world. With it, they have the prominent Microsoft Office package and other collections of software packages. Looking at the publicly available records; Microsoft’s revenue from office packages exceeds that of the operating system sales, and all of those software packages need the Microsoft operating system to run them. So ideally it was a win-win situation for them. This is starting to change because the market is becoming more and more mobile centric and, when we say mobile, people no longer imply laptops. Instead, they have tablets in their mind. The drawback with Microsoft was that they didn’t have a sufficient grip on the tablet market and their attempts on the segment were clearly successful failures. It seems Microsoft has blamed the manufacturers of hardware components for these failures and hence taken that in to their wings, as well. So we witness the birth of new Microsoft Tablet series, Microsoft Surface. We will talk about this new player on the market and compare it with one of the more prominent players in the market to identify its pros and cons.
Microsoft Surface Tablet Review
Microsoft Surface was unveiled on Monday by the CEO Steve Ballmer, and with that, he promised a lot of guarantees to the devoted Windows fans. The Surface is said to take advantage of the relatively few criticisms Apple iPad has. Mainly, Microsoft guaranteed that the Surface Tablet would not compromise the productivity for which the PCs are uniquely known. As we mentioned, we interpret this as Microsoft venturing in to the hardware realm to ensure that there will be no shortcomings for their software on the prominent tablet market. This is partly due to the fact that Microsoft doesn’t have a say in the increasingly growing tablet market, but they are also targeting to keep the monopoly they have on the operating systems on PCs that have recently been deviated in to iOS and Android with the tablets.
There are two versions of the Surface Tablet. The smaller version features Windows RT operating system, which is optimized for tablets. It is 9.3 mm thick and runs on the low-power ARM chips. This version of Surface Tablet is mainly for users who don’t need the performance of a stationary PC or a Laptop. Instead, this would act as a fully-fledged tablet like Apple iPad or an Android tablet. It is said to have 10.6 inches touchscreen that features 16:9 aspect ratio which would make it ideal for HD movies. It weighs 1.5 pounds and hence comfortable to hold in your hand. What differentiates Surface Tablet from the iPad is that it has a 3mm thick touch keyboard cover that is attached using magnets. It essentially acts as the cover for the device, and you can scroll it down when you want to type something comfortably. To make it even more easily, it has a 0.7mm thick kickstand that can hold the tablet upright so that the user can directly stare at the screen when they are typing. Microsoft hasn’t announced the price for this device, but it is said to be in the range of $499 to $829.
A slightly thicker version of the Surface Tablet comes with much anticipated operating system Windows 8. This is of 13mm thickness and weighs less than 2 pounds. It would also have a stylus apart from the attached keyboard cover. This will use fully-fledged mobile processors as opposed to the use of low-power ARM processors. Unfortunately, this is as much information as we have about this tablet. Microsoft hasn’t announced the full specifications for the two Surface Tablets although they are bound to be released before the end of this year. We are expecting Microsoft to reveal the full spec soon and hopefully Surface Tablets will have a good battery life, as well. Looking at this product from the Software giant, there was a common question most analysts asked. Why wouldn’t Microsoft emphasize the harmonic use of their software and hardware elements with device? For instance, why doesn’t Microsoft demonstrate the use of Skype on this device, or why doesn’t Microsoft demonstrate how much they can do with this device along with the inputs taken from Kinect?
Knowing Microsoft, we would get the answers for these questions sooner than later and hopefully they would turn out to be favorable responses.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) Review
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is essentially the same as Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 with some minor improvements. It has the same hulk of the same dimensions scoring 256.6 x 175.3mm, but Samsung has made Tab 2 (10.1) slightly thicket at 9.7mm and somewhat heavier at 588g. It has 10.1 PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen display that features a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at a pixel density of 149ppi. The Corning Gorilla Glass surface makes sure the screen is scratch resistant. This slate is powered by 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 dual core processor with 1GB of RAM and runs on Android OS v4.0 ICS. As you have already gathered, this isn’t the top notch configuration available in the market, but it won’t give you any trouble whatsoever since the processing power is enough to get you through any average rough edge you have in mind.
Tab 2 series come with the HSDPA connectivity and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n for continuous connectivity. It can also host a wi-fi hotspot and wirelessly stream rich media content to your Smart TV with built in DLNA capability. Samsung has been gracious to grant Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) with 3.15MP camera with autofocus and LED flash that can capture 1080p HD videos. There is also a VGA front camera for the purpose of video calls. The tab has 16GB and 32GB variants of internal storage while having the option to expand the storage using a microSD card up to 32GB. We can presume the slate would stay alive for more than 6 hours straight as the minimum with the 7000mAh battery.
A Brief Comparison between Microsoft Surface Tablet and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1)
• Microsoft Surface Tablet will have an ARM based version as well as Intel Mobile Processor based version while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has ARM based processor.
• Microsoft Surface Tablet will run on either Windows RT or Windows 8 while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 runs on Android OS v4.0 ICS.
• There was no indication about inbuilt network connectivity for Microsoft Surface Tablet while Samsung Galaxy enjoys HSDPA connectivity.
• There was no indication as to whether Microsoft Surface Tablet would have a camera or not while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has 3.15MP camera that can capture 1080p HD videos.
• Microsoft Surface Tablet will have a 10.6 inches touchscreen with a 16:9 aspect ratio while Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 has 10.1 inches PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.
Conclusion
Looking at these two products side by side, we can clearly see that Samsung has revealed the full spec set for their tablet and that it has good usability with a matured consumer base. On the contrary, Microsoft hasn’t revealed the specs of the Surface Tablet at all; given that, we don’t even know how fast the processor is in that tablet. Owing to this, it would be really unfair and biased decision if we give out a verdict in the conclusion. Hence, we’ll wait for that until we have more information; but as of now, we know one thing, Microsoft Surface Tablet will be more PC like compared to the Galaxy Tab considering the productivity perspective. Thus, if that is an integral factor to make your purchasing decision, perhaps you should wait for some more time until such time Microsoft lays all the cards on the table and then you can decide on the best tablet.