Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (16GB, Deep Grey), A Review

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (16GB, Deep Grey), A Review

As easy to use as pen and paper, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 with S Pen gives you the freedom to express your creativity, naturally. Edit photos as never before using Adobe Photoshop Touch. Design beautiful illustrations with variable brush weights and sizes. Create handwritten notes, memos and postcards. Then post, send and save them all on Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. You'll never want to Note any other way.Wi-Fi: 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0 + HS.1-Year Limited Warranty.

Maximizing Your Productivity & Creativity

Maximize your productivity and creativity with the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update. This 10.1-inch tablet features Samsung's unique S Pen technology, which lets you edit photos, create detailed illustrations, and take handwritten notes with unmatched precision and pressure sensitivity. 

Activate your favorite apps with a stroke of the S Pen, and then open and arrange up to 16 apps on your homescreen to easily switch between them and multitask. Powered by Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update provides an exceptionally fast, smooth user experience.

Powered by Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, for an exceptionally smooth user experience. View larger.

Take Full Advantage of Apps with Update

Enjoy All Your Favorite Apps Simultaneously

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update improves on its predecessor by offering easier, faster navigation and multitasking. Cascade View lets you view and access up to 16 different apps at the same time. Open your favorite apps, resize and layer them, and then switch from one to the next with ease.

Keep up to 16 apps open at the same time and effortlessly switch between them.

Hover the S Pen over an app and preview its content with Air View. Air View makes it easy to start playing a movie at exactly the right scene, or preview the contents of a photo album or folder. AirView also lets you quickly scan emails and attachments or scroll through Web pages.

Enhanced S Pen Functionality

With this Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update, you'll have the ability to pick up the stylus to unlock your homescreen, then launch S Note directly from there. Quickly activate your favorite apps using customized and preset S Pen strokes with Quick Command.

Cutting and pasting is a breeze with Easy Clip, a tool that lets you cut out text or part of an image and then share it via email or IM. Just use the S Pen to draw a closed shape around whatever you want to cut, and then press the pen's button to cut it out.

To briskly scroll emails and Web pages, activate Auto Scrolling by holding the S Pen on the edge of the screen.

Android 4.1, Jelly Bean Offers Fast, Intuitive Navigation

Android 4.1, Jelly Bean further enhances your user experience by allowing you to view the Samsung Gallery in three modes: timeline view, grid view, and spiral view. Android 4.1, Jelly Bean also features Page Turning, so you can navigate from one page to the next as if you were flipping through actual papers.

Galaxy Note 10.1 Update (16 GB, Grey)

At a Glance:

• Pressure-sensitive S Pen for easy drawing and note-taking
• View and access up to 16 apps simultaneously with Cascade View
• Preview content before opening it with Air View
• Create personalized photos and handwritten notes
• Fast performance with quad core processor and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Using Quick Command, quickly activate favorite apps with a simple drag of the S Pen.

Cut out content and share it in seconds

with Easy Clip.

Three different view modes optimized for the 10.1 large screen.

Features S Pen technology for creating detailed illustrations. View larger.

Personalize photos with handwritten messages. View larger.

Watch videos and take notes at the same time with Multiscreen functionality.

View larger.

Unleash Your Creativity with the S Pen

Create Original Sketches and Drawings

The integrated S Pen, paired with a special screen, offers unparalleled precision for note-taking, photo editing, and illustrating. The S Pen sets itself apart from traditional styluses with its 1,024 pressure sensitivity levels. 

Press harder on the S Pen and you'll make thicker, darker strokes. Gently glide the S Pen across the screen and see thin, light strokes. The intuitive functionality of the S Pen makes you feel as though you are writing on paper with a real pen, pencil, or brush.

Simple Photo and Document Editing

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update comes preloaded with a version of Adobe Photoshop Touch that has been optimized specifically for the S Pen. This versatile app lets you edit, crop, enhance, and annotate photos with ease. 

You can also use the included S Note templates to quickly create personal and professional documents, such as postcards and graphs.

Highlight text and take notes on e-books with the Kno app. View larger.

Create and Share Handwritten Messages

Send Personalized Media to Friends and Family

With the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update, you can communicate with your family and friends using your own handwriting. The S Pen lets you add handwritten notes to photos, screen-captured images, and other visual content.

Once you are finished personalizing your content, you can access it anywhere using the included All Share Play app. This content-sharing app lets you see content from your smartphone, Smart TV, PC, or other tablet.

Boost Your Productivity at Home, School, or the Office

E-Book Apps for Note-Taking and Browsing New Titles

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update also comes preloaded with several apps that make studying and note-taking easier. The Kno app lets you highlight and write directly on over 150,000 e-textbooks, while the Barnes and Noble Nook widget lets you browse and purchase books, magazines, and comic books. You can also take notes directly on PowerPoint documents using Polaris Office.

Advanced Note-Taking with S Note

Using the optimized S Note application, you can take notes with the convenience and familiarity of pen and paper. S Note also lets you organize your favorite online images and videos--simply snap a screenshot and drag and drop that image into your S Note notebook. 

To keep your notes nice and neat, S Note's productivity features will automatically straighten your lines, correct your shapes, and transform your handwriting into typed words. S Note can even recognize mathematical formulas and solve equations for you.

Enjoy Powerful Performance and Expansive Storage

High-Capacity Storage with microSD Expansion Slot

With 16 GB of onboard memory storage, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update offers room for plenty of video, music, and other media. A microSD card slot allows you to expand the tablet's memory even further.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update also comes with a free two-year subscription to Dropbox, an online file-hosting service that lets you store up to 50 GB of digital content.

Pop Up Play for Easy Video Multitasking

Samsung's innovative Pop Up Play lets you collapse any video you are watching into a smaller window. You will be able to browse the Internet, compose emails, or even play games without interrupting video play.

Control, Watch, and Share Content with Your TV

Turn your Tablet into a Universal Remote

The Smart Remote app and built-in IR blaster turn the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update into a universal remote that controls all of your home-entertainment devices, including your TV, cable box, DVR, and Blu-ray player. Smart Remote learns what you like and presents you with personalized recommendations. Find a show, click the "watch" button, and see your TV automatically switch to that show.

What's in the Box

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Update 16GB tablet (Grey), S Pen, and user's manual.

• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 10.1-inch Display
• Samsung Tablet 1.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor
• 2 GB RAM Memory, 16GB On-Board Memory
• Ports: 1x USB 2.0, 1x Docking,Flash Media Slot 1x Micro SD,S Pen included
• Camera: Front- 1.9 MP, Back- 5 MP

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iRULU eXpro X1 7 Inch, Great Tablet for Kids and Adults

iRULU eXpro X1 7 Inch, A Review

I’ve been taking the past week or so to go through a new iRulu  eXpro 7″ android tablet. It’s a dual core android tablet, but more than that it’s actually a large smartphone w/GPS.  This particular tablet is what I would consider a baseline model. It has the ability to do things like watch Netflix, Skype and play some low-end games.

One thing that I’ve found with portable devices and especially android tablets, and this is true for PC’s, the more complex the operating system and the more complex the applications, the more additional processing and memory is required for the device to function on an exceptional level.

IRulu was gracious enough to allow me to do a review on this particular tablet and while I think the tablet functions on baseline level, I think with some additional memory, I think this tablet would perform much better. Background discussions with them were that it would be possible to increase the memory of this particular tablet to 1 GB, as opposed to the standard 512 MB.

Product packaging

The packaging for the tablet was very straightforward. The tablet came packaged in a cardboard box with a Styrofoam packaging for protection. In my particular case, the tablet arrived and was small enough to be placed into my mailbox.
In the box was a users guide, 2 USB cable adapters, stylists and the power supply. When the tablet was received, it had a full charge. I was able to start using the tablet immediately.

First appearances

The tablet that I received was all black. It has a front WebCam and a back WebCam. If you’re using this tablet as a giant phone, there’s a speaker at the top of the tablet. At the top of the tablet [vertically] there’s a headphones jack and the micro USB for accessories and device charging.

When you pick up the device is comfortable to the hand, but as you’re running your hands around the device and as you’re using it, you notice that your fingers tend to stick or hang on the edges because they’re not rounded or refined. It’s not a great inconvenience, but you do notice it.

On the back there’s a small removable panel to get to the SIM and memory slots. It’s very easy to get to, but not so much the panel is going to pop off.

Playing around with the device

Responsiveness

In using the tablet for the first time, I was not overly impressed with the responsiveness/performance of swiping left and right on the device. I felt there was just a little bit too much lag in the device responding. This could be something that can be addressed with adding additional memory to the unit.

If I’m being honest about the evaluation of this tablet [and I am] , when I swipe my finger across the device screen, I expect the responsiveness of the device to be there. I don’t like a delay when navigating the device.

This android tablet didn’t have that snappy responsiveness that I’m really looking for. I want the tablets that I work with to have that crisp reaction and be responsive.

Some of the common applications that I loaded onto this tablet were Google Chrome, Skype, YouTube, Plex, Netflix and a 3D game called the Beach Buggy.

Skype

It’s my opinion that Skype is one of those applications for a tablet that must work if you’re going to keep it. Android tablets are great and they can do lots of things, but being able to do videoconferencing just makes it that much more convenient and it really establishes the devices being more than just something that you can have fun with.

In my testing with this tablet, I found that Skype performed fairly well straight out of a cold boot, with no other applications running, but I did find that Skype puts a fairly large load on the dual core processor of this tablet.

During the course of my testing, I was using Skype and during the conversation I rotated the tablet from portrait to landscape and the Skype application crashed. The application seem to work fine as long as I didn’t rotate the device during the middle of the conversation. The rotation of the device while I was using it seemed to place too much of a load on the processor; reorienting.

Netflix

This tablet did not have any problems with connecting to Netflix or browsing the movie selections. When I would use Netflix to try to view movies or TV shows, it was pretty responsive.

I found the performance of this tablet with Netflix to work fairly well, but I did notice that from time to time the playback seemed a little bit jumpy. I’m willing to say that it’s possibly an issue with Wi-Fi, but based on other experiences, with other applications, I’m going to go back to the requirement for additional memory.

PLEX

Plex was another application that I was using on this tablet and it seemed to perform the same expectations as Netflix and Skype. The application worked and it did what it was supposed to do, but I did see instances where the playback of the video was just a little jumpy, nowhere as good as the previous review I did for the other iRulu tablet.

I think testing the tablet with Plex is a definite requirement because the media that I’m using is stored locally and I should have the best possible connection in accessing that media.

Games

It’s fair to say that I loaded several videogames on to this android tablet and while some performed very well, some applications that were working on other android tablets didn’t work at all.

For instance, beach buggy which is a 3-D intensive videogame for the android platform, would not load on this particular tablet. This android tablet only came with 512 MB of internal memory and this could be a limiting point of this tablet.

Some games seemed to struggle and pause at times.

At this point of evolution with android tablets, I would have to make the recommendation that if you purchase any android tablet, it should have at least 1Gb of RAM, a good graphics processor and a quad core CPU.

Is it useful?

It’s not fair to say that this tablet’s usefulness is limited to watching videos and playing video games. This tablet still has a very high level of usefulness in doing other stuff. I was able to plug-in by USB adapter to it and play movies directly off of an external hard drive and a jump drive. The tablet had FM stereo.

I was able to tune into a local radio station and listen to actual FM radio without having to stream content from the Internet. I was able to take notes, browse the Internet, take pictures, listen to music [MP3s] and do many other things.

As with other devices, you purchased devices based upon what you think you’re going to be doing with them. This tablet would be great for someone with casual usage of videogames and a requirement for videoconferencing, but it would be great for doing generalized searches, email, calendars, taking notes and just generally using the Internet.

It’s definitely a tablet that you can purchase for low-cost and keep it with you at all times on the couch for those moments of instant research; when you have to look up something right now. It’s definitely a lot easier to use than a larger tablet, but you get the benefit of having a 7 inch display as opposed to the standard four-inch display on any random smartphone.

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Apple iPad Mini MD529LL/A 32GB, Buying Info Review

The 32GB iPad mini from Apple features a more compact form factor than its predecessors. The 7.9" LED multi-touch IPS display has the same resolution as the iPad 2.

However, the smaller screen results in better pixel placement for outstanding clarity and sharpness with both text and images. An A5 chip provides a great deal of processing power. The iPad mini still features up to 10 hours of power between charging (may vary depending on usage).

The rear-facing iSight camera incorporates a 5 megapixel backside illuminated sensor for increased lowlight sensitivity as well as great performance in bright situations. Autofocus, tap-to-focus, and tap to set exposure settings provide a range of functions that allow you to achieve the best exposure possible in a quick and intuitive manner.

Face detection is also supported and recognizes up to 10 different faces for improved exposure and focus settings when photographing people. In addition to improved still imaging capabilities, the iSight camera also supports full HD 1080p video recording with automatic image stabilization. The camera utilizes a 5-element f/2.4 lens for sharpness and integrates a hybrid infrared filter for greater color fidelity.

All of the internal features function via the robust iOS operating system for extremely fluid navigation and multi-touch use. iCloud support is maintained and allows you to wirelessly sync all of your information and data between multiple devices. And for even greater functionality with your iOS devices, dictation is now supported allowing you to simply talk in order to type.

You can speak your emails, texts, notes, or web searches and have the written words automatically appear. A plethora of apps designed specifically for the iPad are also available, easily attained from the App Store. These apps are formatted especially for the vivid 7.9" display and support the integral functions of the device.

Design

Smaller Form Factor The iPad mini features an aluminum unibody enclosure with mono-crystalline diamond-cut edges and a sleek metallic finish. The iPad mini is 23 percent thinner and 53 percent lighter than the iPad. It can also be held comfortably in one hand

7.9" Capacitive Multi-Touch Display

The iPad mini features a smaller 7.9" LED-backlit IPS display. However, the screen has the same 1024 x 768 native resolution of the iPad 2. Since the display is significantly smaller than the iPad 2 screen, everything looks crisp and sharp.

And when compared to a 7" tablet, the iPad mini has 35 percent more screen area. The iPad mini display also takes full advantage of every pixel so apps, magazines and documents fill the screen, from top to bottom and from edge to edge, in both portrait and landscape mode.

The iPad mini is designed to give you the maximum amount of screen in the minimum amount of space. To achieve that, Apple reduced the width of the bezels on two sides of the iPad mini display. So although the screen is smaller, it's even more prominent

Lightning Connector

The iPad mini requires an ultraslim connector to match its ultraportable design. The Lightning connector features an all-digital, eight-signal design significantly more durable than the 30-pin connector on the older iPad models. The Lightning connector is reversible so you can plug in a Lightning cable without having to worry which side needs to be up

Front 1.2MP FaceTime HD Camera

With FaceTime built into iPad mini, you can make a video call over Wi-Fi or mobile broadband. The front-facing FaceTime HD camera gives everyone a great view of you while the iSight camera on the back lets you show others what you're seeing. You can also use the front-facing camera for taking self-portraits or recording video in 720p high definition

Rear 5MP iSight Camera

The iSight camera located on the back of the iPad mini is 5 megapixels and uses advanced optics, such as a f/2.4 aperture and a five-element lens for capturing light efficiently, resulting in a sharper and brighter overall image. And the hybrid infrared filter keeps out harmful IR light for more accurate, uniform colors.

In addition to taking 5MP still images, the rear iSight camera on the iPad mini can also record HD video in full 1080p. And with automatic video stabilization, your recording is free from bumps and shakes

Eco-Friendly

The iPad mini is made of highly recyclable materials like aluminum and is free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and other harmful toxins

• Buy Apple iPad Mini MD529LL/A 32GB from Amazon

Performance

Dual-Core A5 Processor

The iPad mini features the powerful and energy-efficient A5 processor, which makes everything you do feel smooth and natural. From the little things like switching from app to app and swiping from page to page, to more CPU-intensive tasks like editing photos, watching movies, and playing games

Wi-Fi

The iPad mini features advanced Wi-Fi that's up to twice as fast as any previous-generation iPad. With dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and support for channel bonding, download speeds can reach up to 150 Mbps (may vary depending on Internet service)

10-Hour Battery Life

The iPad mini has up to a 10-hour battery life on a single charge (battery life may vary depending on usage) so you can read, watch, play, write and create without having to worry about finding the nearest power outlet

iOS

Siri

Siri lets you use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, check the latest scores, and more. Ask Siri to do things just by talking. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean and even talks back

iCloud

iCloud stores your music, photos, apps, mail, contacts, calendars and documents as well as wirelessly push them to all your devices. So if you buy a song, take a photo or edit a calendar event on your iPad mini, iCloud makes sure it appears on your Mac, iPhone and iPod touch too

AirPlay

AirPlay lets you wirelessly stream what's on your iPad mini to your HDTV and speakers via Apple TV. Or mirror exactly what's on your display to the big screen. Vacation photos, blockbusters or iOS games, you can enhance your viewing experience while at home

App Store

The App Store is home to over 275,000 apps made for iPad, which means they're made for iPad mini, too. And many of them are free. Just sign in with your Apple ID - the same one you use to buy music from iTunes - to download any app instantly. And keeping your apps up to date is a cinch, because iPad mini lets you know when updates are available

Performance
Operating System	iOS 8
Chipset	Apple A5
Processor	2x ARM 32-Bit
Storage	Flash 32 GB

Display
Type	Capacitive
Size	7.9"
Backlight	LED
Aspect Ratio	4:3
Native Resolution	1024 x 768

Input/Output Connectors
Ports	1x Lightning
Audio	Integrated Speaker Integrated Microphone 1x 1/8" (3.5 mm) Headphone
Flash Media Slot	None
ExpressCard Slot	None
Sim Card Size	None

Communications
Wi-Fi	802.11a/b/g/n
Bluetooth	Bluetooth  4.0
NFC	None
Cellular Network	None
Mobile Broadband	None
Camera	Front: 1.2 MP Back: 5.0 MP

General
Keyboard	Virtual
Battery	Built-In Lithium-Polymer Providing up to 10 Hours per Charge (16.0 Wh)
Temperature	Operating 32 to 95°F (0 to 35°C) Humidity: 5 - 95% Storage -4 to 113°F (-20 to 45°C) Humidity: 5 - 95%
Dimensions (WxHxD)	5.3 x 7.8 x 0.3" / 13.5 x 19.8 x 0.8 cm
Weight	.68 lb / .31 kg

Packaging Info
Box Dimensions (LxWxH)	8.3 x 5.7 x 1.6"

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