Samsung’s $249 Galaxy Tab 2 7.0: To Make U.S. Debut 4/22

[Kumabjorn]

Couldn't stop myself, ordered the Student Edition with keyboard and USB dongle. Probably means something much better is coming out in two weeks, but ehhh.

[David Marseilles]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Couldn't stop myself, ordered the Student Edition with keyboard and USB dongle. Probably means something much better is coming out in two weeks, but ehhh.

Congrats! It feels good to decide, and now you've got a shiny new toy to play with

[Kumabjorn]

Wished they offered in black as well, but it should be a magnificent reader and usable for a few other things as well. I have a 32MB microSD card laying around so there will be enough storage on it.

[David Marseilles]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Wished they offered in black as well, but it should be a magnificent reader and usable for a few other things as well. I have a 32MB microSD card laying around so there will be enough storage on it.

I didn't even know they made 32 meg microsds Hopefully your books are in plain text.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Couldn't stop myself, ordered the Student Edition with keyboard and USB dongle. Probably means something much better is coming out in two weeks, but ehhh.

Quad-core to match the Nexus 7. I'm waiting

[Kumabjorn]

Somehow I picture you on a branch of a mangrove waiting eternally.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Somehow I picture you on a branch of a mangrove waiting eternally.

Just a few months.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Just a few months.

I can see how a quad core is appealing on a spec sheet. For a 7" tablet I wonder how much difference it makes in everyday usage.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I can see how a quad core is appealing on a spec sheet. For a 7" tablet I wonder how much difference it makes in everyday usage.

It's more future proof than a dual-core. It'll get more future updates than the current dual-core tablets will.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

It's more future proof than a dual-core. It'll get more future updates than the current dual-core tablets will.

Two years down the line we'll want new shiny devices anyway. But I get your point.

[WillysJeepMan]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Couldn't stop myself, ordered the Student Edition with keyboard and USB dongle. Probably means something much better is coming out in two weeks, but ehhh.

I picked this up at my local Best Buy yesterday. I own a variety of tablets ranging in price and quality from the $80 Polaroid ICS Internet tablet up to a 32GB iPad 2. (and many, many devices in between)

Having had some extensive hands-on time with both the Nexus 7 and now the GTab 2 7.0, I can say that the Student Edition is an outstanding value. Gearheads will decry the lower specs of the GTab, but in actual usage, the performance differences are marginal and only noticeable if one is looking for a difference, IMO.

The TouchWiz UI is a bit more subtle than it was on older Galaxy devices. For media playback, the GTab was able to play all of the video and audio files that I was able to throw at it. I wasn't expecting great quality considering the lower screen resolution (equal to the Kindle Fire), but was pleasantly surprised at how well it did. I re-encoded a DVD video at a higher res and bitrate than I usually use and playback on it was amazing!

The keyboard dock has a very nice solid feel to it. It is approximately the size of the iPad keyboard dock, but the cradle guides and supports the GTab better than the iPad dock. There's a headphone/audio-out jack on the keyboard as well as the Samsung proprietary connector for charging.

Samsung has included some GTab-specific keys on the keyboard to assist in some often used functions/commands. The net result is a significant reduction in the times when touching the screen is required... something that is an issue with "generic" bluetooth keyboards. The feel of the keys is on par with high quality keyboards of comparable size.

I'm very impressed with the bundle. Access to microSD cards and USB thumbdrives makes transferring data very easy. I'm curious to see how much I'll use those features in regular day-to-day usage.

All in all, a very nice package.

[Kumabjorn]

You are such a tease, now I can't wait to get my filthy filthy hands on the device.

[WillysJeepMan]

After spending some more time with the Student Edition bundle I'm liking it even more. The USB dongle works wonderfully... USB thumbdrives are recognized and media can be accessed directly from it. Playback was as smooth as media read from internal memory or the microSD card.

I attached a Targus wireless mouse (the one with the USB receiver that "stores" underneath the mouse when not in use) to the USB dongle. It worked perfectly. The mouse pointer appeared on the screen and movement was smooth and responsive. Even the scroll wheel worked.

The next thing I'm going to try is attaching the USB dongle to the port on the keyboard to see if I can get both keyboard and mouse working. And if THAT works, then I'll need to track down a USB dongle that includes a charging port.

[Kumabjorn]

Have you tried a USB hub and more than one USB device?
Just curious because mine was shipped from Florida today, should have it by Monday.