Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Review
by Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi on October 1, 2013 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Galaxy Note 10.1
Final Words
Starting from the inside out, the new Galaxy Note is better in pretty much every way. The industrial design is much improved compared to its predecessors. The new Exynos 5420 is quite fast on both CPU and GPU fronts. Battery life is ok for normal usage but great for video playback (just behind the big iPad). You get tons of RAM (3GB) and super fast WiFi. Then there’s the display. The 2560 x 1600 panel is easily the best Samsung has shipped in a tablet. Although not the best in the industry, it’s in a different league compared to Samsung tablet displays of years past. Even compared to the Galaxy Tab 3.0 lineup, the 2014 Note 10.1’s display is so much better.
With a relatively good story across the board in terms of hardware, the only difficulty in this conclusion boils down to a discussion of price vs. functionality.
The Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) arrives at an interesting time for the 10-inch tablet market. It’s definitely the high-end offering we’ve always hoped to see from Samsung in their 10-inch family, but the world seems to be moving toward smaller tablets for consumption, while toying with the idea of a 2-in-1 for productivity. Samsung attempts to straddle both lines with the inclusion of the S Pen, something we found surprisingly useful in our review of the Galaxy Note 8.0, but a feature that comes at a steep price.
There are really two key tablet price points/devices that you have to compete with in this world: the 2013 Nexus 7 at $229, and iPad at $499. The Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) continues Samsung’s trend of charging a premium for the S Pen/Note experience and shows up at $549 for a 16GB WiFi-only model. That is a healthy premium over the non-Note model, but easily worth the adder given what you get (assuming you're limiting yourself to shopping exclusively in Samsung's tablet lineup). What I'd really like to see is a 2014 Edition of the Galaxy Note 8, with the same sort of hardware but at a much lower price point.
At the end of the day, the new Note’s pricing paints it into a niche just like the rest of the big Note lineup. If you love the S Pen experience and want it on some of the best 10-inch tablet hardware available, the new Note 10.1 is perfect. It's arguably the best 10-inch tablet Samsung has ever built, but it's also priced as such. If you're not married to the S Pen, there are definitely cheaper options out there.
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Da W - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Consistently beaten by the iPhone 5s on benchmarks, says a lot about apple's SoC.Otherwise for productivity i'll go with a 899 surface pro 2.
chewyqc - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Indeed, but still, the iPhone 5s SoC is manufactured by Samsung and design by ARM. It's perfermance are very good.darwinosx - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
The iPhone 5s chip is designed by Apples chip engineers. Spanks Samsung's new flagship tablet hard of course which you seem concerned about.identity - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Here comes the Apple fanboy vs Android fanboy wars. Go troll that garbage somewhere else.kevith - Tuesday, October 1, 2013 - link
Ye Hear!Samus - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
Why does ANY of this matter?The A7 doesn't run Android.
The Exynos doesn't run iOS.
Who cares which is faster. In the end they're on completely different OS's. Anybody who buys a CPU without consideration for the OS is completely dense.
Origin64 - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
Any claim about how "fast" the new iPhone is is negated by how slow it actually moves from screen to screen. 60fps is great, but taking 120 frames to slide in a new windows takes too long. So does having to go back to home and then three menus deep just to turn on wifi. Contrast Android where that is a matter of sliding a bar down and pressing a button. Sure, it stutters, but it is quicker. People care too much about subjective smoothness instead of absolute productivity.steven75 - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
Someone needs to Google "iOS Control Center" and update their anti-Apple propaganda. ;)Speed is definitely useful in the many high quality content creation apps on iOS like GarageBand and iMovie.
misfit410 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
I have to imagine after Apple sued so many people for making similar UI elements, and so many Apple folks backed Apple for doing so, they just never imagined Apple would steal so many UI elements from Android in one update.sundragon - Wednesday, October 2, 2013 - link
What are you talking about?What do you think Project Butter was supposed to correct? They spent all that money to fix the amazingly smooth OS, no - compared to iOS, it stuttered. 4.2 made a huge difference but it still stutters on the Nexus 7 V1 and is somewhat smooth on the 2, by comparison my first gen iPhone was smooth and it had a crappy ARM 11 CPU...
Oh and here's something to chew on ;)
http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/19/apples-iphone-5-...