Galaxy Tab 10.1 Tips and Tricks

Most of my tips and tricks apply to all android devices and are listed on this page:


Galaxy Tab (and Android) Tips and Tricks.

Items I have found specific to the 10.1 are listed below.

Galaxy Tab 10.1 comparison to Galaxy Tab 7

Now that I have owned my new Galaxy Tab 10.1 for two weeks it is time to compare it to the original Galaxy Tab I have owned since the day they went on sale last November. 

The screen and really pretty and the case is really thin and slick.  The screen is really to big to hold in one hand, it is like the Ipad in that you need two hands or one hand plus your lap or something to hold it.

Since I have the WiFi version I don't have any Verizon applications installed that I could never get rid of on my Galaxy 7.  Thankfully Samsung did include Quickoffice so I can view and edit office applications.

The next thing that took me a few days to get used too is the buttons are not the same.  There are no hard buttons on the front, instead there are soft buttons at the bottom of the screen, (no matter what way the screen tips they stay at the bottom).  I cannot figure out why but they also changed the order of the buttons, now the back button is on the far left. Now I am used to the buttons and they are no big deal. 

The Android Market is much bigger with more information showing for applications.  I like it.

TouchWiz Interface

For the first two weeks I just had the Android 3.1 interface which was nice but I missed a few things from my old 7 inch Tab.  A few days ago the TouchWiz upgrade came out for the 10.1 Tab and I found out all the items liked are back. These items included a good alarm clock, movie player, enhanced notification bar with on off switches for common settings, a much better looking version of the settings screens, enhanced versions of email and calendar that are laid out better, and most important a working version of the swipe keyboard.  I also got a few new things that are cool including widgets for: calendar, email, browser shortcuts and weather, the samsung movie player (googles stock movie player would not zoom smaller movies to full screen), a good photo editor, Kies updates and the very cool app bar at the bottom that holds several cool little pop-up applets.  These little apps from the app bar are accessed just by touching the bottom bar and they just float above what ever applications are running.  For example I can click the calculator and it floats on the screen as I move to other applications. 

I noticed that with WiFi on the battery goes down a little faster than it did on my Galaxy 7, but it still lasts for about 6 hours of really heavy use.  If I turn off the WiFi and turn down the screen brightness I can go a couple hours longer.

I now have a bunch of Epub Books so I had to try out some readers.  My two favorite ones are Cool Reader and Aldiko.

How to set up two Galaxy Tabs in one Family

I Purchased Android applications for my first Galaxy Tab under my Google accounts which sync with my gmail and Google Calendar.  I wanted to setup this second Tab to share the same applications but to primarily show my wifes email and calendar with the option for me to see mine.  I am happy to report that I had no problem doing this.  The trick was to when I first got started to use the same Google account to on both Tabs when first powering on the new Tab, then to setup email and calendar with both my wives and my accounts.  Market place then showed all my purchased applications (but not my free ones) on the new tab and started downloading them in about 40 minutes.

Cisco VPN

The upgrade from Samsung promises Cisco VPN support.  So far that includes downloading the Cisco Anyconnect application from the Market which uses SSL.  That will not work for me at my company as we use the older Cisco client that requires both a user and a group user login.  I am pressing our Network guys to upgrade but they will also need to setup a certificate for our VPN to make it secure.  So for me no VPN unless I root my device.  My friend rooted his Galaxy 10.1 before the Touch Wiz upgrade and now he is having problems upgrading his rooted device even though he unrooted it.

Please check out my Main Galaxy Tab page for my tips and tricks.

The tab was turned on then off. Lost start up screen for set up. Its new so needs to be set up. Thanks for the help