Gadgetory

what happens when two of Samsung's best 10-inch tablets go head-to-head I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition versus the Nexus 10 of all the Android tablet manufacturers Samsung is unsurprisingly one of the most prominent its Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note brands bring plenty of value adds to what would otherwise be pretty standard tablets and Samsung is also creator of what many consider to be the best Android tablet in the past 11 months the Nexus 10 last month the Samsung announced its latest addition to its broad palette of tablets the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition how does it compare with Samsung's purest google tablet from 2012 that's what we're here to find out although these tablets both come from the same company they are distinctly different particularly in design build quality and specs the biggest similarity externally is the power button and volume rocker placement which are both located on the upper left edge of the tablets other than that they can be more like into distant relatives than siblings or close cousins the Nexus 10 which feels incredibly premium is composed almost entirely of a soft touch plastic around its back insides and that offers a very nice grip on the device its speakers run along the edges facing forward and it's not exactly light on the bezel but on the flip side it offers on-screen buttons as opposed to the Note 10.1 obscure capacitive and physical button layout the Note 10.1 is packed into a much lighter compact chassis it's 63 grams lighter 20.8 millimetres narrower 6.2 millimeter shorter and one millimeter thinner than the Nexus 10 like the Galaxy Note 3 its backside comes in either black or white with a faux leather texture the black has markedly more grippy and leather like though the white still feels notably more premium than the hyper lace coating on other galaxy tablets have passed and the faux metal trim along the edges is still present though it's now lined to resemble the pages of a notebook even internally the 2014 Note 10.1 and the Nexus 10 have a swath of dissimilarities the Nexus 10 nearing one-year-old features a 1.7 gigahertz dual core Exynos 50 to 50 chip to the note 10.1 Exynos octa-core nation of a 1.9 gigahertz quad-core processor and a 1.3 gigahertz quad-core processor which work together the Note 10.1 also features one more gigabyte of RAM a high-resolution image sensor and more storage options including a micro SD card slot the Nexus 10 however does offer a larger capacity battery 9000 milliamp hours to the Note 10.1 80 to 20 milliamp hours and it also has NFC while the Note 10.1 2014 edition does not both the Note 10.1 and Nexus 10 have super crisp wqxga displays that's 2560 by 1600 pixels at 10.1 inches making an impressive 299 pixels per inch but it only takes one glance at both displays to see which one is the better panel the Nexus 10 uses a super pls TFT display the new Note 10.1 uses a Super Clear LCD panel and the differences are rather obvious both panels are incredibly sharp bright and offer very wide viewing angles however the Super Clear LCD panel in the Note 10.1 has much more vibrant colors better contrast and deeper blacks finally the digitizer the Nexus 10 only accepts capacitive input but the Note 10.1 as you would expect comes with a Wacom digitizer for incredibly accurate s-pen input something which couldn't be more fitting on a device to size as much as we love the filling of the Nexus 10 in the hands we have to give the hardware edge to the note 10.1 it packs significantly better specifications in a smaller lighter package the software side of things is where these two tablets take to significantly different routes the Nexus 10 comes with the latest version of Android afford in its absolute purest form it ships with bone stock Android 4.3 and all the tablet optimizations available such as the separated notification and quick toggle shades it also has support for multiple user profiles as well as restricted access the Note 10.1 may also come with Android 4.3 but it's buried beneath Samsung's own bloated software TouchWiz we have a love-hate relationship with TouchWiz it brings tons of value proposition especially to the Note brand but it also comes with a ton of bloatware which often hinders performance the s-pen for starters comes with its own suite of software Air Command is launched when you remove the S Pen from its integrated slot found on the upper right corner of the device where you can hold the button on the S Pen and hover it just over the display Air Command has five Quick Launch options action memo scrapbooker screen right s finder and pen window each of these features are unique to the note series and are truly useful features for any larger device TouchWiz also comes with the infinitely handy multi window feature which allows two applications to run side-by-side you can drag and drop text between two open applications resize them swap them around and you can even open a pin window atop the two running applications making the Note 10.1 one of the most performance and productivity focused Android tablets to date many different TouchWiz features appear on the note 10.1 as well smart screen features such as smart stay and smart pause chat on Samsung Apps Samsung hub s translator s voice watch on etc and there is some pre-loaded bloatware worth mentioning as well sketchbook for galaxy polaris office v evernote Flipboard and Twitter which is the official Twitter client with actual tablet support exclusive to this specific Samsung tablet however we cannot begin to wrap our heads around one single fact about the Note 10.1 considering Samsung has gone the extra mile to make sure users get the full effect of the 10 inch display it's unacceptable that Samsung still has not optimized the notification shape for tablets it's full screen meaning the notifications unnecessarily take up the entire width of the display not to mention the settings application on the note 10.1 is even more confusing since it's both tabbed and pained four tabs separate various types of settings connections device controls in general and beneath each classification is a two pane view for ease of use and looks the Nexus 10 takes the cake in software but thanks to the tablet optimized features such as multi window and air command the Note 10.1 actually has the upper-hand keep in mind that upper-hand says little about performance an area one would imagine the device with two quad-core processors would excel the Note 10.1 however has trouble keeping up with the intense multitasking such as multi window constantly stuttering and dropping frame rates it seems the over encumbered TouchWiz software is more than enough to counteract the performance improving effects of project butter although powered by less powerful chipset the Nexus 10 seems to perform noticeably more smoothly and day-to-day operation that said it's not capable of quite as extensive multitasking as the note 10.1 so it's a trade-off of sorts the Note 10.1 does seem to catch up after a few minutes of dealing with stutters and jitters but honestly that sort of thing is unacceptable on a device this powerful if you're the type who cares about benchmarks their respective score should be a stern testament to how poorly optimized TouchWiz is for performance however thanks to the Exynos octa-core one is noticeably better for gaming for device geared towards media consumption the speaker performance can't be understated thankfully both tablets have loud anchor speakers the Nexus 10 speaker setup however is notably better the speakers are less tinny and they're also forward-facing and effectively impossible to accidentally cover up I know 10.1 speakers on the other hand are along the outer edges it can certainly be muffled by accident battery performance is also a place the Nexus 10 seems to soar the Nexus 10 employs a 33 point 75 watt power battery which tends to perform exceptionally well on standby only dropping a couple of percent per day and use the battery drains at a fairly respectable rate considering the size and resolution of the display it will only need to be charged every few days depending on usage the note 10.1 is not quite as favorable and stand by dropping upwards of 10 percent over a span of 24 hours but as 31 watt hour battery will offer similar better to performance while in use though since you're capable of doing far more with the tablet at once you may very well be able to eat through your entire charge more quickly stay tuned for a more in-depth look at the note 10.1 S battery performance in the full review finally camera performance if you're so inclined to take pictures with the 10 inch device look no further than the Note 10.1 it's 8 megapixel camera isn't the greatest around seriously your two-year old smartphone can probably take better pictures but of these two there's really no comparison in favorable lighting conditions both will take fairly balanced photos but the Note 10.1 images are more true to life more detailed and more vibrant it offers more dynamic range in the auto shooting mode and it was quicker to focus and capture we had trouble with the Nexus 10 capturing blurry pictures more than once in all there are only a few areas the Nexus 10 has an edge in this comparison the Note 10.1 software is bloated causing several performance issues price is another the 16 gigabyte Nexus 10 starts at 399 whereas the same capacity Note 10.1 starts at 549 of these two which tablet would you choose if this were the Snapdragon variant of the Note 10.1 it would be a no-brainer but since this is the X powered galaxy note it's up for debate at the end of the day as much as we're drawn towards the cheaper price point purely stock Android experience and the more reliable performance of the Nexus 10 the s-pen and the multitasking features of the Note 10.1 make up for the intermittent lag and stutters when the Note 10.1 is running like it should there's nothing else out there quite like it we just wish Samsung will give the Wi-Fi Note 10.1 some Snapdragon love to that's all for now if you enjoyed the video let us know about clicking the thumbs up button below and subscribing to the channel to see more videos like this one as well as more Galaxy Note 10.1 coverage over the next week find us on Twitter Facebook and Google+ at PocketNow you can find me on twitter at casper tech I'm Taylor Martin and I will see you next time