Difference Between Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 vs Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 | Speed, Performance and Features Reviewed | Full Specs Compared
 

The mobile market is a strange place. It is a wonderful place, as well. One of the most demanding things in the market is to keep a handle of everything that’s happening, as transformations are so fast and things change in a flash. New models come and become ancestors the next day. Some ancestors are renovated and redesigned. Some features are dug from the grave and reinstated to life. One such feature is the availability of a stylus. Back in the days when we had resistive touchscreen, the stylus was an integral part of a touchscreen handset. It also served the purpose of taking something down on the touchscreen. With the introduction of capacitive touchscreens, stylus was doomed to grave until the vendors came up with S-Pen stylus to serve the capacitive touchscreen for writing was a general need. Last year we saw the smartphone tab hybrid of Samsung Galaxy Note, which came with an S-Pen stylus and it proved to be very useful. Thus, Samsung has adopted the concept of Note and introduced S-Pen stylus for their tablet line, as well. We might be able to assume that the tablet line with the S-Pen stylus just might be called as Galaxy Note family.

In any case, the device in question here is a 10.1 inch tablet that comes with an S-Pen stylus and is named as Galaxy Note 10.1. In the world of enterprise mobility, we assume that the introduction of an S-Pen stylus for a tablet like this would be a worthwhile move from Samsung. We are going to compare this handheld to another product of the same caliber, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 which is a great tablet from Samsung.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

We can start this review by saying that this is more or less the same tablet as Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 with some improvements and the S-Pen stylus. The Galaxy Note 10.1 is powered by 1.4GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM. It does sound old school with the Quad core tablets out there in the market, but rest assured, this is one beast of a tablet. Android OS 4.0 ICS is the operating system, and it really does justice to this tablet. It has 10.1 inches PLS TFT capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels at a pixel density of 149ppi. It perfectly resembles Galaxy Tab 10.1 with the same outline and build quality, same dimensions and same colors. The display panel and resolution are the same, as well. The curved edges enable you to hold on to this device for prolonged periods of time and they equally make it comfortable when writing with the S-Pen Stylus.

Unfortunately, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is not a GSM device, so you won’t be able to make calls from it. However, Samsung has enabled it to connect via HSDPA and EDGE, so you can always stay in touch. As a precaution, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n is also included, and it can also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot and share your internet connection with friends. This handset comes with three storage options, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB with the option to expand the storage using a microSD card. It has 3.15MP rear camera with autofocus and LED flash and a 2MP front camera bundled together with Bluetooth v3.0 for video conferencing. The camera can capture 1080p HD videos at 30 frames per second and it also has Geo tagging with Assisted GPS. The advantage of the S-Pen stylus is imminent in the preloaded applications like Adobe Photoshop Touch and Ideas. The slate has GPS as well as GLONASS and comes with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and on device encryption along with Cisco VPN capability for the use of a businessperson. In addition, it has the normal features of an Android tablet and comes with a 7000mAh battery, so we can say it would score a battery life of 9 hours or more like the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Galaxy Tab 10.1 is another successor of Galaxy family. It was released to the market in July 2011 and at the time, it was the best competition for Apple iPad 2. It comes in black and has a pleasing and expensive look with the desire to keep it in your hand. Galaxy Tab is thin scoring a mere 8.6mm which is awesome for a tablet PC. Galaxy Tab is also lightweight with a weight of 565g. It has a 10.1 inch PLS TFT Capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 x 800 and 149ppi pixel density. The screen is also reinforced with Corning Gorilla glass, to make it scratch resistant.

It comes with a 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 dual core processor on top of Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset and Nvidia ULP GeForce graphics unit which tends to be more powerful. The 1GB RAM is a due addition to this setup which is controlled by Android v3.2 Honeycomb and Samsung promises an upgrade to Android v4.0 IceCreamSandwich, as well. It comes with two storage options, 16/32GB without an option to expand the storage. Unfortunately, Samsung Galaxy Tab LTE version doesn’t come with GSM connectivity although it has CDMA connectivity. On the other hand, it has LTE 700 connectivity for super-fast internet, and it also has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n for continuous connectivity. Since it also supports wi-fi hotspot functionality, you can handsomely share your super speed internet with your friends. As mentioned above, being released in July and having LTE 700 connectivity certainly helped it a lot to gain the market share it has gained through this 5 months, and we have to say that Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a matured product you can rely on.

Samsung has included a 3.15MP camera with autofocus and LED flash but this kind of seems inadequate for the tablet. Fortunately it can capture 720p HD videos @ 30 frames per second and for the delight of the video callers, it has a front camera of 2MP bundled together with Bluetooth v2.1. It comes with the normal sensor set for the Galaxy family and has a predicted battery life of 9 hours.

Conclusion

If the conclusion is to be on what device is the best, then Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 easily wins the battle. It’s almost like these two are twins; only Galaxy Note has been born a bit too later, thus more advanced than Galaxy Tab 10.1. With the introduction of Note, we reckon Samsung will have a hard time keeping their Galaxy Tab sales up, and probably they will retire it anyways with the introduction of new Galaxy Tab 2.0 (10.1). That wraps up our argument for the conclusion for Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is everything Galaxy Tab 10.1 represented and more together with a better processor and an S-Pen Stylus. The tradeoff as usual is the monetary factor, and you may have to consider that since mobile devices are on penetration pricing schemes. If I were to have second thoughts about what to invest in, I’d think of it like this. We need to figure out whether we are in desperate need of an S-Pen stylus. Of course if you want to get this tablet for professional purposes, S-Pen stylus is a must. However, if that’s not the case, that’s something you can put your mind into. Further, you can inquire whether you want this increased processing power, which I personally don’t think would make much of a difference. Depending on the answers for these two questions, you can decide for yourself on which device you should invest in.