Sony Xperia Z1 Review

SONY XPERIA Z1 REVIEW

   After the split of Sony Ericsson, Sony has entered the market with some bold stereotypic phones. All the phones released by them have some similarities in the design.  Sony Xperia Z1 is one such phone, being Sony's flagship model at present.

1. Brand Talk-

   This handset is manufactured by Sony, the Japanese electronics giant. This particular phone is the successor to the Xperia Z launched by Sony last year and currently holds flagship baton for Sony in the mobile market.

2. Avatars in the Market-

 There are three colours available in the market for this model which is black, white and purple. The model reviewed in this review is the black model.

3. Out of the box-

   The box looks small and simple from the outside.

 On opening the box you find the phone.

Upon lifting the separation on which the phone is kept we can see the headphones, charger pin, USB data cable, eartips and documentation.

The earphones are of good quality with good bass response.

 The USB data cable could have been a slight longer as I felt it was a bit short, but on the other side it may not cause any problems.

 

 

 

4. Design and Build Quality-

   This phone has a wonderful design and a good build quality. It is one of the strongest  features of this phone. The body is made of two pieces of high tempered glass bound by an aluminium frame. The phone looks like a stylishly clad glass bar. It looks premium all the way. It has a dimension of 144 x 74 x 8.5 mm and weighs 170g. It looks big for a 5 inch phone. But the premium feel cancels that effect. It feels very comfortable to hold in the hands. It has a 5 inch screen which is protected by shatter proof and scratch resistant glass.

 There is a front cam above the screen to the right side. Sony logo is seen sporting on the centre top. There is also a led light at the extreme top centre, which blinks when receiving a call, message or when charging the phone. 

 

 

At the back it has a Sony Logo in the centre. The 20 MP Camera on the top left and the LED light below it. There is also an NFC logo for identifying the NFC Region of the phone.

 

At the right hand side we have the micro sim slot at the top with metallic covers due to its waterproof capability. At the bottom there is a power off/on switch which has a good feel to it. Below that is the volume rocker and down below it is the camera shutter button ("thank you Sony").

At the bottom of the phone we have the speaker.

 

 To the left hand side of the phone there is a microSD slot at the top, below there is a micro USB slot.

 

 

 Both these slots are covered by a metallic flap for the waterproofing. Below these two slots there are pogo pins for dock connection. To the top there is a 3.5mm headphones jack. Overall the design and placement of buttons according to me is excellent. All the materials used make the handset look premium all the way, and considering its price tag Sony has done a wonderful job.

5. Features-

    Sony's flagship model, 5'' screen, 20 MP Camera, Good build is all that you know upto now, but let's see what the phone has got in store .

a) Screen-

   The Z1 has a 5" Full HD 1080p (1980x1080) pixel resolution Triluminous Display TFT Screen with a pixel density of 441 ppi which makes the screen look ultra-sharp. It is capable of displaying 16 Million colours. At 100% brightness it displays blacks with 0.38cd/m2 luminosity and whites of 580 cd/m2 luminosity giving it an overall compression ratio of 1513.

 

 

 

 

The X-Reality Display technology incorporated along with the screen improves viewing angles, contrast, displays saturated colours impressively. Also the reflectiveness on the screen is less and the display legibility under sunlight is good giving it a score of 2.9. It’s a multitouch display capable of registering 10 simultaneous touches. Overall the screen does justice considering the phone being the flagship model.

b) Performance-

    This phone is packed with all the latest guns and missiles. Let's see the amount of muscles it has got under its hood.  At the core it has a Quad core 2.2 Ghz Krait 400 Processor on the latest Qualcomm MSM8974 Snapdragon 800 chipset. It is powered by an Adreno 330 graphics processor. This phone has specs which is state of the art and second only to the LG G2 which has a 2.26 Ghz processor. So playing the latest games would not be an issue at all. It has 2 GB of Ram. 16 GB of Internal Memory and can support upto 64 GB of microSD card. Coming to its performance, this phone is an ultimate performer beating the LG G2, Galaxy S4 and HTC One hands down. When we ran synthetic benchmarks , the phone excelled in all of them. In Benchmark Pi (lower score the better) it scored a 112 which is just above the LG G2 which scored 108 which topped the test. In Linpack it scored 1010 which is just below the test topper LG G2 which scored 1030. IN Geekbench 3 this phone topped the test with a score of 2655. It also topped the test in AnTuTu 4 with a score of 30845. Also topping in Quadrant with a score of 20390. It also topped in GL Benchmark 2.5, GL Benchmark 2.7 and Epic Citadel with scores of 62, 25 and 55 respectively. It once again topped in SunSpider (lower score the better) with a score of 850. It scored 2401 in Browser Mark 2 and 2904 in Vellamo. Sony Xperia Z1 is one of the fastest smartphone you can have presently in the market. The Snapdragon 800 chipset really shows its performance leaving the ones with Snapdragon 600's behind.

c) Connectivity-

    This phone comes with a bunch of connectivity options. In the Cellular Area it supports all versions in GSM 2G, all versions in HSDPA 3G, and 4G LTE. It accepts only micro SIM. It supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA and Wi-Fi hotspot.  It supports Bluetooth 4.0. It supports NFC and micro USB 2.0. In the GPS Section it supports A-GPS and GLONASS. It also supports FM Radio. It also supports TV out function through the micro USB port. For the sensors it supports accelerometer, gryroscope, proximity and compass. This phone has all the connectivity options you can crave for and it does not miss out on any.

d) Software-

      This phone comes with Android Jellybean 4.2.2 installed.

 

 

 

 

You can update it to Jellybean 4.3 as of now and it will soon be getting Kitkat 4.4. For internet browsing it comes with Google Chrome, which is very impressive. It also comes bundled with the Office Suite 7 Pro, which gives you a word processor, an spreadsheet software and a presentation software.

 

e) Battery-

   This phone comes with a 3000 mAh battery. It has a great standby battery usage. Rest is descent, we get about a day's charge with web surfing and video playback. The battery is non user replaceable.  

f) Pictures, Audio, Video and Camera-

   This is also one of the strong features of this phone. The gallery has a good UI and has useful features packed into it. We can now increase the size of the thumbnails by a simple swipe gesture, it is very responsive. These all come under the pictures tab.

There is another tab called 'My Album', here you have all your online albums along with the ones stored on local network. Also there are maps and globes which show you the geo tag location of the photos. For the Audio there is the iconic Walkman player which is an updated one. It has a great UI with more options for sound enhancement.

    The updated Walkman music player, which is present on all 2013-Xperia smartphones is also on board. It offers the same cool interface as before, but this time it has more options for sound enhancement. The Walkman Player is divided into Playing and My music modes. In the My music section, you can update your album art and music information like album, year released. SensMe is also included, meaning you can filter your songs by mood - upbeat, energetic, mellow, dance, etc. You can also create playlists.  The Walkman player settings has been improved.  There's the familiar ClearAudio+ option, which determines the best audio quality settings depending on the song you're listening to. The audio output of the phone is excellent with good clarity but low loudness. The headphone output also is excellent. Coming to the video, I must say this is the best video player UI I have seen on any phone ("what the") You have beautiful preview pane at the top which shows you a glimpse of what is in the video when you select any one of them.

 

 It's connected to Gracenote, which helps you find additional information about the movies and TVs you have on the phone. It will even download posters for them and for movies; it will download metadata like genre, synopsis, director and cast. The phone showed no signs of slowdown when playing 720p and 1080p videos and could play them with ease. Also MP4, DivX, H.264, and MOV can be played without any problems but AVI, XviD and MKV formats refuse to play due to no preinstalled codecs. Finally coming to the camera, it has a 20.7MP front camera with a sensor size of 1/2.3" with Exmor RS Back Illuminated Sensor. It has a Sony G lens with a focal length of 27mm and an aperture of F/2.0. It has Sony BIONZ Processor for the image processing. Sony has packed all what they could in this phone.

 

 

The view on the viewfinder looks very fluid and smooth because of the high refresh rate of the sensor. The still image quality is superb with good colour accuracy and white balance, but the noise level s show some problems. In low light the images have a lot of noise and the noise compensation feature when kicked in removes a lot of detail from the image. For video capturing it can capture videos with a resolution of 1080p at 60fps. The video quality was fine without any issues.

 

g) Weatherproofing Ability- 

    This phone is IP58 certified, which means it is dustproof and waterproof. It can withstand water depth of 1metre for about 30 mins. The construction of the phone is such that its waterproofing abilities are not hampered in any way. It has a great protection on its ports which is incredible in my opinion.

h) Warranty-

   This phone comes with one year domestic warranty. This is as usual as other phones. International warranty would be better.

6. Conclusion-

   Finally all said, this one is a neat phone from Sony. With Splendid premium looks, good performance and a great build. This phone was released to improvise on the feature lack of the Sony Xperia Z and must say it has been successful in doing so. This phone is also reasonably priced for a flagship model of a good brand. With good overall features, I would certainly recommend this phone.

Laptop Buying Guide

Laptops are essential gadgets for most of us. They are personal, portable and convenient. But a bunch of laptops in the market confuses consumer as to which is their laptop of choice. This article will give you just what you wanted. So let's see what you need to know before buying a laptop.

  I will be taking each laptop component (ex- screen, processor, memory etc) at once and explain what to look in the respective component.

1. Screen Size-
      This is the most important factor that will decide how your laptop will look like, how big, heavy or how costly it is going to be. Mainstream laptops usually come in 11.6, 13.3, 14, 15.6 and 17 inch screen.
In the above sizes 11.6 and 13.3 inch screens are categorized as ultra portables, because of their small size and lighter weight. 14 inch is considered as power cum portable size, as it is capable of packing powerful spec components and also is relatively lighter. 15.6 and 17 inch are considered convenience desktop alternatives due to their powerful spec, not that easy portability (heavy). The first thumb rule is that the lower your screen size is the more low powered your laptop will be, because with more power comes more heat, and heat management in smaller laptops is difficult. Hence they are packed with slower components. The second thumb rule is given the same configuration the lower the screen size the more pricey your laptop is, as good build quality, aesthetics have to be considered for managing heat more effectively. So if you want a good gaming laptop 15.6 or 17 inch will be drastically more cheaper than a 13.3 or 14 inch laptop. If you want to do basic computing function like word, spread sheets, presentations or watching movie but want to have a laptop which is so light that you can slide it in your bag and not feeling the weight, go for a 11.6 or 13.3 inch laptop. You certainly wont get many gaming options because the laptops which have graphics card in this category (that too only 13 inchers) are very few. If you want portability and want to have a powerful laptop which easily plays any games and can do high intense tasks like video editing go for a suitably spec'd 14 inch laptop. If you do not like a Desktop PC at home and feel it is bulky but would want the performance comparable to it, you can settle for a 15.6 or 17 inch laptop. These are heavy, which means it is not good for easy porting, but can be a desktop replacement by giving you the convenience of keeping it on your lap and using it.

2. Display -
    This is the most neglected factor in today's laptops. The quality of your laptops display decides how well your experience is with it. But consumers hardly know about this and concentrate on good specs when making their laptop purchase. The true quality of the display depends on its ability to display accurate black and white colour i.e its accuracy of colour reproduction. The resolution of the screen decides how crisp the screen looks, how legible the fonts on the screen are and does not majorly affect the quality of the display.There are many types of displays like IPS, LED and many more. Opt for a screen with a contrast ratio of atleast 500:1. There are other two factors namely the brightness value of blacks and whites measured in cd/m2. Opt for a screen with low black brightness value and a high white brightness value.

3. Build Quality-
     This is also an important factor in laptops. The way your laptop is built decides how you will feel and how long it will be with you. There are mainly two types of materials used one being polycarbonate plastic and other being aluminium. The former being the favourite of budget laptops and the latter used for premium and priced laptops. Plastic built laptops make it cheap, fragile and light, but give us a cheap feel. On the other hand aluminium built laptops look beautiful and feels premium and also are very tough, but are costly, hot ("you quickly feel the heat on your lap") and are a bit heavy. One way to find about the quality of build is by pressing the laptop at various areas and searching for any squeaks, if you find squeaks then the quality of build is bad.

4. Processor-
     Processor decides how fast your computing operations will be. That is say you are editing a video, a better processor would do the job without any lag than a weaker processor. Do you need a fast processor? The answer is yes if you are a gamer, a video editor, a multitask freak and no if you mostly use for watching video and working on spread sheets.

5. RAM-
    RAM (Random Access Memory) is the bridge between the processor and the hard disk. So more the RAM more the processor can multitask. If you are buying a laptop running a 32 bit operating system 3 GB of RAM would more than be sufficient, but if your laptop is running a 64 bit operating system more than 3 GB RAM would make things better.

6. Hard  Drive-
   Hard Drive in laptops vary from 500 GB to 2 GB. There are also types in it like SSD, SATA Drives. SSD being more silent and expensive and SATA being more noisy and cheap. Basically anything about 500GB could be fine because you could buy an external hard drive to keep your movable files.

7. Graphics Card-
   This is an important feature for gamers. There are lot of laptops with dedicated graphics card. Nowadays laptops boast they have 1GB, 2GB of dedicated memory and people feel that the more the memory the better will be the card, but in actual this is not the truth. A Graphics cards performance does not depend totally on the memory but mainly depends on the processor of the graphics card. Normally you will find laptops sporting graphics cards like ATI Radeon 5550, 5650, 6470,7100 etc. or Nvidia GT430, 530,380,290,610,720 etc. Look for graphics cards with a higher second value in the model for ex you will think Nvidia GT 710 is better than Nvidia GT680, but in reality Nvidia GT680 is far better. Normally graphics card manufacturers release graphics cards in series, like 7000 series, 8000 series for ATI and GT400 series, GT500 series for Nvidia. So the first number denotes the series of the graphics card (manufacturers normally release new series if there is a update in the DirectX version for ex ATI 7000 series supports upto DirectX 9 and ATI 8000 series will be released to support DirectX 10). The second value will be that of the relative speed of the processor, for ex NVidia GT710 has a processor of 800MHz and Nvidia GT720 will have a processor of 900 MHz and so on. So whenever you are buying a laptop for gaming compare the processor speed to decide which is more better and not the size of the RAM.



8. Connectivity-
    Look for laptops with the latest WiFi versions like a/b/g/n. It should also support the latest Bluetooth version for wireless peripheral connectivity. Also it should support USB 3.0. Three to four USB ports are better as it will give you more flexibility in connecting more devices simultaneously. Laptops come with different types of ports of different applications. For sound the laptops will normally have audio-in (microphone), audio-out (headphone) a multichannel S/PDIF port would be a bonus as you can connect your laptop to a multichannel amplifier. For video look for HDMI port as it is very useful in the present. A RJ-45 LAN port is also a must in your laptop, so definitely look for it. Also look for a multi card reader as you need to read a lot of cards.   
 

Microsoft XBOX 360 Controller for PC

              Microsoft XBOX 360 Controller for PC

 With console gaming being very popular. The traditional gamepads are still the best option for all in one controller to play games at home. Microsoft XBOX 360 is one such console which has been in every gamers mind. Its controller is known for the best experience served by many users.

1. Brand Talk-

     This gamepad is manufactured by Microsoft, the well known American Software Company who have had a strong comeback in the video game console industry with the release of the XBOX 360 in 2006 ("that is after the flop display of the XBOX"). One of the main attributes of the XBOX 360 is its awesome controller. Having got good critical reception for the controller, Microsoft decided to make it compatible with the PC ("Or Windows to be specific").

2. Avatars-

    This gamepad is available majorly in two types, wired and wireless. It is also available in black or white colour for each type. The controller that I am reviewing is the black wireless model.

3. Out of the Box-

    The box looks like a typical input peripheral box that we have been seeing since the invention of the computer with hook holes at the top to keep it hanging in the store ("for you to spot it"). I can say it is well packed. You get the controller, wireless USB adaptor, 2 AA Duracell Battery, the user manual and the XBOX Configuration Utility Disk. The quality of the contents is top notch as usual by Microsoft.

4. Design and Build Quality-

   Design in gamepads is a major factor, because its comfort to your hands determines the true gaming experience. This controller has kept no stones unturned in this area. The design, placement of buttons is marvelous. The revolutionary right and left analog stick placement is a boon for every gamer out there. The directional pad is placed in between the analog sticks. There is an XBOX guide button is placed in the center of the gamepad. The start button is placed to its right and back button to its left. The ABXY button is placed as usual on the left side.

Top Side

 On the back of the gamepad lies the Left, right Bumper and Trigger buttons. There is a port in the middle for plugging the gamepad to the XBOX console or PC. At it's side there is button which allows many wireless controllers to be connected to the receiver.

Back Side

 At the bottom of the gamepad there is the battery housing, which can be taken out by pressing a button above it. 

At the back side of the controller there is a 2.5 mm headset port, which lets you connect an XBOX compatible headset.  Coming to the wireless receiver, it is well built and has a button in the middle which helps to connect to other controllers. The controller is well built overall. I somewhat don’t like the feel of the feedback of the ABXY which is a bit loose, its not that I am complaining but felt it would have been better if they were a bit tight.

5. Performance-

   a) Game Compatibility-

             The XBOX 360 controller for PC supports a vast number of game titles. It is mainly based on the XInput platform, a driver that Microsoft provides with the Supplied Disk that enables support to a vast game library. Some of the famous games supported by the controller can be seen by clicking the following link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_XInput_support. You can also extend support to many game titles by installing various software available on the web. The XInput driver is only compatible with Windows XP Service Pack 1 and later versions. So users of windows with versions prior to Win XP SP1 will not be able to enjoy the library support. You can also connect this gamepad to your XBOX 360 Console.

b) Experience-

          Well I have had a good experience with this gamepad. You are drawn into the game with the comfort the gamepad provides. It nicely fits into your hand. The analog sticks are thoughtfully placed and are very easy to reach. The gamepad has a good weight feel. The wired version will be very light because of the absence of battery. But because of the presence of two batteries at the middle, there is a more sense of balance when you hold it. There is also force feedback available in the gamepad, but it's effect is not that convincing to let you feel the pain of the game. This gamepad is best if you have a huge TV and want to play with the comfort of your couch.

c) Wireless performance-

         This gamepad support the 2.4 Ghz WiFi Band. To get started you will have to connect the wireless receiver to your computer's USB port, the controller can be connected by pressing the guide button ("Voila! You are ready to play"). You can play upto a distance of 5 metres from the receiver. There is no lag in the input and is the same as that of your wired controller ("Thank God!").  

d) Extra Features-

      The gamepad can also be converted to a wireless mouse or a partial keyboard by installing some nifty utilities. I have installed a software called JoyToKey which is good. It lets you assign the buttons on the gamepad to various input functions like right click, left click, space, enter and many more.

e) Warranty-

  This gamepad comes with a one year warranty, which I suppose is enough for such type of a gadget.

6. Conclusion-

     The XBOX 360 Controller for Windows is a well thought decision by Microsoft to introduce it to general consumers. Priced around Rs.3000 in India (about $50) it is a very potential accessories that many gamers would want to have, given its beautiful styling and ergonomics.

Sony HD-E1 External Hard Drive Review

    SONY HD-E1 1 TB External Hard Drive Review

      With ever increasing quality of content which translates to higher file sizes, the need for higher capacity medium has become a necessity. With the price of external hard drives plummeting, the acceptance of this device is on a positive note. Many reputed brands want to cash in on this market segment, which has resulted in the availability of many external drives in the market. Sony HD-E1 is one such hard drive which is a great contender in its market. Let's check out the drive from Sony.

1. Brand Talk-

    This external hard drive is manufactured by SONY, the Japanese Electronics Giant who are known for their quality in products. Sony is not a major player in computer hard drive market, but have made a name for delivering reliable products. They have only one major type of external drives and they are named Sony HD-Ex. Where 'x' normally denotes the size of the hard drive. Their latest hard drive line up ("I mean it was there since 2010, I think") have the same looks.

2. Avatars in the Market-

   This hard drive is available in many colours for a particular size. For the 1 TB version it is available in black, silver, pink, gold and all these colours are metallic.

3. Out of the box-

     The box looks pretty basic. 

The Box

 

Unboxing it you find the external hdd, data cable, warranty card and the user manual. The hdd and the cable are of very good quality for sure.

4. Design and Build Quality-

    Design in general and looks in particular is very important for an external hard drive. This is because you are always carrying it, and certainly want your friends… ("or strangers") to look at it and complement you. This hard drive does just that. Describing its looks, it is woooov!!!.

The beautiful drive

 It has spectacular looks ("Something like a delicious aluminium biscuit"). It is arguably the best looking external hard drive that you will find in the market. The great looks, aluminium casing and the metallic colours certainly complement each other. It has a dimension of 80 x 16 x 126 mm and weighs 220 g.  The hard drive is kept simple, with Sony's branding on the top and nothing more fancy stuff in it. It has a proprietary port at the back which connects to a USB connector at the other end through a cable. 

There is a light hidden inside the back panel for indication when the hard drive is plugged to the pc. 

Sony's Proprietery Port

At the below there are the foundation rubber pads at four corners and the mandatory logos to portray its compliance to various standards available out there. 

The Bottom Side

Build of the device is excellent; the aluminium casing gives a robust feel. The brush aluminium finish makes it scratch resistant upto an acceptable degree. The data cable provided could have been a bit long ("it is just 2 ft guys") as I found it was just adequate if you are using it with a laptop, but for users with a PC it might seem difficult to manage to keep the hard drive on the table as normally the CPU Unit is kept below the table. Overall it is a thumbs up for Sony's spectacular design and robust build quality. 

5. Features-

 a) In built software-

 The Hard Drive comes with pre-loaded software which enhances the user experience and extends functionality. The software pre-loaded are Data Transfer Accelerator, Backup Manager, Password Protection Manager and FAT32 Formatter.

i) Data Transfer Accelerator speeds reduces the time taken to copy a large file. Sony claims that through USB 3.0 it can download a 500MB file in 9 sec with the software and 19 sec without it, through USB 2.0 it can download a 500 MB file in 16 sec with the software and 30 sec without.

ii) Backup Manager can backup the files from your pc to your external HDD.

iii) Password Protection manager is a utility to encrypt a part of your hard drive space with a password. You can choose the amount of space to be protected and that space will only show once you unlock it using the password you have set. But misplacing or forgetting the password will make the encrypted space unusable forever ("so choose an easy password").

iv) The FAT32 Formatter formats the hdd to FAT32 from NTFS. You can also reformat to NTFS when needed. You can format it to FAT32 to use it with the Playstation 3 console.

b) Performance-

     Now coming to the real life performance, the hard drive does fare well in terms of performance. Sometimes it is a bit sluggish when used in USB 2.0, but otherwise it is a descent performing hard drive. It has 256bit AES Data Encryption and also does not need any external power.The hard drive does not get heated with prolong use, so you don’t have to worry of that part.

However I liked the built in software like Password Protection Manager and Data Transfer Accelerator as they to some extent deliver as claimed.

c) Warranty-

   This hard drive comes with 3 years domestic warranty which might vary for other countries. This is a good gesture by Sony by providing an adequate warranty period.

6. Conclusion-

    With external hdd's becoming a necessity, there is a huge competition in the market. Since the main parameter of hard drives is it's usable space, there has to be something extra to attract customers and Sony has done just that. It is priced around Rs.4700/- to Rs.5200/- (Around $80), I think this will certainly attract customers given it's superb looks and performance. 

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 Review

                                        

                      SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 2 P3110 REVIEW

   Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 3110 is the successor to the successful Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000. The Galaxy Tab 2 is Samsung's flagship budget 7'' tablet which has been released to carry on the success of it's predecessor. So can it really deliver? Let's See.

1. Brand Talk-

     This tablet is manufactured by Samsung, the Korean electronics giant who hold the largest mobile market share in the world. Samsung has been delivering quality devices with buyer friendly price tags in the past three years along with promising after sales support.

2. Gadget Avatars in the Market-
      This tablet is available majorly in two types one is with WiFi only and the other is with WiFi and 3G. It is also available in different internal memory sizes and colours for the above two types. For the Internal Memory there is 8gb, 16gb model available and for the colours there is white and black. The type which i am reviewing is the 16 GB Wifi Only White model.  

3.  Out of the box

    The box as usual has the typical Samsung'ish look. Well designed box which gives you a clear idea on what you can expect inside.

 Once you unbox, you find the tablet seated on a white cardboard which separates it from its accessories, lifting the tablet you find Samsung's 30-pin proprietary connector  to USB charger cum data cable ("it is not micro USB guys"), charger with USB port, standard headphones, three pairs of eartips of different sizes, quick start guide and the warranty card.

 All the accessories included are of very good quality. 

 

                                      

                                   
                                     


Overall Samsung has provided all the necessary contents inorder to get a complete multimedia experience.

4. Design and Build quality

   The tablet has a sporty look to it ("that’s what I felt"). I feel it appeals to those who want to make a fashion statement and also those conservative people out there ("weird, but true, haha"). The tablet has a rectangular shape with curvy edges framed by a brush metallic plastic. The tablet has dimensions of 193.7 x 122.4 x 10.5 mm and weighs 345 g. In the front there is the 7" screen covered by glass ("I found it difficult to differentiate whether it was glass or plastic"). Above the screen at the right there is a front facing camera and to its left there is an ambient light sensor. A Samsung logo is engraved below the screen between the bezel and the glass. 

At the right hand side there is the power button at the top and volume rocker below it, the power button feels fragile and has a loose feel to it however there were no problems with the volume rocker. 

At the left hand side there is a micro SD card slot.

 On the top there is the 3.5 mm headphones jack and a mic pinhole besides it to the right.

 At the bottom there is Samsung's 30-pin proprietary port for connecting the charger cum data cable. At it's both sides there is a speaker each.

 The back is fully plastic with a ceramic feel to it with Samsung's logo printed in the middle, to the top left lies the rear facing camera. However, the back cover cannot be removed to replace the battery.

 Overall I found the design pleasant for usage with no strange or wild looks in it.

5. Features-

      So let's see what this tablet packs in itself for Samsung to call it a budget feature packed tablet.

a) Screen-

     This tablet has a 7" PLS type LED Backlit LCD Display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels with a pixel density of 170ppi and capable of showing 16 million colours ("Oh,yeah!"). 

To be frank the screen is, I can say adequate or average for budget users. It has good colour reproduction, enough sharpness but has very bad viewing angles.  Tilt the tablet a little bit from your eyes you see the colours washed out ("But why the hell would you tilt the screen").It is a multitouch display which can register upto 10 touches simultaneously. As told before, it is an adequate quality screen for budget friendly consumers.

b) Performance-

     This tablet has some interesting firepower which is a good decision by Samsung. At its core, it houses a Dual Core 1 Ghz Cortex-A9 processor in a TI OMAP 4430 chipset. For the graphics, it has a PowerVR SGX540.  It has 1 gb of RAM and 16gb of Internal Memory. It also has a micro SD expansion card slot which can support upto 32 gb capacity card. Coming to its performance in benchmarks we saw average performance from this tablet. In Benchmark Pi it scored 504 (lower the better). In NenaMark 2 (which is a gaming benchmark) it scored a meagre 21.2 fps. It scored 2226 points in SunSpider (lower the better) and a 94621 in BrowserMark. All said this tablet has specs sufficient for day to day activities and for moderate graphics games.

c) Connectivity, GPS and Sensors-

    This tablet has good connectivity options in its case. It has WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n with 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz support. WiFi Direct and DLNA support is available. It has Bluetooth 3.0 with support to A2DP profile. As for the sensors it has accelerometer, gyroscope, compass and an ambient light sensor. Coming to the GPS, it has A-GPS along with GLONASS which provides pretty accurate positioning data. There is a 30 pin proprietary port, which can be used for charging through the supplied power adapter (but not through the pc) ("Shame on you, Samsung"). You can however expand the port's functionality by plugging in the Samsung Adapter ("you have to buy it separately for about $25") which connects to the proprietary port and has a SD reader and usb port in the other end. You can connect USB flash drives, mice and keyboards to the USB port. It has a 3.5 mm audio jack for your headphones and audio out. Overall it has good connectivity options.

d) Software-

    This tablet comes with Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box.
There is no latest over the air updates released by Samsung for this tablet ("booh!"). It comes with Samsung's TouchWiz UX UI which I must say is very good.

 This tablet is blessed with good apps, it has Polaris Office which has a document viewer/editor. It supports internal and web storage. You can easily view and edit word documents, spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations. It also has a PDF viewer in it ("Great").The calendar app call S Planner is great, I found it's design and uses very impressing. You can add new event, set alarm, reminders. It has daily, monthly and yearly views. There are good calculator and alarm app also. There is also a World Clock app which looks beautiful with its animated views when a certain location in the globe is selected. There are flags, day and night animations as well. Custom apps have also been bundled along which includes My files, S-Memo, Photo Editor, Video Editor, Paper Artist which are you know add light to the party (" They are great").  For Web browsing it has the default android web browser which has support for flash contents. Google Maps takes care of the map department with concise representation of places in the map. I can say software us a strong point of this tablet and will definitely woo buyers. It has all necessary apps to provide a productive experience from your tablet.

e) Battery-

      This tablet has a 4000mah battery built into it.  The battery is non user replaceable.  The battery life is poor, you hardly get a day's charge with heavy usage like web browsing and playing games. But it should suffice budget users.

f) Audio, Video and Camera-

      This tablet has a custom TouchWiz music player, which is more functional than the stock Android app, but lacks the cover-flow-like browsing. You can sort your tracks by album, artist, genre, folders, composer or year. It also has playlist options. There is a dedicated video player app for this tablet. It has thumbnails, list and folder view modes, which is great. It supports DivX/XviD/MKV files ("Finally"). High-res videos are handled without any hassles even the 1080p ones. The player can also play videos which other third party apps cannot and it can also play videos smoothly than other apps out there ("Well done Samsung"). To sum it up the video player has support for a wide varieties of formats. Coming to the camera, this tab has a 3.15 MP rear facing camera which supports 720p HD video recording. It also supports geo-tagging and smile detection. There is a dedicated camera app which has a lot of useful features like panorama, share shot, buddy photo share and also smile shot for the shooting mode. There is also a 2, 5 and 10 sec timer for family portraits. It also has many special effects like black and white, sepia, and negative. It also has exposure compensation of -2 to +2. There are also different white balance modes. You can also set gridlines for easy shooting. You can use both internal and memory card as preferred storage. The camera takes surprisingly good photos with great dynamic range and low noise in them. The camera also shows similar performance in the video recording, The videos have good detail, low noise and somewhat accurate colours. Coming to the front facing camera, it is just enough for low quality video call and definitely not great for taking photos. Overall this tablet excels in this section with good hardware-software integration.

6. Conclusion-

       Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 was aimed at targeting the budget audience. Have they succeeded? Yes, they certainly have. Samsung have done a great job packing in a decent hardware and complementing it with great software. With good multimedia and productivity features, it is also going to appeal gadget freaks who are on a low budget. Overall it is a serious player in the budget category.