I didn’t buy mine from Amazon as I couldn’t find it on Amazon. I ended up going to my local BestBuy to pick it up. The reviews online were mostly okay except for The Verge which said it was sluggish and basically was down beat on it.
I decided to buy it and if I didn’t like it I would be returning it. I picked it up around 5:30PM on the 16th of August which is the release date. The first thing I did was get rid of all the widgets that are on the home screens. I suspect those might slow it down. I kept only one widget which is the clock / weather widget. I then downloaded all my favorite apps and began to arrange and configure it the way I wanted it.
It comes with Polaris Office, which is better than QuickOffice if you plan to create and edit word docs, Polaris is easier. To view documents and complex excel sheets I find QuickOffice often does the better job. I ed up keep both installed just in case.
I installed 14 games on it. All of which perform very well. There are my favorites, like FieldRunners, and newer ones like Final Fantasy, Ski Safari, Nova 3, Osmos HD, Amazing Alex and Zynga poker that I also really like. This quad core eats through anything with ease.
Got the latest Google Maps, which is so fantastic on this. You can save a Map so it’s available without a data connection. Perfect for these WiFi devices. I’m a fan of the new Google Play movies, music, books and Magazines too. But if you prefer Amazon or Nook, those are available as always. It comes with the B&N Nook Reader by default.
There are Galaxy Note 10.1 specific apps like Adobe’s PS Touch. I’ve been using Photoshop since 1996 so I am going to carefully review the built in lessons for PS Touch, a mobile version of Photoshop and see how far I can take that. If you are a subscriber to Adobe’s Cloud services you’re supposed to be able to edit a PSD with PS Touch, save it to the cloud, and then continue to edit it with Photoshop the desktop app.
There is also S Note. S Note and PS Touch are geared to work well with the new Samsung Galaxy S Pen. This was a primary reason for me to be interested in this particular tablet. The S Pen is so accurate that you can hand write whole sheets of handwritten text with it. I didn’t try to have it translated into actual text like type written text. I just left it as my handwriting. Really like it.
Now this new Note 10.1 also has a new Muli-tasking feature. I should say that it doesn’t multitask any app combo you want. Just a few apps blessed by Samsung which are: The base browser, not Chrome, their video player, Polaris Office, the picture gallery and their email app, not the GMail email app. Their email app can be used with POP, IMAP and Microsoft’s Exchange via the built in Active Sync. So I tend to use that email client for work email and I use GMail as my personal email client.
Now, according to The Verge, multitasking was horrible. Not so fast Verge. I don’t know what you guys are doing but I multitask’d just about every way you can on this and it works surprising well. I wrote notes while playing video. I played video while scrolling up and down on a web page. I copied text from an email to S Note, which both apps loaded in the side by side both on the screen simultaneously method. I had no trouble at all.
I bought Autodesk’s Sketchpad Pro and can draw with that just fine. I also bought Adobe Ideas, but haven’t yet played with that at all. Samsung also has their own kind of store and I am going to see if they have more S Pen specific apps. Really like the S Pen a lot. It’s exactly like a typical Wacom Stylus. It’s sharp, not that horrible eraser head large stylus you get stuck with if you want to use a stylus on the iPad. Although the iPad has Paper by 53, which I wish I had on here.
I’m really just getting started. I’ll have to update this review over the weekend. Only played with this new tab for about 4 to 6 hours now.
Check out Google’s Currents for news, and Pocket for saving articles for future reading. Both are great on this tablet. I think all the bases are covered with this tablet. Movies, games, magazines, office and productivity, art creation and editing. It does everything. And since it is Android, you have a real file system which makes email a breeze. Love this thing so far.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (32GB, Deep Grey) (Personal Computers)
I ordered this tablet immediately when Amazon posted it with 1-day shipping and as of 9/22/2012 I haven’t had any issues as a few users seem to have reported. Don’t get discouraged if you get a lemon; just return it for another – Amazon has free returns/replacements in such cases.
* Hand Written Notes – S Notes – Exports to PDF and also JPG. It has templates for various types of productivity. My favorites are the ruled paper, the meeting template (date, time, attendees, meeting notes) and the recipe template (I can imagine this being very useful for the kitchen, propped up in a case). – Papyrus Beta – This free application is very nice and similar to S Note but has normal paper templates such as College Ruled, Wide Ruled, Narrow Ruled, Blank and 4 different Graph Paper types. – ezPDF – Costs $3 and is what you’ll probably want to make annotations on lecture slides and whatnot. – MOST applications allow you to rest your palm on the tablet while writing, others are not as well written. This all depends on the author of a specific app. – SOME applications have nice erasers. Some times you can press the button on the S Pen to erase instead of write and some times you can just use your finger to erase while using the S Pen to write. This all depends on the author of a specific application.
* Hand Writing Instead of Typing – The default keyboard has an option that lets you hand write in any input field instead of typing. Long-press the settings (gear) button on the keyboard to select the T button which enables hand writing. Please see the User Images of this product for a good example of this.
* Multitasking – Splits the screen between two programs – It’s limited to their six programs (S Note, Internet, Video Player, Polaris Office, Gallery, Email) but those are some good options. As expected, it puts any two windows side-by-side and works seamlessly. Hopefully that functionality will be expanded to other programs.
* GPS – Fast and accurate. I am currently on the first floor of a two-story apartment building about ten feet away from the outer wall (sliding glass door) and Google Maps had my position within 40 meters almost instantly after turning on the GPS receiver. Within 35ish seconds it had my position accurate to 10 meters.
* S Pen – Comfortable to hold (I’m a 5’10″ tall guy and have normal sized hands). There’s an odd button on the side which adds extra functionality with certain gestures. I have no idea how it works because I’m pretty sure the S Pen isn’t powered in any way, but it’s more than just a stylus.
* Screen – Very sensitive. I’ve been taking notes for half of my classes on my tablet and it works well. I usually have the brightness set to 10-15% or slightly less in classrooms or at home because that’s all I really need but also to conserve battery life.
* Battery – While leaving it on all the time, wifi off when not using it, I manage to only charge my Note 10.1 once a week. Standard usage includes notes during seven hours of lecture each week and using it periodically throughout the day or in the evening. – To really stretch your battery life you’ll need to disable some apps. I disabled Google+ and some of the default/Samsung apps that come with the device in Settings->Application Manager.
* Build Quality – Standard Samsung quality. The case has a lot of plastic and the back gives a little if you push on it but it definitely feels solid. Now that it’s in a case the build quality doesn’t matter any more.
* Speed – Very smooth. I updated about 10 apps at the same time in the market, an operation which would nearly cripple my Galaxy S until it was done, and I couldn’t tell any difference in the smoothness of the Note 10.1. While I was exploring I ended up having 15-20 applications open at the same time but again I couldn’t tell any difference. – Coming from a Galaxy S phone and hardly ever using a tablet before, I’m amazed by how fast this thing boots/restarts.
* Wifi – No complaints. It connects quickly and hasn’t had any issues.
* Sound – Good, loud and scared my cat when I started something on Google Play. She looked around like she does when our surround sound is on because she doesn’t understand what was making such a noise. I can’t tell any difference in quality between it and my laptop when watching the same video on both (the laptop was ~$1700 before a coupon).
* Rooting Friendly – Check out the forum for this tablet on xda developers for info. This device already has developers that say they’ll work on it and I’m sure more will sign up because the Note 10.1 stands out among the crowd.
* Universal Remote / IR Blaster – Works well enough. I’m going to sell my Logitech Harmony One universal remote because the Peel application works but could be nicer. With my…
Authors bio is coming up shortly. 
Really like it,
I didn’t buy mine from Amazon as I couldn’t find it on Amazon. I ended up going to my local BestBuy to pick it up. The reviews online were mostly okay except for The Verge which said it was sluggish and basically was down beat on it.
I decided to buy it and if I didn’t like it I would be returning it. I picked it up around 5:30PM on the 16th of August which is the release date. The first thing I did was get rid of all the widgets that are on the home screens. I suspect those might slow it down. I kept only one widget which is the clock / weather widget. I then downloaded all my favorite apps and began to arrange and configure it the way I wanted it.
It comes with Polaris Office, which is better than QuickOffice if you plan to create and edit word docs, Polaris is easier. To view documents and complex excel sheets I find QuickOffice often does the better job. I ed up keep both installed just in case.
I installed 14 games on it. All of which perform very well. There are my favorites, like FieldRunners, and newer ones like Final Fantasy, Ski Safari, Nova 3, Osmos HD, Amazing Alex and Zynga poker that I also really like. This quad core eats through anything with ease.
Got the latest Google Maps, which is so fantastic on this. You can save a Map so it’s available without a data connection. Perfect for these WiFi devices. I’m a fan of the new Google Play movies, music, books and Magazines too. But if you prefer Amazon or Nook, those are available as always. It comes with the B&N Nook Reader by default.
There are Galaxy Note 10.1 specific apps like Adobe’s PS Touch. I’ve been using Photoshop since 1996 so I am going to carefully review the built in lessons for PS Touch, a mobile version of Photoshop and see how far I can take that. If you are a subscriber to Adobe’s Cloud services you’re supposed to be able to edit a PSD with PS Touch, save it to the cloud, and then continue to edit it with Photoshop the desktop app.
There is also S Note. S Note and PS Touch are geared to work well with the new Samsung Galaxy S Pen. This was a primary reason for me to be interested in this particular tablet. The S Pen is so accurate that you can hand write whole sheets of handwritten text with it. I didn’t try to have it translated into actual text like type written text. I just left it as my handwriting. Really like it.
Now this new Note 10.1 also has a new Muli-tasking feature. I should say that it doesn’t multitask any app combo you want. Just a few apps blessed by Samsung which are: The base browser, not Chrome, their video player, Polaris Office, the picture gallery and their email app, not the GMail email app. Their email app can be used with POP, IMAP and Microsoft’s Exchange via the built in Active Sync. So I tend to use that email client for work email and I use GMail as my personal email client.
Now, according to The Verge, multitasking was horrible. Not so fast Verge. I don’t know what you guys are doing but I multitask’d just about every way you can on this and it works surprising well. I wrote notes while playing video. I played video while scrolling up and down on a web page. I copied text from an email to S Note, which both apps loaded in the side by side both on the screen simultaneously method. I had no trouble at all.
I bought Autodesk’s Sketchpad Pro and can draw with that just fine. I also bought Adobe Ideas, but haven’t yet played with that at all. Samsung also has their own kind of store and I am going to see if they have more S Pen specific apps. Really like the S Pen a lot. It’s exactly like a typical Wacom Stylus. It’s sharp, not that horrible eraser head large stylus you get stuck with if you want to use a stylus on the iPad. Although the iPad has Paper by 53, which I wish I had on here.
I’m really just getting started. I’ll have to update this review over the weekend. Only played with this new tab for about 4 to 6 hours now.
Check out Google’s Currents for news, and Pocket for saving articles for future reading. Both are great on this tablet. I think all the bases are covered with this tablet. Movies, games, magazines, office and productivity, art creation and editing. It does everything. And since it is Android, you have a real file system which makes email a breeze. Love this thing so far.
Was this review helpful to you?
|THE Tablet for Students, but Great for All,
I ordered this tablet immediately when Amazon posted it with 1-day shipping and as of 9/22/2012 I haven’t had any issues as a few users seem to have reported. Don’t get discouraged if you get a lemon; just return it for another – Amazon has free returns/replacements in such cases.
* Hand Written Notes
– S Notes – Exports to PDF and also JPG. It has templates for various types of productivity. My favorites are the ruled paper, the meeting template (date, time, attendees, meeting notes) and the recipe template (I can imagine this being very useful for the kitchen, propped up in a case).
– Papyrus Beta – This free application is very nice and similar to S Note but has normal paper templates such as College Ruled, Wide Ruled, Narrow Ruled, Blank and 4 different Graph Paper types.
– ezPDF – Costs $3 and is what you’ll probably want to make annotations on lecture slides and whatnot.
– MOST applications allow you to rest your palm on the tablet while writing, others are not as well written. This all depends on the author of a specific app.
– SOME applications have nice erasers. Some times you can press the button on the S Pen to erase instead of write and some times you can just use your finger to erase while using the S Pen to write. This all depends on the author of a specific application.
* Hand Writing Instead of Typing – The default keyboard has an option that lets you hand write in any input field instead of typing. Long-press the settings (gear) button on the keyboard to select the T button which enables hand writing. Please see the User Images of this product for a good example of this.
* Multitasking – Splits the screen between two programs – It’s limited to their six programs (S Note, Internet, Video Player, Polaris Office, Gallery, Email) but those are some good options. As expected, it puts any two windows side-by-side and works seamlessly. Hopefully that functionality will be expanded to other programs.
* GPS – Fast and accurate. I am currently on the first floor of a two-story apartment building about ten feet away from the outer wall (sliding glass door) and Google Maps had my position within 40 meters almost instantly after turning on the GPS receiver. Within 35ish seconds it had my position accurate to 10 meters.
* S Pen – Comfortable to hold (I’m a 5’10″ tall guy and have normal sized hands). There’s an odd button on the side which adds extra functionality with certain gestures. I have no idea how it works because I’m pretty sure the S Pen isn’t powered in any way, but it’s more than just a stylus.
* Screen – Very sensitive. I’ve been taking notes for half of my classes on my tablet and it works well. I usually have the brightness set to 10-15% or slightly less in classrooms or at home because that’s all I really need but also to conserve battery life.
* Battery – While leaving it on all the time, wifi off when not using it, I manage to only charge my Note 10.1 once a week. Standard usage includes notes during seven hours of lecture each week and using it periodically throughout the day or in the evening.
– To really stretch your battery life you’ll need to disable some apps. I disabled Google+ and some of the default/Samsung apps that come with the device in Settings->Application Manager.
* Build Quality – Standard Samsung quality. The case has a lot of plastic and the back gives a little if you push on it but it definitely feels solid. Now that it’s in a case the build quality doesn’t matter any more.
* Speed
– Very smooth. I updated about 10 apps at the same time in the market, an operation which would nearly cripple my Galaxy S until it was done, and I couldn’t tell any difference in the smoothness of the Note 10.1. While I was exploring I ended up having 15-20 applications open at the same time but again I couldn’t tell any difference.
– Coming from a Galaxy S phone and hardly ever using a tablet before, I’m amazed by how fast this thing boots/restarts.
* Wifi – No complaints. It connects quickly and hasn’t had any issues.
* Sound – Good, loud and scared my cat when I started something on Google Play. She looked around like she does when our surround sound is on because she doesn’t understand what was making such a noise. I can’t tell any difference in quality between it and my laptop when watching the same video on both (the laptop was ~$1700 before a coupon).
* Rooting Friendly – Check out the forum for this tablet on xda developers for info. This device already has developers that say they’ll work on it and I’m sure more will sign up because the Note 10.1 stands out among the crowd.
* Universal Remote / IR Blaster
– Works well enough. I’m going to sell my Logitech Harmony One universal remote because the Peel application works but could be nicer. With my…
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