Friday, July 08, 2011

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Gingerbread short review.

I have tried countless of time to download the latest firmware for my Galaxy Tab using Kies and countless of time I have been disappointed. This is either the firmware won't download, always stuck at 0%, time-out error, unknown error dialogue box pop up for no reason (even though I was surfing the web uninterrupted). Beside that, the software does not support resume feature, which means that every time there is a time-out error, it won't resume where it left off.

Probably, I'll just keep using the current Froyo version until Samsung finally has an update on fixing this issue.

Update: Finally I sorted out the internet issue by using mobile 3G connection and finally successfully download the firmware (300mb - 350mb). It seems that my phone 3G connection worked much more stable than landline. Anyway, I have tried out the Gingerbread firmware and I found it does not give too many surprises. Below is a short list of the new features which I found:

1. New text selection which is great for text editing.
2. New apps (sketch memo, hubs, pulse, downloads) and widget (daily briefing widget is updated).
3. Smaller icon for notification. Probably it's best you have a lot of notification service running so they can fit in.
4. Task and memory management is updated (not more level 1 or 2 clearing).
5. Notification pull down now runs much smoother.
6. New boot up screen and sound.

Unwanted features:
1. Folder in home screen lagged when closing (almost 3 second). I had to install Go Launcher to replace it.
2. Gameloft Dungeon Hunter HD needs to be re-installed and saved game will be lost.
3. Gameloft Spider Man needs to be re-installed but saved game remains. (thank God, but only playable till halfway. Known issue.)
4. USB connection type selection is removed while connecting to laptop using usb cable. Kies is set as default and it doesn't work with my Ubuntu. To set it as mass storage, unplug the usb cable from laptop, go to wireless and network in setting, select usb setting and set mass storage. Well, I still prefer the old usb connection type selection screen.

In short, it's really just the 0.1 version increase. Probably I can do without it. Nevertheless, there are some technical benefit behind it. Such as more apps available in Market perhaps? There is not much different in browsing speed. So 0.1 is still 0.1 increase. No miracle here.

Final Note: Some suggests to do a factory reset after upgrade. In my opinion, seriously, I don't want to go there because there's too many apps to restore (around 80 apps).