Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 review: Second time lucky

Rich connectivity

To begin with, the 3G-enabled Note 10.1 gets you quad-band GSM with 3G speeds of up to 21 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA. It is GPS equipped as well.

There's a/b/g/n Wi-Fi support, with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz band compatibility. Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA support are also available.

There is a microSD card slot as well, on top of the 16/32/64GB of internal storage.

Naturally, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 supports USB-on-the-go, but you will need to buy an adapter for that. Using one you can connect card readers, USB flash drives and other compatible devices to your tablet and access their contents through the file manager. Mice and keyboards are supported as well.

You can also buy an HDMI adapter and connect the tablet to your HDTV with a regular cable. There's no NFC connectivity on the Galaxy Note 10.1, though.

Excellent web-browsing

The web browser is another key app as far as tablets are concerned. There is full Flash 11 support and tabbed browsing. This is an area where the 2 gigs of RAM really earn their keep, you'll seldom get slow-downs with the Galaxy Note 10.1's browser, no matter how many tabs you've opened.

The tabs are kept in a bar on top, much like on a desktop browser. The address bar and search bar are incorporated in a single field - typical Android - which scores another point for the Galaxy Note 10.1.

Browsing GSMArena.com on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

Bookmarks and History have their own split-screen interface. In History you can check the pages browsed today, yesterday or over the past week. There's also a most visited and today tabs.

Pressing and holding a link lets you open it in a new tab

Synchronizing the browser with your desktop Google Chrome doesn't need any extra software - you check a box in the settings menu and you are done.

Some of the available browser settings

There's also auto-complete for forms and passwords.

A neat feature allows you to access quick page controls (back, forward, refresh, bookmark etc.) by a swiping gesture performed near the right edge of the screen. You cannot have that and the classical interface though.

The alternative user interface

As for the Flash performance - the Galaxy Note 10.1 does great at 360p, 480p and 720p videos right in the browser. Flash games run well too.

Flash videos are now possible

By the way, if you find Flash content to slow down your page load times or cause panning stutter, you can switch it to on-demand in the settings menu (or even turn it off all together).

Organizer has everything

A good set of organizer apps are available on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, including the Polaris Office with both viewing and editing documents enabled. It has a nice user interface and solid file management. It supports both internal and web storage (via Box.net).

Polaris Office

Viewing and editing word documents, spreadsheets and Power Point files is hassle-free. There's a PDF reader in the bundle as well.

Printing options are also available.

The calendar has five different types of view: daily, weekly and monthly.

Calendar app

Adding a new event is quite straightforward and you can also set an alarm to serve as a reminder.

List view • Creating an appointment

The calculator app is nicely touch optimized with huge, easy to hit buttons.

Calculator app

The Alarm app is optimized for big-screen use and is pretty intuitive. You can set multiple alarms.

Clock app • Alarm clock

The World Clock app is full of eye-candy. You get an animated globe where you can pick time zones or cities, there are country flags, day and night animations, etc.

World Clock app