Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

“The Galaxy Note 10.1 has too many problems to be a great tablet. It's too flimsy and its screen doesn't hold a candle to other similarly priced tablets. It's too expensive as well. The tablet's performance and battery life are good, but they certainly don't blow the competition out of the water—we probably won't see that until the Exynos 5 and other Cortex A15-based SoCs begin showing up in devices. The S Pen makes Samsung's latest a bit more interesting for artists or heavy note takers and enables the use of apps (like spreadsheet or image editing programs) that benefit from the additional precision, but most Android applications will still be developed for fingers first.The Note 10.1's more interesting ideas are in its software—if some of its multitasking ideas were integrated more fully into Android, smoothing out the rougher edges and giving third-party developers the ability to support the features, they could point a way forward for Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and any other company looking to close the multitasking gap between tablets and traditional laptops.”

“The Galaxy Note 10.1 just isn't as attractive a package as you'd expect from someone of Samsung's calibre. To put it bluntly, the Note 10.1 isn't the Galaxy S III of tablets. It seems Samsung had their eyes on the iPad 3 and tried to respond to its revolutionary screen with the S Pen but the Android competition - which Samsung somewhat underestimated - stepped up its game and is now leading by a couple of laps.If Samsung is to achieve in tablets what it did in smartphones, it would need to probably re-consider its pricing strategy. The wrong turn to the pit stop on its way to the shelves clearly points to the fact that the Note 10.1's development didn't exactly go as planned. Yes, it emerged with a massively improved engine, but the delay did the competition a huge favor. It's not too late just yet, but unless Samsung acts quickly, the Note 10.1 will be relegated to a niche product for people who have a use for a pen tablet. Now, that would be a shame for such a powerful device.”

“The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 expands the original 5.3in. Galaxy Note to a standard tablet size, presumably in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience. When it works well, the S Pen functionality is impressive and reliable.However, we'd like to see more emphasis on handwriting recognition — for example, the ability to write emails onto the screen and a handwriting module in the keyboard. The quad-core processor can surely handle this, and we'll be looking for it in the next-generation Note device.”

“On the software side: Samsung desperately wants to develop the next version of Android themselves, but they lack the technical ability, vision, ecosystem support, and design chops to make it happen. They want to add features, and maybe even have a good idea or two, but they just can't execute those ideas in a way that makes them good.Floating apps have got to be the most frustrating thing in the world for Samsung. You try for years to differentiate yourselves with Android. You finally come up with a good idea, and you build it, and it works, and the UI is even almost-good, but it still doesn't matter because you don't control the right parts of Android to innovate in any meaningful ways.Samsung is the world's largest Android OEM, by a huge margin. They need to get the message that this kind of half-assed, lazy, profit-margin-first style of device building is unacceptable.The hardware is pure, unadulterated garbage. The build quality is so bad, I think it gave me cancer. Samsung gave us last year's display tech and saved their best tablet screen for Apple.”