Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) review
1 of 7 
Verdict
Not the most luxurious of tablets, but strikes a good balance between performance, price and usability
Review Date: 29 May 2012
Reviewed By: Jonathan Bray
Price when reviewed: £166 (£199 inc VAT)
Buy it now for: £139
(see more store prices)
Overall Rating
Features & Design
Value for Money
Performance
Normally it takes something pretty special to get us really excited at PC Pro: a new display technology, a significant step forward in integrated graphics, or a dramatic update to a staid operating system.
With that in mind, you might think the diminutive Samsung Galaxy Tab would come pretty low down the list, but that's far from the case. Samsung's new baby is breakthrough product: the first Android tablet from a big name manufacturer to launch in the UK at under £200, and we're very excited about it indeed.
And the good news is that, as well as being very cheap, the Tab 2 7.0 is also very usable. That's largely thanks to the combination of dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor, 1GB of RAM and Android 4, which results in hesitation-free menu and homescreen navigation, and fluid web browsing.
It's the same processor, in fact, as in our favourite compact tablet, the Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition, (although clocked 17% slower), and it's accompanied by the same PowerVR SGX540 GPU. Angry Birds Space was perfectly playable on it, as was the demanding Shadowgun, but we didn't experience perfectly smooth frame rates.
In performance tests, the results give substance to those impressions, with the Tab completing the SunSpider JavaScript test in 2,235ms and a gaining a respectable score of 2,790 in Quadrant.
With a tablet, overall usability is as much about the screen as CPU grunt, though, and here the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) scores another hit. It’s an area in which cheap tablets typically struggle, with their displays afflicted by poor viewing angles and low brightness.
The Tab 2 (7.0)’s plane-to-line switching (PLS) display bats such concerns effortlessly aside, recording a top brightness of 387cd/m2 and a contrast ratio of 968:1. Viewing angles, meanwhile, are fine, with colours hardly changing as you shift position horizontally and vertically. It’s a perfectly competent display.
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How would you say it fairs against the playbook?
By JamesD29 on 29 May 2012 
allowing expansion to 32GB?
So you can only put upto 24Gb SD cards in?
Don't you mean 'allowing expansion by an additional 32GB'?
By AlphaGeeK on 29 May 2012
Expansion...
Oops, yes. That should of course say "by 32GB". Typo now corrected. Thanks for spotting it.
Jonathan Bray,
Reviews editor,
PC Pro.
By JonBray on 29 May 2012
Who needs a Kindle Fire?
Faster, nicer, better than a Kindle Fire at around the same price (assuming the Fire is ever released over here). Well done Samsung!
By KevPartner on 29 May 2012
Who needs an iPad?
I don't, can't stand Apples walled garden philosophy. But I digress, at £199 this is the first tablet that I've seen that looks seriously tempting and made me think about replacing my excellent Samsung NC10 netbook which has been great for when I'm travelling.
By rjp2000 on 29 May 2012
Who needs an iPad?
I don't, can't stand Apples walled garden philosophy. But I digress, at £199 this is the first tablet that I've seen that looks seriously tempting and made me think about replacing my excellent Samsung NC10 netbook which has been great for when I'm travelling.
By rjp2000 on 29 May 2012
Who needs an iPad?
I don't, can't stand Apples walled garden philosophy. But I digress, at £199 this is the first tablet that I've seen that looks seriously tempting and made me think about replacing my excellent Samsung NC10 netbook which has been great for when I'm travelling.
By rjp2000 on 29 May 2012
Infra red
The review says it doesn't have an infra-red port; other reviews say it can be used as a TV remote, does the UK version not have an IR port?
By AndrewInEssex on 29 May 2012
HDMI support
The spec says it doesn't support HDMI; can you not use the propriatory connector via an adaptor to connect to an HDMI TV?
By AndrewInEssex on 29 May 2012
Finally things we really need
Someone has finally realised that we don't live in 1990's any more and don't need IR (and who uses tablets as TV remote, seriously?). Camera on a tablet? Useless too, nobody carries it around like a smartphone and even cheapest compact camera will beat iPad's photo quality.
By radnor on 29 May 2012
Yes, uk version has no IR port
Bit of research and the UK version doesn't have an IR port; I was planning to replace my broken universal remote, but not with this.
By AndrewInEssex on 29 May 2012
Yes, uk version has no IR port
Bit of research and the UK version doesn't have an IR port; I was planning to replace my broken universal remote, but not with this.
By AndrewInEssex on 29 May 2012
Tablets and their cameras
Why does everyone say a rear facing camera on a tablet is useless? I'm often using my tablet when the kids are playing in the sitting room, and I think I'll just take a shot of that. I only wish the camera was better! If I went and got a camera to take a shot of what they were doing, I'd have missed the moment.
By BPerry on 29 May 2012
About time something like this came along, but for me i would of welcomed the IR sender over the camera. Samsung you almost made me get my wallet out.
By davidk1962 on 29 May 2012
Speaker or no speaker
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this and can shed some light on the situation but all of Samsung's publicity shots show the GT 2 7.0 with a speaker on the front of the screen. This doesn't seem to be the case in the photo in the review.
Which models have the speaker and which don't?!?
By billybigtime12 on 30 May 2012
Looks interesting and at a decent price point a viable replacement for a lot of smaller devices.
You know your newsletter is claiming theres a review for the Samsung Galaxy III ... but no mention on the newsletter and nothing on the site... assume its talking about the Tab instead.
By akoli on 31 May 2012
More features and half price of iPad
Tab 2 has built in GPS and compass not found on iPad I believe.
Great for astronomy and navigation apps - good free ones available.
A triumph of substance over style (and pose value) for half the cost of an Apple
I have one!
By bluedog20 on 31 May 2012
More features and half price of iPad
Tab 2 has built in GPS and compass not found on iPad I believe.
Great for astronomy and navigation apps - good free ones available.
A triumph of substance over style (and pose value) for half the cost of an Apple
I have one!
By bluedog20 on 31 May 2012
Tab 1 v Tab 2
No mention of phone capability (cue dom jolly jokes). That was the one thing that made me buy a Tab 1, I call rarely but it saved carry two devices for that once a week call and the ability to be contacted in an emergency.
But at £180 cheaper than a SG note I could still buy a cheap micro phone (to lose down the sofa) and have change :-)
By ITZ_Go_One on 31 May 2012
I love mine!
I bought my Tab 2 two weeks ago and I love it. The screen is great, it plays video as good as I would ever want, the built in speaker is surprisingly good, the GPS is excellent, email is readable, internet is quick and plays flash, but the best thing is the size and shape. It is ideal to hold one handed, or view on a plane.
I resisted buying an iPad and other tablets, but this is the model that made me jump into that technology range, and so far I'm very glad that I did.
By ironbath on 5 Jun 2012
Too much compromise...
I was thinking of getting a Tab 2 as a "superphone", as I already have a smartphone and need a second one for work, so thought the Tab might make a good second device.
However, the Note has a higher resolution display and faster processor, the SIII also has a higher resolution display and a quad core processor, the Tab might be cheap, but it really looks like the poor brother, compared to the better specified large format phones from the same manufacturer.
By big_D on 18 Jun 2012
I Had One
I bought one of these last week from the place that sells carphones (whatever they are)and had nothing but problems with the Wi-Fi, kept dropping the connection even when 6ft from the router. Fired up the netbook as I was getting reports of widely varying signal strength at 6ft and ran a web connection with no problem, used inssider to monitor signal strength which was rock solid on the netbook but the Tablet was still reporting widely varying signal strengths.
Got a refund and am not over anxious to repeat the experience of wasting 15 hrs of my time, I even reset it to factory settings 4 times.
Shame really as I use MemoryMap OS maps and this would have been ideal. Still I expect Apple will bring out a smaller tablet soon and do it properly.
Maybe I just had a bad one, who knows, not sure it had a digital compass though. GPS reception was exceptional though and I have 4 other GPS devices to compare it to.
By stokegabriel on 22 Jun 2012
Cameras..not just for photos..
Surprised that nobody thinks a camera is useful on a tablet..I use a TF201 and iPad, both with cameras, for Augmented Reality applications (proper ones, for work not gaming purposes) and scanning QR codes to check documents - how can you do that without a camera? It's not just about taking photos - although we also use tablets for reporting back images to offices..
By Maffers on 25 Jul 2012
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