The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch
Following my review of previous Samsung smartphones, Samsung Malaysia decided to loan me one of their latest tablets. It’s none other than the youngest newcomer to the Samsung Galaxy Tab series, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 and since I got my hands on the 10.1-inch version,you will witness a whole new era of improvement compared to the previous version of Galaxy Tab’s. You will be wondering, “what is this guy talking about? Obviously it is going to be better than any previous versions as it is the latest version.” Well, you’re right but it’s not about being better, instead it is extremely wonderful and personally I feel this mid-ranged tablet from Samsung has the capability to actually compete against any high-ranged tablets available in the market.
Outlook perspective
Compared to the previous version of the mid-ranged Galaxy Tab series, the Tab 4 which consist of different sizes tend to be much attractive and feels much solid in your hands, yes yes it is still plastic but the high quality material used to design the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 is pure genius as you could definitely feel that the designers of this new generation have put a lot of effort in order to give high quality outlook with assured satisfaction of course. The matte finish on the back of Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch is astonishing. Yes, it feels nice to hold, looks much expensive than how much you have to pay for it, upper side bezels are still made of a chrome design while the bottom side bezels uses the same material you could find on the back of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch. The stereo speakers on each ends, left and right seems to look good too blending perfectly with the profile of Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch.
With great processor comes great performance?
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch features something different than the regular Tab series comes with, the processor is what I am talking about. Usually the Tab series comes with a standard Cortex processor which had been both dual core and quad core, yet to surprise all of us the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch now comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 400 which is the MSM8226( 1.2 GHz Cortex A7) and comes with Adreno 305 GPU. We know pretty well that Snapdragon 400 and above tend to perform very well and feels extremely smooth in term of performance or fluidity. This is one of the main point of sale for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch. You have a huge 10.1-inch display and you would expect it to be not sluggish as most of the 10-inches out there tend to be super slow and the user experience are usually horrible! With the Snapdragon processor, trust me you will ditch your laptop nor desktop for e-mail purpose or even documents purpose when you’re using this Tab 4 from Samsung.
1GB RAM is never enough! Here you go with 1.5GB of RAM.
Another new upgrade for the mid-range tablet from Samsung is the RAM capacity which had been only 1GB for quite some time when the Samsung Galaxy Note tablet series was already having 2GB long time ago. Samsung is listening to their customers and here they are giving you the extra bits of RAM just to make the smooth tablet even smoother! 🙂
You still get the 16GB of internal storage and the option of expanding it up to 64GB with the micro SD slot, no room to complain for lack of storage space right?
Stereo sound or surround sound?I say Both!
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch comes with two speakers, yes both placed on the left and right respectively given you a real loud clear audio coming out from them. These speakers are slightly louder than the previous versions as we felt the difference when the tablet had notifications and placed at a far location than we were, with same notification tone the Tab 4 10.1-inch managed to alert us better. The video below shows how the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch sounds like and how good is the display while watching a video.
Photo and Video capabilities
Well, the Primary rear camera comes at only 3.2MP while the secondary front camera comes at 1.3MP. We don’t really use the camera on 10-inch or bigger tablets as we would rather use a smaller device or a designated camera itself. I wouldn’t really encourage you to use the camera unless its for unavoidable reason. Close up shots are pretty good but yes, you will still get to see visible grains despite the low MP count.
You can still record HD videos with 16:9 aspect ratio using the rear camera which could be useful at times too. As on most Samsung Android smartphones, the volume key is configure-able while on camera mode and will enable you to choose from using it as for zoom or even camera shutter/ video recording button.
Still waiting for your software update? We have KitKat already!
Yes, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch comes out of the box with the latest Android OS, the KitKat at the version of 4.4.2 and with this buttery smooth OS, together with Samsung’s TouchWiz, your user experience will be fantastic and as mentioned before you could barely see any lags or even force close errors. That is how well Samsung have put effort to improve their Software segment for their gadgets.
Battery Life?
This tablet comes with 6800mAh non-removable battery and could easily last you up to 2 days depending on your usage pattern. As usual, with decent amount of push notifications for emails, social networks together with web browsing and documentation, you can definitely reach 2 days. Try it and you will know it for yourself.
Facts to share
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch is considerably lightweight even though it weighs at 487g.
The user experience of using the “Multi Window” feature on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch is flawless and since the screen size is huge, it is like dual 5-inch display running two different applications simultaneously.
During voice call via earphones, with the volume set at only level 4 with level 6 being the maximum, call quality is excellent from both sides as I really had good time being on call with my friend during my trip at Singapore.
The WiFi signal is extremely good on Samsung devices before this and yes even on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch, the signal reception on both WiFi and even the cellular data is extremely good compared to some of the devices that I have.
Priced at just RM1499, you can just get this tablet instead of spending much higher with similar specs and features. You get LTE, Snapdragon processor, phone call capability, and even KitKat. 😛
Lastly, I will definitely get this tablet or you can even call it phablet as my second device rather than getting a second smartphone because you have the great battery life just in case if you decided to use it for tethering, with LTE of course. Next, bigger screen would be definitely better for a second device as for me, my main device has a screen bigger than 5-inch. Blogging on the go, or even typing important documents with the option of all Google goodies such as Google Spreadsheet, Docs, etc works perfectly with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch.
What do you think about the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 10.1-inch? Do you agree with my opinions? Is it a Yay or a Nay?