Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition - Getting it Right

Overview

Samsung attempted to integrate the S Pen functionality into the tablet form factor last year with the Galaxy Note 10.1. While the attempt was a step in the right direction, the appeal of the Galaxy Note 10.1 was marred by the below average battery life, occasional sluggish performance and expensive price tag.

One year later, Samsung returned with the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition which is unsurprisingly modeled after the Galaxy Note 3 from the hardware, right down to the software. Will Samsung's second attempt be better received? Read on to find out our opinion.

Design & Features

Similar to the Galaxy Note 3, Samsung took a new direction in the design of the Galaxy Note 10.1 by swapping the plastic back with a 'leather-like' material. It is the same material used for the removable back cover of the Galaxy Note 3 although on the tablet, the cover is non-removable. While the team at HardwareZone had differing views on the new backing (it still feels somewhat plastic), one thing we can all agree is that it's a great improvement over its predecessor.

As noted in our review of the white Galaxy Note 3, the leather-like material feels better than standard plastic and certainly looks good, but we had concerns over dirt and stains picking up on the rear over time. Perhaps it's a good idea to purchase the S$88 Book Cover or third-party casing to protect its rear.

Recent trends in the mobile industry suggest that manufacturers are shifting towards making their devices bigger yet lighter. One fine example is the Galaxy Note 3 where it comes with a larger display and more powerful hardware, but is more handy and lighter than the Galaxy Note II.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 is no different; it sports slightly thinner bezels and a chassis that is shorter, narrower, slimmer and lighter. Another recently announced tablet, the Apple iPad Air, also features these design improvements. 

Samsung shifts the front-facing speakers from the previous Note 10.1 to the sides, which makes the Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) edition look cleaner and more elegant (refer to the previous photo above). What remains on the front is the familiar physical home button and capacitive navigation buttons (menu and back) that has become the signature look of Samsung's mobile devices.

In terms of ports, you'll be delighted to know that the once omnipresent proprietary charging port on Samsung tablets has been replaced with a conventional and industry standard micro-USB port. This makes it convenient for you to charge the device with any common micro-USB cable. We just find it odd that Samsung did not standardize the type of USB port used because the Galaxy Note 3 phablet uses the updated micro-USB 3.0 standard, yet the newer Note 10.1 2014 edition tablet still sports the standard micro-USB port. In fact, the tablet as a content consumption and entertainment device would benefit from the faster micro-USB 3.0 connectivity for speedier transfer of media files.The absence of the micro-USB 3.0 isn't a deal breaker, but we just find it weird that Samsung didn't take this opportunity to standardize the micro-USB standard in its newer devices.

10.1-inch Display

After releasing a series of Android tablets touting average displays, Samsung finally stepped up its game on the Galaxy Note 10.1 with an ultra high resolution (2,560 x 1,600 pixels) display. This is on-par with the top Android tablets from ASUS, Google and Toshiba. All four tablets have a pixel density of 299ppi, which is higher than the 9.7-inch Apple iPads (264ppi). 

As pixel density advantage is something really subjective for the average consumer, it is hard to differentiate the differences in actual usage scenarios - especially when the pixel density doesn't differ by much. After using the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 for a few days, we liked the display for its sharpness, good viewing angles and vibrant colors. To tweak the display output, Samsung offers an option for you to select between four display modes - adapt, dynamic, standard and movie.

Adapt display automatically optimizes the color range, saturation and sharpness of the display for the Gallery, Camera, Internet, Samsung Video and Google Play Books. This mode does not apply to third-party apps.

S Pen

The S Pen bundled with the Galaxy Note 10.1 is the same one found on the Galaxy Note 3. Existing Galaxy Note 10.1 users who are upgrading to the latest variant have to take note that the location of the S Pen slot has shifted from the bottom right corner to the top right corner (when placed with the display facing you). Taking the S Pen out of the slot will activate the Air Command feature, which we've covered in the review of the Galaxy Note 3. 

Software Features

Besides the Air Command feature, the Galaxy Note 10.1 comes with a truckload of software features such as Enhanced Multi-Window, Smart Stay, Smart Pause, Smart Rotation, Smart Scroll, Pop-up Play and Air View. In essence, it feels as though the Galaxy Note 10.1 is the melting pot where different features of various Samsung's come together. To find out more about the individual feature, do check out the respective review articles:

• Smart Stay - Samsung Galaxy S III
• Smart Pause, Smart Scroll and Smart Rotation - Samsung Galaxy S4 (View Video)
• Pop-up Play - Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
• Air View - Samsung Galaxy Note II (View Video)

Multi-Window, a feature that first debuted as Multi-Screen on the original Galaxy Note 10.1, allows you to run two apps side by side. It is now improved to run separate instances of the same app, and supports more apps. Previously, it could support only 6 apps - Internet, Video Player, S Note, Polaris Office and Gallery. 

So far, we were only able to open two app windows of the default web browser side by side on the Galaxy Note 101. Other stock and Samsung apps were unable to function in that manner.

Similar to how we manage multiple tabs on Chrome, the Multi-Window feature also allows you to toggle between different apps on either side of the screen. This function can be accessed by tapping on the blue icon in the center of the dividing line and selecting the top icon characterized by a set of files. 

Overall, we liked the improvements Samsung made to the TouchWiz interface on the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 although it may take some time for most people to familiarize themselves with the different features. Samsung should work towards creating a tutorial app for its multitude of features. The Multi-Window feature deserves special mention as it maximizes the use of the large 10.1-inch display.

Performance Benchmarks

The Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition (LTE) is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core 2.3GHz processor and includes 3GB RAM. For your information, the Wi-Fi variant of the tablet runs on Samsung Exynos 5 Octa 5410 (1.9GHz A15 quad-core + 1.3GHz A7 quad-core) processor. 

We've in our hands the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 (LTE) edition and we'll pit it against its predecessor to see the performance disparity. In addition, we also want to see how the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 fares against the current competition which include the Nexus 10, the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T and Toshiba Excite Write.

Both the ASUS and Toshiba tablets run on NVIDIA Tegra 4 processors while the Nexus 10 runs on Samsung Exynos 5250 dual-core 1.7GHz processor. We have articles detailing the different processors used in today's smartphones and tablets, so do check them out for more information: 

• First Looks at Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Processors 
• Hands-on with NVIDIA Tegra 4 and 4i Processors

Quadrant

Quadrant is an Android OS benchmark that evaluates a device's CPU, memory, I/O and 3D graphics performance.

Seeing how well the Snapdragon processor based smartphones perform in this bechmark, it was no surprise that the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 (LTE) topped the Quadrant benchmark. The Tegra 4 processors in the ASUS and Toshiba tablets were simply outclassed by the Snapdragon 800 processor. 

3DMark 2013

Originally developed as a PC benchmarking tool, 3DMark is now expanded to support multiple platforms including Android OS. The Ice Storm benchmark is designed for smartphones, mobile devices and ARM architecture computers.

For an in-depth understanding of 3DMark for Android, do head over to our article, "3DMark - Android Device GPU Performance Review." In a nutshell, 3DMark consists of two test sections:

3DMark Ice Storm is an OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark test that uses fixed off-screen rendering at 720p then scales the output to fit the native display resolution of your device. Ice Storm includes two graphics tests designed to stress the GPU performance of your device and a physics test to stress its CPU performance.

3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited raises the off-screen rendering resolution to 1080p and uses higher quality textures and post-processing effects to create a more demanding load for the latest smartphones and tablets. It also disables vertical sync, display resolution scaling and other operating system factors affecting the result, thus making it ideal for chip-to-chip comparisons of different chipsets.

*Editor's note: We did not have a review unit of the original Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 with us at the point of writing, hence we were unable to run the 3DMark benchmark on the tablet.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 2014's victory margin is not as wide as in the Quadrant benchmark, and since Ice Storm Unlimited compares the processors without the influence of display resolution and OS, it seems that the Tegra 4 and Snapdragon 800 processors are equally matched.

SunSpider Javascript

SunSpider Javascript measures the browsing performance of a device. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 is unable to maintain its lead in the SunSpider Javascript benchmark where the Tegra 4-powered tablets raced ahead with a huge lead. Even the dual-core Nexus 10 is able to attain a better score.

Benchmark numbers are just one part of the equation. Disregarding the benchmark results, we found navigation to be generally smooth although lags and hiccups could be experienced especially when using the Multi-Window feature. App windows will take a second or two to load, close or switch. To be honest, our findings were a little unexpected, especially on a device running on the latest Snapdragon processor and 3GB RAM. We expected a full no-compromise performance at those specs.

Camera

Tablets aren't really known for their cameras, but the Galaxy Note 10.1 surprised a little with its above average image quality. It comes with an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. 

Battery Life

Our standard battery test for tablets includes the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%

• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on

• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

With a 8,220mAh, the Galaxy Note 10.1 has the second largest battery capacity of all the tablets compared, behind only by the 9,000mAh capacity of the Nexus 10. However, in our battery life benchmark, it registered a battery mileage of 7 hours and 37 minutes, which is commendable, but loses out to the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T that lasted close to three hours longer despite its smaller battery capacity. Both have similar screen sizes with the same amount of pixels to power, so why the discrepancy?

If we take a look at the Power Consumption chart, the Samsung slate (or any others in the comparison) has more than double the power consumption of the ASUS tablet. ASUS managed to achieve this low level of power consumption because it uses an IPS screen that's based on an IGZO-TFT manufacturing technology. We reported ASUS using this display technology in a recent news piece. The other comparison tablets still use conventional display technologies and thus you can see most of them sip power at a similar level. Of course, we won't rule out the fact that there are more software features running in the background for the Galaxy Note 10.1 that further contributed to the relatively shorter battery life.

Despite ASUS seemingly having the overall advantage in general portability, when we did the math in our Portability Index - where each device is assessed on its ability to balance battery mileage against its size and mass - the Galaxy Note 10.1 is 2014 (LTE) is able to take the top spot by a small margin. This is because the new Samsung tablet is the thinnest and lightest 10.1-inch tablet of the lot, and combined with a reasonably long battery life, it managed to come up on top.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, Samsung has made notable improvements in the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition, but it still has some room for advancement before presenting itself as a serious threat to Apple's dominance in the tablet space.

We like the new design direction that Samsung has taken with the tablet and its Note 3 counterpart. It's a notch ahead from the plasticky rear of yesteryear although we hope Samsung continues to better its design as its competitors (Apple, ASUS and Sony) are leading in this area.

Samsung also finally caught up with Apple and some of its competitors in offering a top-notch display on its tablet devices. With the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition, Samsung is among the few Android tablet makers that can proudly claim its display to be superior to that of the Apple iPads although it is wrong to assume its higher pixel density means a better multimedia viewing experience. 

The suite of software features has finally matured and does offer practical use for consumers who want to go beyond just media consumption on their tablets. In fact, we feel the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition is inching closer to being the perfect productivity tablet if not for its occasional sluggish performance. With the latest quad-core processor, 3GB RAM and Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, we found it unacceptable to still see instances of the device lagging. Samsung either has to spend more time optimizing the hardware and software to work better seamlessly or streamline its TouchWiz interface which may be the culprit for bogging down system resources.

At S$798, the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 (Wi-Fi) is slightly more expensive than the $749 ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T, while the reviewed LTE edition in this article goes for S$998. The Transformer Pad TF701T is a compelling alternative as it comes with a keyboard dock. If you don't know, the keyboard dock also doubles as a battery pack which makes the entire package very appealing to consumers who want to do much more on the go with a tablet device. Even without the dock, it's able to outlast the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 (LTE) by a considerably degree due to its use of a newer screen technology. Additionally, it has USB 3.0 and HDMI output. The only two drawbacks of the ASUS tablet is its lack of cellular connectivity, and a stylus, both of which the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition offers.

The S$988 Sony Xperia Tablet Z (16GB, 4G LTE) is another option if you are looking for a 10.1-inch tablet without an emphasis on productivity. It is easily the thinnest and among the lightest 10-inch tablets you can find in the market. Moreover, it is also a hardy tablet as it is water and dust resistant.

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