The good: The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 delivers a mostly pure Ice Cream Sandwich experience for only $250. The tablet also trumps the Kindle Fire in extras by including dual cameras, expandable memory, and TV remote-control functionality.
The bad: The screen doesn't look as pretty as other PLS displays, and its camera performance is lacking compared with other tablets in the line.
The bottom line: The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 offers an excellent value and a full Android 4.0 experience that no other tablet can currently match for the price.
Design
The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 sports a slightly altered design from the Tab 7.0 Plus, but you'd be hard-pressed to notice those differences at first glance, unless of course you're as intimately familiar with the Plus as I am.
The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 sports a slightly altered design from the Tab 7.0 Plus, but you'd be hard-pressed to notice those differences at first glance, unless of course you're as intimately familiar with the Plus as I am.
The shape and weight are about the same with some slight dimensional differences. The new tablet's outer plastic shell spills a bit into the bezel at the right and left sides and the power/sleep button and volume rocker are more pronounced and feel slightly more responsive. Also, the IR blaster is a bit larger than the one on the Plus.
Aside from that, they're pretty much physically identical. The Tab 2 7.0 is fairly thin, although notTab 7.7-thin. It's also comfortable to hold, with smooth, rounded corners. Samsung identifies the color that covers the back of the tablet as "titanium silver," which seems apt enough.
The microSD card slot allows you to add an additional 32GB of storage on top of the built-in 8GB. Samsung provides 50GB of free Dropbox storage for a year on top of that. The door to the microSD slot is easier to open now and doesn't get stuck as often as the Tab Plus' did.
Take that, Kindle Fire! With expandable memory up 32GB, you shouldn't have to worry constantly about running out of space.
The 2-megapixel front camera from the Plus has been replaced with a VGA one here, but the rear is still rated at 3 megapixels, albeit sans an LED. Thankfully, each camera is located in the upper left corner when you hold the tablet in landscape, thus allowing them to avoid unwanted fingers creeping into the camera frame when taking a picture.
The 3-megapixel back camera honestly takes pretty crappy pictures.
Equidistant from surrounding dual speakers on the right sits a dock connector, and the left edge houses a headphone jack and microphone pinhole. The ambient light sensor sits about an inch away from the front camera on the bezel. However, the ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts the tablet's brightness when auto brightness is turned on is calibrated too sensitively. When typing, my hand would occasionally cover the sensor making the screen darken. This was so consistent (and annoying) that I was forced to turn off auto brightness on the tablet while I used it.
Sadly, as with most Samsung tablets, there's no HDMI port, requiring you to purchase an adapter if you'd like to play video from your tablet on your TV
Software features
Possibly the biggest selling point (other than its price) of the Tab 2 7.0 is that it ships with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3 to be precise) installed, making it the first Samsung tablet to do so.
Possibly the biggest selling point (other than its price) of the Tab 2 7.0 is that it ships with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3 to be precise) installed, making it the first Samsung tablet to do so.
