Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 review: Make it two

Applications

There's a bundle of custom apps provided by Samsung on the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1: My files, S Memo and Photo editor.

The S-Memo is a pretty simple application for taking notes with sticky-note-like interface. In addition to the text it allows you to draw pictures and offers some extra options such as color, background, etc.

Memo app

My Files is a familiar app - it's the nicely functional Samsung file manager.

My Files file manager

Finally, the Photo Editor offers some basic picture edition tools - selections, rotate, resize, crop, color effects and adjustments, etc.

The Photo Editor

There is a video editor app as well. It covers all the basics - trimming, merging, transitions and effects.

The Video Editor

Google Maps and unlimited navigation, in supported countries

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 comes with a GPS receiver, which got a satellite lock in under two minutes with A-GPS turned off. A-GPS can speed this up quite a bit, but requires Internet access. We gotta say, we didn't experience any issues with signal reception.

The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 comes with Google Maps and Navigation. Voice-guided navigation has become a viable solution since the v5.0 update. Vector maps are smaller and way easier on your data plan and 3rd party SatNav apps are in danger.

For now though, turn-by-turn voice guidance using Google Maps Navigation is only available in select countries and unless you live in one of them, the best you can do is plan a route in advance and keep an eye on your current location during travel.

Google Maps with vector maps does a bit of 3D

Quite naturally, the app also supports the Street View mode. If it's available in the area you're interested in, you can enjoy a 360-degree view of the surroundings. When the digital compass is turned on it feels like making a virtual tour of the location.

Using Street View

If Google Maps Navigation doesn't do it for you, you can grab an alternative app from the Android Market - there are both free and paid ones.

Google Play has the apps, the Hubs have the books and the music

The Android market, now called Google Play, is the fastest growing app repository around (also the one with the most free apps and number of downloads), so you can be sure that you won't be having a shortage of software to install on your Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. True, some apps aren't designed to work on a WXGA screen, but most scale well, so the only thing you have to worry about is finding enough time to enjoy all those apps.

Google Play store

The new design makes it easier for you to find the quality apps. There are featured apps, editors' picks and staff-recommended apps in addition to the usual top free and top paid.

The top new paid and top new free lists are worth checking out too and you shouldn't forget the trending apps. Naturally, there is a built-in search and categories for the different types of apps so you don't get lost. Recommendations are also based on your location to make it even easier to spot a quality app in the new Android market.

And if by some reason, the soon-to-become number 1 app repository on the market isn't enough for you, you might want to check out some of the alternatives. Amazon has set up its own appstore and so has Opera, plus a few more minor app stores here and there. Choice is one of the best parts of the open platform.

Samsung's own store called SamsungApps is also on board. There you can get a lot of free apps for your tablet.

SamsungApps store

Music Hub is here too. It has quite the music collection and the prices are pretty much the same as on the iTunes Store.

The Music Hub

Another interesting store is the Readers Hub. There you can purchase subscriptions (or single issues) of newspapers (PressDisplay service), magazines (Zinio service) and e-Books (Kobo service). It's really comfy to have this entire functionality in a single reading app - good job, Samsung!

The Readers Hub