While many people may not know (or even care) what version of Android their device has, or even know what TouchWiz is, what's important to Samsung is that the experience is familiar to someone who is already accustomed to previously using a Galaxy-branded device.
From the S Pen capabilities to the TouchWiz overlay, if you took the pure Google Nexus 10 and sought to make it more familiar to the millions of Galaxy Note owners, you'd get the Note 10.1 (2014).
The Nexus 10 is a full-sized, 10-inch, Google-branded tablet manufactured by Samsung. The standout feature has got to be its previously unprecedented (for a tablet) 2560x1600 QHD-class resolution. Under the hood is the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual SoC, 2 GB of LPDDR3 memory, a whopping 9000 mAh battery, and is available with either 16 or 32 GB of internal storage. Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, microUSB, and microHDMI round out the Nexus 10's connectivity options.
Google Nexus 10
While many people oppose the idea of TouchWiz and other third-party Android overlays, we can't blame Samsung for doing it, and we're even surprised it took the company this long to make an upgraded and branded variant of the Nexus 10.
Buttons
With the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014, Samsung builds upon its strategy of unifying the "Samsung Experience" found on the Galaxy S4 and Note 3 smartphones. This means forgoing the on-screen buttons, established by Android 3.0 Honeycomb, in favor of the capacitive Menu, hardware Home, and capacitive Back buttons we know today.
We can't overstate how damaging Menu buttons are to Google's user experience since Android 4.0 (and arguably even earlier in Android 3.x). The hidden menu is not in the novice user's best interest. While it might have seemed natural in the Eclair, FroYo, and Gingerbread eras, it creates an unnecessarily steep learning curve for new users, since it hides contextual options that should otherwise be self-evident.
The Galaxy Note Pro and Galaxy Tab Pro lines, as well as the Galaxy S5, show that Samsung is finally getting the message. The company replaces the capacitive Menu button with an App Switching button, which is a huge relief given the multitude of functions previously assigned to the Home button. Unfortunately, even though the company is now using the same buttons as the stock operating system, the order is reversed, so a learning curve is still present for those coming from most other Android-based products.
As for the physical actuation of the buttons, the Home button is just the right firmness and "clickiness" for our liking. The power button and volume rocker are situated at the top of the device when you're holding it in landscape mode, so taking the Home button placement into consideration, it's obvious that Samsung was hinting that this is the intended orientation for the Note 10.1 2014.
- Samsung's S Pen Attack On The Full-Size Tablet Market
- Look And Feel
- Camera, Display, And Speakers
- TouchWiz: Samsung's Take On Android
- Samsung's Galaxy Note Enhancements
- Benchmark Suite And Test System Specs
- Results: CPU Core Benchmarks
- Results: GPU Core Benchmarks
- Results: Web Benchmarks
- Brightness, Black Level, Contrast Ratio, And Gamma
- Results: Battery Life
- Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) Wi-Fi Or LTE?

Your bar graph "MobileXPRT 2013" seems to be in error.
For example, the text says, "Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Wi-Fi leads with 300 points . . ."
but the bar is the shortest and indicates less than 150 points.
Samsung's Exynos-based Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Wi-Fi holds its own against the Tegra Note 7, while the LTE version of the Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) again falls significantly behind its Snapdragon 800-powered Wi-Fi counterpart.
And this happens all throughout. The LTE is a Snapdragon, the Wifi is an Exynos. Keep repeating that to yourself as you re-write the descriptions and it will make this easier to read.
Your bar graph "MobileXPRT 2013" seems to be in error. For example, the text says, "Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Wi-Fi leads with 300 points . . ." but the bar is the shortest and indicates less than 150 points.
This benchmark's sub-tests produce scores in seconds (lower is better), and the overall score is given as a typical higher-is-better score, so the lowest bar indicates the fastest completion. Sorry about the confusion, I'll look into other ways to represent this test.
Samsung's Exynos-based Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Wi-Fi holds its own against the Tegra Note 7, while the LTE version of the Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) again falls significantly behind its Snapdragon 800-powered Wi-Fi counterpart.
And this happens all throughout. The LTE is a Snapdragon, the Wifi is an Exynos. Keep repeating that to yourself as you re-write the descriptions and it will make this easier to read.
Good catch, thanks! Fixed.
Actually, you'd think this has been phased out, but it's the current 10-inch Galaxy "Note" product, meaning it has the S Pen. The Galaxy "Tab" S does not - still unclear to me what makes the "S" stand out. I believe Samsung is literally attempting to offer an alternative product to every single other device in existence - complete mobile domination. I lost count of their current "Galaxy" line at 11 products, and that was awhile back.
The duo of Note 10.1 (2014)'s came in very handy both as comparison data in other articles and as testbeds for compiling our benchmark suite. Unfortunately, the article had to be pushed back several times, but the huge hardware difference between products carrying the same name was always something we wanted to illustrate, initially for the chipset-vs-chipset angle, but later for the optimization aspect as well. We're currently working through a small backlog of mobility articles, but each will be more timely than the last. My apologies.
It is a good review for apples to apples on the Samsung hardware options.
Would you suggest that this is "as-good-as-it-gets" for the few who prefer pen-based tablets? Any foresight in other pen based tablets?
Ninjawithagun,
Tablets are not modular like a pc... whilst it may have been good for the author the resolution issue with these benchmarks, an apples to apples comparison of the individual components would NOT help the user decide which unit as a whole is the fastest as indeed, they are NOT modular.
Ninjawithagun,
Tablets are not modular like a pc... whilst it may have been good for the author the resolution issue with these benchmarks, an apples to apples comparison of the individual components would NOT help the user decide which unit as a whole is the fastest as indeed, they are NOT modular.
Not true. Most (not all) tablets are in fact modular in that the CPU and GPU operate independently of one another. Case in point, the Apple A7 uses a dual-core 64-bit SOC processor and PowerVR G6430 graphics chip. The Samsung uses the Exynos 5 Octa processor with a Mali-T628 MP6 graphics chip. Your definition of modular is fundamentally flawed in that you think it pertains to physical ability for individual items to removed/replaced. Modular infers to the actual architecture of the system in that several different parts from different manufactures are integrated together to function as a whole unit.
Ninjawithagun,
Tablets are not modular like a pc... whilst it may have been good for the author the resolution issue with these benchmarks, an apples to apples comparison of the individual components would NOT help the user decide which unit as a whole is the fastest as indeed, they are NOT modular.
Not true. Most (not all) tablets are in fact modular in that the CPU and GPU operate independently of one another. Case in point, the Apple A7 uses a dual-core 64-bit SOC processor and PowerVR G6430 graphics chip. The Samsung uses the Exynos 5 Octa processor with a Mali-T628 MP6 graphics chip. Your definition of modular is fundamentally flawed in that you think it pertains to physical ability for individual items to removed/replaced. Modular infers to the actual architecture of the system in that several different parts from different manufactures are integrated together to function as a whole unit.
This does not argue to the point. Here's a fact and the crux of the matter... An apples to apples comparison of gpu's and processors does NOT tell the user how apps will perform on tablet x when constrained by their other components be it amount of ram, screen res, gpu, cpu etc.
i.e. benchmarks are not "fundamentally flawed" (nor is my understanding and use of the term modular)
FYI, the KitKat update makes the SD card practically useless. Rooting these tablets is frustrating at best, and the KNOX system is the most terrible idea Samsung ever came up with.
Looking back, I should have gotten a Nexus.
FYI, the KitKat update makes the SD card practically useless.
How can it be useless having 128 gb for music and videos/pictures? Maybe you can afford spotify and paying 15 dollars every month for an upgraded dropbox account, but many people don't, or even if they do, they do not have a reliable LTE signal 24/7.