Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Review

When the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 was announced last year, its bigger brother, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 was announced along with it but it was released later than the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 was the third generation of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and it is the current flagship tablet of Samsung. That flagship title will soon be placed on its much larger tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2. I applaud Samsung for giving us more screen sizes but it also gives confusion on their products. Anyway, why don’t you check out my review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 after the break.

The construction of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 was pretty much the same with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 except that the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 was larger. The Faux-leather back is still present at the back and there’s the plastic lined chrome sides which prevents it from slipping from your hand. I really love the looks and feel of the faux-leather back because it adds the feel of a notebook thanks to that textured back and the stitches on the sides. The faux-leather back also adds more grip to the tablet. Again, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 feels like a giant Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

The 10.1” display of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 looks really great thanks to that high pixel density and wide viewing angles. Because of the high resolution display of the tablet, paintings on the tablet were more accurate and sharp. After using many Android tablets, I think the perfect size for an Android tablet is still between 7”-8” but don’t worry, there are already a lot of Android apps that are already optimized for the 10” displays like Twitter. Just like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the sunlight legibility of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 was great too.

The bezel of the tablet wasn’t that big too and the size of it was just right. Holding it in one hand feels just right too but sometimes I accidentally press the capacitive buttons. Those capacitive buttons were made to bring a unified design to their smartphone line but these buttons were kinda awkward for a 10.1” tablet because of accidental press at portrait mode. The button was placed in the middle which is a little bit hard to reach when you’re holding the tablet using two hands.

Only the WiFi variant is available in the Philippines. Yep, there’s No LTE version here unless you buy a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 from other countries. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 uses a MicroUSB 2.0 instead of 3.0. That’s why you’ll have a slower transfer rates from your PC to your tablet. Samsung explained it to me before that they’ve used 2.0 instead of 3.0 because this tablet isn’t really made to rely on PCs/Macs.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 also sports a larger 32 GB of internal storage with expandable storage via MicroSD card slot. I guess, the 32 GB storage is already enough unless you want to store all your HD movies and games on your Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Anyway, there’s OTG if you want to use your external hard disk or USB. I barely used my OTG on the tablet though.

The variant that we’ll be getting is the one that has an Exynos Octa-core processor and it was the first time that I’ve used a device with Octa-Core Exynos processor. Don’t worry, the Exynos was powerful too just like the LTE variant’s Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. There’s a 3 GB of RAM inside which is already enough for multi-tasking and Multi-window. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 is definitely one of the most powerful Android tablet around.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 shines on the battery side. No, not literally. This tablet is rated at 8220mAh and it was able to last up to 10 hours of mid-heavy use. It was quite impressive for me. The speaker were placed on the upper side of the tablet which is nice because probably, your hand won’t block the speaker grill. The audio quality of the tablet was great too.

A Galaxy Note device wouldn’t be complete without the stylus included in it. The S-Pen included in the tablet feels better than the previous S-pens that I’ve tried but I guess they haven’t perfected it yet. The S-Pen was placed at the upper back of the tablet but I prefer it to be placed at the lower back instead of the upper back of the tablet. Sketching on the tablet was far better than the previous Note devices that I’ve used thanks to that better S-Pen and crisp display.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 runs on Android 4.3 instead of Android 4.4 Kitkat. It is heavily skinned by Samsung’s Touchwiz UI which causes unwanted lags on the device. Again, if you’re already a user of the Samsung Galaxy smartphones, you won’t have a problem with it since the interface is very similar to the smartphone. I really liked how they did that because it brings less confusion and more familiarity to users. But of course, you would only be familiar to the interface because it is Samsung’s Touchwiz UI.

Just like the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, there were a lot of premium apps that are included on the tablet. To take advantage of the features of some apps, you have to use the S-pen but I barely used those premium apps included on the tablet. I love the WatchOn app on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 but I wasn’t able to open it on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. I don’t know why it keeps on crashing. Basically, most of the apps that you can see on the Samsung Galaxy note 10.1 2014 is very similar to the one in the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. The S-Note app is similar to the one in the Galaxy Note 3 but this one is more optimized for the tablet and we all know that drawing on a larger screen is much better than the smaller one.

The Octa-Core processor inside the tablet is so powerful, all games that I’ve tried didn’t lag a bit. I’ve downloaded Modern Combat 4 and it was seamless and smooth. Remember, this tablet has a resolution of 2560×1600 which means that it needs more power than those flagship phones that we have right now. I also tried Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which is probably one of the most demanding titles on Android right now but this game keeps on crashing after the loading screen but it suddenly worked and I was able to play it for a few minutes. I was very impressed with its gaming performance. However, I believe that Samsung needs to do something and fix their Touchwiz UI which keeps on lagging despite having a very powerful processor. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 got an amazing score of 33862 at Antutu.

The camera of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 is one the best that I’ve seen on a tablet. The camera isn’t the same or better with the one on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 but the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 has a better camera than the Nexus 7 2013. The colors were just right and the images that I took was sharp but still, the lowlight shots that I took are too noisy but the camera flash is already powerful for such environment.

Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 can’t record 4k videos. As far as I know, only the Snapdragon 800 powered Samsung Galaxy device and not the Exynos powered devices could only record 4k videos. But don’t worry, 4k displays are still too expensive and I believe that you won’t need those 4k resolution videos. Check out the video sample below:

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 is one of the most powerful Android tablets that you could avail right now. It might have a very powerful processor that is great for games but you might be disappointed with the Touchwiz UI in where I experienced some lags. The S-Pen and its new features might not be needed by everybody but it’s a nice addition especially if you are into the S-Note, Engineers and Architects would surely love this tablet.