I wanted to upgrade my old Dell 7" tablet that was no longer charging and the particular Android OS on it was buggy. I remembered Samsungs having a good display and slick appearance in general. There are lots of tablets out there to choose from and lots of reviews to read. I found almost all of these tablets have serious issues, even the name brands. I kept coming back to Samsung and trying to understand why I would pay more for this than most other brands while wondering if I was even going to use it enough to justify the purchase.
I'd tried a pen on my old Dell and it was neato but fairly useless. I got interested in this particular model because of the 10" screen and the pen. The pen is very cool and I use it a lot. It interacts with the screen in an intelligent way that makes it easy to either handwrite or do scripting to text. The Samsung Note app is good and that's my main app for notetaking. There were some adjustments I had to make in the settings before it was doing exactly what I wanted, but after some time it is set the way it needs and works seamlessly to aid navigation and editing. You have to get this exact model if you want the pen!
Software is great, OS is stable, though some apps I use are unstable, but the device itself is solidly built and their implementation of Android has been reliable. I went to Play and was able to download most of my favorite apps on it. Because the device has the speed and the good specs, there aren't many delays in using it, other than logging into the security screen (required for corporate email, among other things). It either comes with or I downloaded Investing.com, which looks very slick and professional. Microsoft Office apps come standard. I think you have to log in with an account after a time, I used my corporate account and that has worked well so far. The drawing capability of One Note is superior to Samsung Note, but of course that wacky One Note filing system makes it weird. I prefer to put up with Samsung's app, with it's minor annoyances, but where I can see the note I just made as a small icon and easily navigate my notes. If you like a more sophisticated visual aspect to your notes, One Note lets you get very creative with color and style options you can select with the pen. You can do all the things you can do on a desktop version like insert images and so forth. And there are many background choices for a stationary type of look.
Haven't used the Word or Excel yet, but I've already logged in with my credentials so that will be seamless to use if needed. I took off or disabled what bloatware I could. Like a new PC, this thing takes an investment of time over the first few days to get rid of what you don't want and load what you do. I was pleasantly surprised to find the Google To Do app dowloadable and it works great on this device. It syncs to my gmail account tasks. So useful to have the Tasks separated out as a separate app again. My OBD II software for reading car computer data that was flawless on my phone would not hook up and work with this tablet. That's about the only software disappointment I've had. Everything else has worked as expected. I moved my old micro SD card from my old tablet to have my music collection available, no issues with that being recognized. Now, with about everything I want loaded, it's got enough space to run efficiently and download more apps if needed.
I've done a lot more with this device, trying to keep up with the other office geeks but not spend too much. I got it to recognize my corporate VPN and it was very straightforward, with an assist from our network guy telling me which protocol to use. Calendar app seemed to just take over on its own after I set up the email. It loaded all my work tasks and somehow grabbed my Google appointments, which I thought was slick and handy. Having got that far, I loaded ES Fileshare (?), which lets me remote into the corporate file system to view the same folders I'd see in Microsoft Explorer. It's slow to get going and loaded for viewing, but if I'm headed to a meeting where I'll use it, I can get it warmed up first and then no problem. Oh, and Microsoft has come out with a new RDP Client app in the Play store. I downloaded it and it works, I logged into my work PC with it and could operate almost everything there with my pen. I even ran SQL queries with it!
Recently, I found out about some decent piano teaching software, which I've always wanted. With a 3ft data cable (a USB printer cable) and an OTG (on the go) adapter, I got my digital piano hooked up to this tablet as a USB Keyboard Input. Downloaded the full version of Synthesia ($8) from Play and my keyboard can be used to interact with the software, which recognizes the mini USB input as a piano. This is the same port the charger goes in. The big screen is almost the size of a piece of sheet music, sits on my piano rest. I also put it on a standalone sheet music stand, the thick kind, and use it to run through songs using Guitar Tabs. Such an improvement over my old Dell in the screen brightness, size and response, so it becomes more usable for these hobbies.
But the main thing I'd use this for practically in a work meeting would be to VPN in and then use Chrome to view our web application, for which it works well, though again probably needs to be up and running before the meeting because that takes time. Secondly, I use the Notes app to jot down notes and action items. The ability to title these with the date and name I need is what makes all these notes accessible for the future. I can't do that with my scribbled notes in my paper notebook. I also can't erase my bad handwriting with ease and start the word over like I can with this stylus.
Best of all, the day I went to order this, Amazon dropped the price $50 bucks and then it was a no-brainer.
| Standing screen display size | 10.1 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1200 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 Pixels |
| Processor | 1.6 GHz |
| RAM | 3 GB |
| Hard Drive | 16 GB Flash Memory Solid State |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Mali T830 MP2 |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Wireless Type | Bluetooth |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 22 Hours |
