Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 review

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 is a slim, light tablet which at first glance could be compared to other compact tablets such as the Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition. However, it stands apart in reality thanks to an incredible 7.7in AMOLED screen.

This is biggest such screen we’ve seen to date. With a 1,280×800 resolution, it has the same number of pixels as the average laptop squashed into a space the size of a paperback novel, and the Super AMOLED Plus panel is one of the brightest and most colourful screens we’ve ever seen.

OLED technology uses pixels made from organic compounds that glow in different colours when a current is applied, which means a backlight and polarising filter isn’t needed, so colours are richer and he screen has far better viewing angles than standard TFT panels. They also consume very little power, which goes some way to explaining the 7.7’s amazing 15-hour battery life in our video playback test. It helps that the screen has a glossy finish, which adds extra punch.

Although it’s under 8mm thick, the 7.7 feels sturdy. The front is edge-to-edge glass with an oleophobic coating that keeps greasy smudges at bay, while the rear casing is a brushed alloy with smooth metal end plates. The top plate holds the camera and LED flash, with a headphone port on the top edge, while the bottom plate houses two speaker grilles and the proprietary docking connector. A volume rocker and the power button are on the right-hand edge, towards the top, and there’s a microSDHC card slot on the left-hand edge.

The tablet’s 7.7in size makes it just small enough to fit in an inside jacket pocket, while its 340g weight is low enough that you won’t mind holding it in front of you for long periods to read a book or watch a film. Even the built-in speakers are impressive, with a decent amount of volume and a surprisingly well-balanced sound.

A dual-core 1.4GHz Samsung CPU keeps things running smoothly, although Android still suffers from interface stutters. There are two cameras: a 3-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera that works with Skype for video calls. Despite its small sensor, the main camera takes clear, colourful shots with little noise, and the LED flash illuminates dark scenes well. It can also shoot 720p video, but these were noisy and jumpy.

The only part of the hardware we didn’t like was the proprietary port for charging and data transfer. We would have preferred a standard Micro USB port, as a spare Samsung data cable will set you back £11. However, when you start using the Tab 7.7 for any length of time you start to notice its faults, which all boil down to software issues.

For a start, the 7.7 has Android 3.2 Honeycomb installed, the tablet-only version of Android that’s now been superseded by Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). This is disappointing, considering that manufacturers such as Asus and Motorola have started rolling out 4.0 for select tablet models. On the 7.7 Samsung has used its own customised icons for common Android apps, and preinstalled a host of software, which you can’t uninstall or even hide the app icons. For example, there are a number of Hubs, or collections of apps. One of these is the Readers Hub, which integrates apps from PressDisplay (for news), Zinio (for magazines) and Kobo (for eBooks). We like the idea of bringing multiple apps into one screen, to save clutter, but if you only use one of the apps, the hub simply adds complexity – we’d rather just open the Kobo app directly.

We’re even less impressed with the Game and Music Hubs. The Game Hub says it’s “powered by Mobage”, but when you try and add a game you’re invited to download a separate Mobage app. The Music Hub isn’t really a hub, but an app powered by 7Digital with a selection of pop tunes. The Social Hub is more useful, aggregating feeds from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. This isn’t as wide a selection as other social aggregation services such as HTC’s Sense or Motorola’s Motoblur, though.

It’s not all bad – there are some useful preinstalled apps, such as the AllShare DLNA client and server, the Polaris Office Suite – which lets you edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint files, and view PDFs – a file manager, and both photo and video editors.

It’s Samsung’s own apps that annoyed us the most. The Samsung Apps app and the Samsung Hub are poor imitations of Android’s own Play Store (formerly known as the Android Market), with an awful selection of apps and a focus on games. Samsung Apps installs an ad server and a push notifier in the background after you’ve agreed to a general set of terms and conditions (thankfully you can manually uninstall them), while the Samsung Hub devotes a whole section to a special offer from John Lewis in return for your personal details. Luckily there’s still almost 13GB of app storage space available – but we prefer users to have the choice over what software they install and to make any preinstalled apps easy to remove.

Like the larger Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (which is soon to be replaced by the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2), the 7.7 is an amazing piece of hardware, but we were disappointed with the software – more so than on the larger tablet, because there’s more of it and it’s more intrusive.

The 7.7 has a simply incredible display, and if you’re looking for a more compact Android tablet then it justifies its £100-odd premium over the Motorola Xoom 2 Media Edition, but only just. With an upgrade to Android 4.0 and a reduction in price, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 will become a very tempting tablet. Until then, if you’re looking for a great display on a tablet, then we’d recommend a new iPad (full review later this week) and a slightly bigger bag.