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Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (32GB)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (32GB)

Reviewed by: Eric Franklin

The good: The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 delivers a mostly pure Ice Cream Sandwich experience for only $250. The tablet also trumps the Kindle Fire in extras by including dual cameras, expandable memory, and TV remote control functionality.

The bad: The screen doesn't look as pretty as other PLS displays, and its camera performance is lacking compared to other tablets in the line.

The bottom line: The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 offers an excellent value and a full Android experience that no other tablet can currently match for the price.

Review:

Photo gallery: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)
Photo gallery:
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)

I guess we have Amazon to thank for proving that you don't need a premium tablet to be successful. While Samsung tried competing on the premium tablet front for the last year and will continue to do so, it's finding this strategy to be more difficult than anticipated.

With the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, the company is, thankfully, learning from its mistakes and taking a price cue from Amazon by offering a full-featured tablet for $250. The market isn't stagnant, though, so will Samsung actually have time to ... Expand full review

Photo gallery: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)
Photo gallery:
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0)

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I guess we have Amazon to thank for proving that you don't need a premium tablet to be successful. While Samsung tried competing on the premium tablet front for the last year and will continue to do so, it's finding this strategy to be more difficult than anticipated.

With the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0, the company is, thankfully, learning from its mistakes and taking a price cue from Amazon by offering a full-featured tablet for $250. The market isn't stagnant, though, so will Samsung actually have time to capitalize before more powerful and still cheap alternatives enter the fray?

Design

The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 sports a slightly altered design from the 7.0 Plus, but you'd be hard-pressed to notice those differences at first glance, unless of course you were as intimately familiar with the Plus as I am.

The shape and weight are about the same with some slight dimensional differences. The new tablet's outer plastic shell spills a bit into the bezel at the right and left sides and the power/sleep button and volume rocker are more pronounced and feel slightly more responsive. Also, the IR blaster is a bit larger than the one on the Plus.

Aside from that, they're pretty much physically identical. The Tab 2 7.0 is fairly thin, although not Tab 7.7-thin. It's also comfortable to hold with smooth, rounded corners. Samsung identifies the color that covers the back of the tablet as "titanium silver," which seems fitting enough.

The Tab 2 7.0 retains the 7.0 Plus' thin design.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus Amazon Kindle Fire Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
Weight in pounds 0.74 0.76 0.9 0.74
Width in inches (landscape) 7.6 7.6 7.4 7.75
Height in inches 4.8 4.8 4.75 2.25
Depth in inches 0.3 0.3 0.4 0.37
Side bezel width in inches (landscape) 0.76 0.74 0.78 (Power button side), 0.6 opposite side 0.68

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The microSD card slot allows you to add an additional 32GB of storage on top of the built-in 8GB. Samsung provides 50GB of free Dropbox storage for a year on top of that. The door to the microSD slot is easier to open now and doesn't get stuck as often as the Plus' did.

Take that Kindle Fire! With expandable memory up 32GBs, you shouldn't have to worry constantly about running out of space.

The 2-megapixel front camera from the Plus has been replaced with a VGA one here, but the rear is still rated at 3-megapixel, albeit sans an LED. Thankfully each camera is located in the upper left corner when holding the tablet in landscape, thus allowing them to avoid unwanted fingers creeping into the camera frame when taking a picture.

The 3-megapixel back camera honestly takes pretty crappy pictures.

Equidistant from surrounding dual speakers on the right, sits a dock connector and the left edge houses a headphone jack and microphone pinhole. The ambient light sensor sits about an inch away from the front camera on the bezel. However, the ambient light sensor which automatically adjusts the tablet's brightness when auto brightness is turned on is calibrated too sensitively. When typing, my hand would occasionally cover the sensor making the screen darken. This was so consistent (and annoying) that I was forced to turn off auto brightness on the tablet while I used it.

Sadly, as with most Samsung tablets, there's no HDMI port, requiring you to purchase an adapter if you'd like to play video from your tablet on your TV.

Software features

Possibly the biggest selling point (other than its price) of the Tab 2 7.0 is that it ships with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3 to be precise) installed, making it the first Samsung tablet to do so.

Samsung's Touchwiz UI skin is of course included and comes with custom Samsung apps like Music Hub, Media Hub, and Game Hub, a built in screenshot app, and the Mini Apps tray located on the bottom of the screen. Tapping it brings up a tray of apps consisting of a calculator, notes, calendar, music player, and clock. However, the most useful of these is still the task manager, which allows you to quickly kill any app running in the background; this comes in handy when apps become otherwise unresponsive.

The basic look and design of ICS is retained, just with a Touchwiz skin and a few extra shortcuts for quickly turning off Wi-Fi, GPS, screen rotation, etc.

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Peel's Smart Remote app

The IR blaster found on the Tabs 7.7 and 7.0 Plus makes its way to the Tab 2 7.0 and in conjunction with Peel's included Smart Remote app, helps turn your tablet into a remote control for your TV. Peel can take the place of your cable or satellite channel guide and display a list of shows currently playing locally on your cable or satellite provider's channels. Go to the currently playing tab and click on a show, and your TV switches to the appropriate channel. Peel does a great job of holding your hand initially through a step-by-step setup wizard. The setup only requires that you know your TV's manufacturer's name, your cable/satellite provider, and your ZIP code. Thankfully, Peel spares us from having to know any more detailed information; however, be aware that Smart Remote does not work with regular monitors and only TVs or monitor/TV combos.

Once it's set up, you can browse shows by category, mark shows as favorites, or prevent shows you'd rather not see on the list from showing up again. Thankfully, Smart Remote now syncs with over-the-air listings, but its accuracy as to which shows and channels were available to me left a bit to be desired.

Navigating the interface took some getting used to, but was easy enough to pick up; however, I took issue with the method by which cable TV screen menus are controlled by the interface. Peel went with a swipe interface that requires you to flick the screen in one of four directions to highlight different menus. While this method works and after some time could be gotten used to, I would have much preferred more-direct directional controls.

As I learned with the Tab 7.0 Plus and 7.7, Smart Remote's accuracy is very closely dictated by the information cable and satellite providers choose to release. So, while the Smart Remote guide may indicate that "Law and Order" is on right now on Channel 12, selecting it didn't always take me to the appropriate channel. In addition, sometimes the channel wasn't available to me or there was a different show on the channel at that time.

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Budget troubles force redrawing of plans to Mars

Written by Alicia Chang Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Know how to go to Mars cheaply? NASA can use your help.

The space agency on Friday put out a call for ideas for the next Mars mission in 2018. The fine print: The cost can't be astronomical and the idea has to move the country closer to landing humans on the red planet in the 2030s.

The race to redraw a new, cheaper road map comes two months after NASA pulled out of a partnership with the European Space Agency on two missions targeted for 2016 and 2018, a move that angered scientists. The 2018 mission represented the first step toward hauling Martian soil and rocks back to Earth for detailed study - something many researchers say is essential in determining whether microbial life once existed there.
Financial reality

Agency officials said returning samples is still a priority, but a reboot was necessary given the financial reality.

In the past decade, NASA has spent $6.1 billion exploring Earth's closest planetary neighbor. President Barack Obama's latest proposed budget slashed spending for solar system exploration by 21 percent, making the collaboration with the Europeans unaffordable.

A team will cull through the ideas and come up with options by summer when NASA's latest mission, a $2.5 billion car-sized rover Curiosity, will land near the equator on Mars.

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Space Shuttle Discovery Mounted Atop Jumbo Jet for Ride to Smithsonian

by Robert Z. Pearlman

NASA mounted space shuttle Discovery on a jumbo jet Sunday (April 15), in preparation for the retired orbiter's delivery to the Smithsonian. The paired air- and spacecraft are expected to depart Florida for Washington, D.C., on Tuesday morning (April 17), weather permitting.

Discovery's mating to the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), NASA's modified Boeing 747 jetliner, came a day later than the space agency had planned. On Saturday, wind gusts at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility set the 167,000 pound (75,300 kilogram) Discovery swaying under its lift sling, posing a risk that it could impact the Mate Demate Device (MDD), the gantry-like steel structure used to hoist the shuttle onto the jetliner.

Workers reconvened at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT) on Sunday, to finish retracting the shuttle's landing gear. They then raised the orbiter 60 feet (18 meters) off the ground so that the carrier aircraft could be positioned underneath. Discovery was then lowered onto the jumbo jet's three protruding attach points to achieve a "soft" mating.

Work continued throughout the day Sunday to secure, or "hard" mate, Discovery to the 747, before removing the hoist sling and backing the paired vehicles out of the MDD on Monday morning.

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