Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Review

I love oversized phones! I frankly admit that! Obsessed, ‘till I think the 5,3” Note is still a bit small! As you may notice, my phone is currently sized 7”. I have no difficulties handling it, my pockets are big enough for it, simply no hassle regarding the size.

I was having the 1st gen Galaxy Tab 7” as my primary phone, extremely modded even the Samsung reps shook their heads around it. But I love it. And when the Tab 2 arrived in my hometown, I decided to get it first.

But queuing the device here in Jakarta has proven to be a hassle. More than half who queued are sellers. Thats why you can easily get the device, after the launch, on stores and local sites, which I found silly since you get it from them for just merely less than US$ 10 price differences than the official store.

But cutting it short, I own the device now, and here’s my impression of it.

The Tab 2, as her older sibling the 7.0 Plus, has lost all the softkeys which is natural for Android tablets running tablet OS. This is a big plus jumping from the 1st gen 7” Tab since the softkey is the most annoying thing you’ll experience when having your bedtime nite-reads. Sammy shifted the logo to the bottom, which original Tab owners might need to adjust their habit of having logo on top, you know, preventing holding your device upside down. The frontside look of the Tab somehow reminds me of HTC devices. Fortunately, Sammy kept their hardware buttons layout the same since the first time, so it’s nothing else to adapt here. 

This version of Tab 2 coded P3100 has gained Full GSM Voice Call HSDPA capabilities compared to their US siblings the P3110, unfortunately we lost the IR port. So unless you have a wifi capable smart TV, no remote hacking available here, mates. I like the faux titanium look on the back, and since this device has also lost all the housing screws, it’s easier to prey open the backside to access the battery, etc. But still it’s not factory standard to prey open the housing yourself. But for us pirates, who ever f-ing cares about it, ay? :)

Screen wise, you’ll notice why this Tab is CHEAP. We’ve lost the glorious Gorilla Glass, in fact, just like the 7.0 Plus, the Tab uses Plane to Line Switching (PLS) display at the same resolution of 1024 x 600px. Colour washes are expected on certain viewing angle. But hey, we’re not talking a premium 7.7 AMOLED display here. At it’s price, the Tab 2 is still a great steal for it’s class, and I’ll tell you why later.

This is my custom home. As you see I ditched the Samsung’s immediately. I want my home to be functional, as direct as possible. Using my custom mod, I managed to down the RAM counts upon powering up to as mere as 200-250MB compared to 400MB+ on stock Samsung’s. This left me a hefty amount of ram for other activities.

Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich is the main hotstuff here. Everything works splendid! Function wise, this IS how android supposed to be. I haven’t got the time to rework the whole thing and as you may guess, remove TouchWiz and get Vanilla ICS. I hardly notice the downgraded processor from Exynos, as opposed to the 7.0 Plus. This set up is even felt faster than the stock 7.0 Plus!

Multitasking swipes, notification swipes, transitions, animations, everything just felt nice. These hefty performance gains seem to cover the downside of the Tab, such as screen, mediocre camera, etc. Think of it as an upgraded, phone capable, Kindle Fire. Speaking of which, you’ll actually find the exact processor and RAM that Kindle Fire use in this Tab.

Samsung apparently got a better drawing support on its screen. The lines are rendered better than the 1st gen Tab, though I’m not sure whether it’s the Tab or the ICS responsible for this.

Application Matters

ICS brings real desktop rendering to the Tab. Fixed positioning, floating divs, overflow scrolls, heck even those CSS3 animations and transitions perform OUTSTANDING. In this area, even outperform the iOS 5.1. You think I’m bluffing? Try open those HTML5 CSS3 demos on Codrops you’ll notice some demos can’t be shown correctly on iOS 5.1 but perform perfect on ICS. You may argue “real world” still haven’t use them yet. But to me that’s the same as arguing about Flash sites.

I’ve replaced the stock Samsung Keyboard with this. Simpler, sharper, cooler, it even split on landscape. Some apps DID NOT scale well on tablet, AS EXPECTED. I wish more devs are more aware of this.

One thing I love is Google Currents. It does look well on tablets. Gorgeous.

I do love Deborah Tan’s writings, not ashame of it!  :)

Another subtle change is within the charger design. Samsung has lost its curve and opt for simpler design. Unfortunately, still remind me on Apple’s.

So there you go. My impressions of the Tab 2. I like the new ‘industrial’ design on this Tab. It felt more mature, whilst not trying to be premium, which it’s not. This is the better competitor of the Kindle Fire, my other long lusted design, with better performance and a more full OS. This is a close to ideal daily tools with its limitations.

Is it a keeper? Well, definitely not for everyone…

But definitely for me.

What is design?

Quite a while a go, I was having a classic convo with a fellow senior designer. With classic topic such as art and design. As you know, my life path has lead me to a profession called designer.

Much to my intrique is how local designers here act more as an artist, seeing design as a beautification and aesthetic, wandering through deep conceptual thought which anyhow felt… I dunno.. ‘winding’

Maybe its just a different discipline, different culture, and different point of view, but to me design is about honoring the content. Form follows function, which later follows form to make it personal. But designer’s aim should never be out of function. The main purpose should never be a good look.

This is why I’m just smirking, whenever a fellow lecturer-designer points on whats the best type now, etc. ‘Cos evrything should be in context for me. No design should be best in all, cos good design is simply the one that you shouldn’t think, instead use gracefully. And mostly those designs are the one that you didn’t even realise their existance..

Godspeed.

Bogor Quick Getaways

It’s been a while since I’m going on a getaway trip, and I was having a trip to Bogor today with Lydia. Bogor is a neighboring city of Jakarta, 60 kilometers south of the Indonesian capital.

Unfortunately what I was doing most was driving. Yeah.. Driving.. Traffic jam.. everywhere.. Is there so many tourist going there every weekend like this, or is it just that the city is a hellish reincarnation of traffic. I dunno.. The city itself is actually very nice. The city is basically circulated around the Botanical Garden and the Presidential Palace. Huge trees, old architectures, everything seems like sending a romantic message to everyone around there.

Instead of the traffic of course!

I finally stopped at Asinan Bogor Gedung Dalam, not to buy asinan, but to have a local delicacies that in my humble opinion rated a lot higher than asinan.

This is Lumpia Basah. Scrambled eggs, bamboo shoots, and bean sprouts wrapped in a spring roll wrapper, served on a banana leaf with chilli soybean sauce. I love this delicacy. Simple, light, plainly good. It’s sans-expensive also.

And that’s the Combro stall with the seller gazing thru the future. Combro is another local delicacies which made from glutenous rice ball filled with oncom, a soybean byproducts, and chili, fried to golden brown. It’s filling, though you need to be careful not to bite on the stuffed chilies.

Not to forgot the crunchy sweet taste of Laba-Laba (literally: spider). This is one of my fav’rit snack since ever… Basically a local Indonesian pancake, with crunchy textures!

So whenever you’re visiting Bogor, don’t forget to checkout the local delicacies in front of the Gedung Dalam Asinan House. Looking at the picture above, I know that it’s not exactly a fine dining place to be. But hey, maybe you’ll catch the food seller gazing through the traffic jam as if looking to the future as I did today.

Dolce far niente

Aah finally.. it’s noon and am still on my bed.. I miss doing nothing hahah. Il dolce far niente.. but sometimes what really calm me down is being in an urban environment. Strolling on Orchard Rd, MRTs, commuting.. I dunno, it’s just relaxing to sense it all.. whats not relaxing is when you’re in a hectic deadlines.. Well now excuse me, mates.. I’m back to my nap :)

Older & Calmer

How calm can you be when problems come? I was known as quite a jotty person :) but somehow the older I am now, the more I found my self to reach my “zen” in heavy problems.

I have no idea why, I just happened to succeededly (well.. sumtimes :P) pause and think, and try to get bird eye view of the situation, thus maintaining my sanity in order to get more options of the solutions.

Tiny example. I bricked my one and only phone while attempting to do kernel mod few weeks ago. Some of my contacts haven’t been sync to Google at that time. (I don’t like auto sync since I got a quota data plan) Meaning some of the ongoing client’s number is trapped in there.

Silly me, I’m also on deadline :-/ I knoww, I know.. What the hell, I’m thinking of modding my kernel in the middle of a job deadline. But hey! I like an adventurous lunch break hahaha..

Long story short, I kept on doing my deadline while still searching for a way to fix my tab (thank God all is well now), and yeah.. zen style! ;)

And many more stories pronouncing my zen state.. My buddy Al said it was the time when my chakra opened. Well Al, if only there’s a way to let it open all the time!