Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Review. Slim dual-core Android tablet

Updated 19 Jun, 2013, 8:12 am IST

Monday October 03 11:07 pm

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 Review. Slim dual-core Android tablet

Spent a few days with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and now here's the review. It's slim and the size is great for one-hand usage. Background This is the first Android tablet that I've been able to use on a daily basis. My other tablet is the original Apple iPad. This is great if you already use Google's services. Setup was very easy. Enter your Gmail account, then all your emails, calendar, contacts, and albums get synced. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 hardware is nice, but I expected better performance from the dual core processor. The browser can handle flash, but they don't play smoothly. Do we need quad-core tablets to get it right? Samsung also added some gestures that allow you to zoom or pan. The default sensitivity settings felt too sensitive but you can change that. I actually turned these off since they were more annoying than useful. There are plenty of keyboard options. Swype is my favorite. You can resize it and swype on a smaller keyboard with one finger. Don't worry about the battery life. I can't even remember the last time I had to plug this in. 2 days ago? 3 days ago? It includes a 6,100 mAh battery. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is available for sale nationwide starting October 2 for $569 for the 32GB version and $469 for the 16GB version.