Much like the original Samsung Galaxy Tab, the 8.9 pretty much yells for attention, it wants to be caressed and placed into a bag for use when you need it.

Samsung is aiming for the tablet sweet spot with this medium sized Honeycomb device. For such a slim device, it manages to pack in a lot of power, with a 1.2GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor, Honeycomb 3.1 and Samsung’s “Marmite”  TouchWiz UI overlay.

In a nutshell the Tab 8.9 is just a smaller Galaxy Tab 10.1 but with an entry-level price of roughly £400 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and around £500 for a 3G version, can the 8.9 really persuade today’s tablet users that what they really need is something a little smaller and lighter? Read on to find out, as that will be one of many questions we answer in this review.

Design / Hardware…

“In the hand the 8.9 feels just that much lighter, and slightly more easier to hold.”

When I took this device out of the box and held it in my hands, I was pleasantly surprised, previously being a not so proud Motorola Xoom owner, I was quite used to hefty and fat devices, I’m happy to say the Tab 8.9 is not one of them. If you’ve used the Galaxy Tab 10.1 you’ll find that the Tab 8.9 is much more comfortable to hold, the 10.1 was good but the 8.9 is just that much better.

A lot of companies are struggling to find the right size for everyone but Samsung’s had no problem what so ever. Cant find one size for all, then why not just make a variety of different sized tablets, and that’s what Samsungs done by simply shrinking down the 10.1 just by a fraction.

As you can see from the images above, it’s only when you put the Samsung devices side-by-side that you can see the very small differences, they’ve re-positioned the speakers from the sides to the bottom just beside Samsung’s proprietary connector. Other things you’ll find on the Tab 8.9 are the power and volume rockers around the top left edge, and the front facing camera at the top middle of the device, also, as I’m reviewing the 3G version, the SIM card slot is around the top right edge.

The size and weight of the device are pretty much just perfect for one-handed use and it wont strain your wrist as the Xoom did for me. The Tab 8.9 measures in at 9.1 x 6.2 x .34 inches and weighs 447grams, that’s 142grams lighter than the 10.1 which weighs 589g.

In regards to the internals, other than the few little differences, the Tab 8.9 is very similar to the  Tab 10.1, Xoom and other high end tablets, it’s using a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 CPU, it has 1GB of RAM, and is available in both 16gb and 32gb versions. Unlike the Xoom, there’s no memory card slot, I guess Samsung omitted a few things to make the device slim and light, regardless, it would have been better if it was there.

The difference between the 8.9 and the 10.1 isn’t really that obvious on paper, but if you put them side by side as we did, you can quite clearly see what the fuss is about. In the hand the 8.9 feels just that much lighter, and slightly more easier to hold. All in all, the Tab 8.9 is just the perfect size, but obviously, that’s just my opinion. 

Screen…

“Overall the screen is quite vibrant and colourful”

The screen on the Tab 8.9  is very impressive, you get high levels of detail and great colour saturation. At certain times it even looked like it was using Super AMOLED, but obviously that’s not the case. When you tilt the screen, just slightly to the side you do see a fair loss in contrast, but it’s definitely not a deal breaker and the viewing angles are still better than that on the Xoom.

The device has a screen resolution of 1,280×800 pixels, just like most other Android tablets, but because it’s all packed into an 8.9inch screen, you get 30 per cent more higher pixel density, and that makes things look much more sharper and clearer.

Even though the screen is only 8.9inches, in landscape mode you don’t lose that much space when it comes to reading web pages or watching movies but flip the device vertically and things do end up looking smaller. Overall the screen is quite vibrant and colourful, the viewing angles are not that bad but viewing the screen outside was a bit problematic and you tend to see more of your own reflection rather than the content, but then again, name me a none Mirasol screen device that is viewable in sunlight? None that I can think off.  

Camera…

“The Tabs capability is more than enough for a tablet.”

As we’ve pretty much mentioned on most of our Android tablet reviews, aside from the front facing camera, there hasn’t really been much use for the rear facing camera on a tablet. It’s just too large of a device to take pictures with comfortably, but never the less, the camera’s there and I’m sure many of you will want to know how it performs.

The Tab 8.9 comes with a rear facing snapper that takes pictures at 3MP, its got auto focus and a single LED flash. The camera seems to take pictures very quick, much like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, obviously, as expected there is some shutter lag, but if you don’t find taking pictures with a tablet annoying, then that won’t be much of a nuisance to you any ways.

As I’ve mentioned many times now, the 8.9 performs just like the  Tab 10.1, it takes fairly decent shots, but it’s not good enough. If you’ve got the 8.9 outside with you, you most likely have your smartphone with you too, your better off taking pictures with that instead. The rear-facing camera has a very low resolution, but for what it is, it does fairly well. There’s decent amount of  colour and detail, there’s a small LED flash for taking images in darker environments and tap-to-select autofocus works fairly well. The front-facing 2MP camera is better than most other devices but it’s still very grainy in less light situations.

Pictures taken with the Tab 8.9

Day Light Video Sample

Night Video Sample

Just like the Tab 10.1 and Motorola Xoom, the Tab 8.9 is on only capable of recording  at 720p, the Tabs capability is more than enough for a tablet.  I doubt anyone will be taking a Tablet to an event to record video, but if you do, you’ll most likely put it back in your man bag, hand bag or what ever else you use and get that more capable video recording device out that you might also carry with you. Surpisingly the 720p day light video wasn’t half bad, considering it’s a tablet, colours and exposure are fairly good but on the other hand,  the night time video seemed a little bad in my opinion, but definitely not a deal breaker.

Software…

 “The additional features TouchWiz brings to Honeycomb is welcomed.”

I’m not going to delve too much into the software, as it’s pretty much the same as any other Honeycomb tablet, check out our other tablet reviews for more information. I’m going to cover what’s new to the Tab 8.9, so it’ll be a lot more about the changes TouchWiz brings to Honeycomb more than anything else.

The Galaxy Tab 8.9 comes with Android 3.1 and Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, disliked by many on phones, but this time around it doesn’t really intrude too much.  A feature that has been added to Android 3.2 and not available in 3.1, is the ability to re-size widgets, fortunately Samsung added on that feature as an extra to 3.1.

Although TouchWiz doesn’t get in the way much, some may not like the over coloured and cartoon-ish style it brings. In fact, personally I prefer the Vanilla version of Honeycomb, regardless of this, Samsung has added some new stuff, the additional features TouchWiz brings to Honeycomb is welcomed.  You get a dedicated button to take screen-shots, which can be useful to show off your screens online.

The most useful of the new features are the pop-up mini applications, which pretty much can run on top of any application. All together you get a choice of 6 mini-applications, but that’s it, a very few are useful, and the others are not so much.

As with all Honeycomb tablets, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 has five screens, with nifty 3D fading transitions between them. You get a choice of many widgets that you can add to the home screen, Samsung has even thrown in a few widgets of their own, however those tend to slow the device down, thus I chose not to use them.

Just like many of the other applications, Samsung has changed the look of the browser, and you’ll notice that more when you go into the bookmarks section, as I’ve said, I don’t really like the new look but some might. Other than a few cosmetic changes, the browser remains the same, and performs as expected. It runs pretty smooth, and loads pages quite fast, but it does tend to struggle with more heavily loaded websites, in which case it will just close itself, rather odd, but that’s just the way it is. There’s also many other changes Samsung has done, I’m not going to put you to sleep by writing about all of them, simply check out the pictures below and see for yourself.

Benchmarking…

“Real world day to day performance is excellent”

As with all our other dual core android tablet reviews, I’ve used Smartbench 2011 to test the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9.

• Motorola Xoom (3.2)  -  2,800
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1  (3.1)  -  2,600
• Asus Transformer (3.2) – 2,600
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 (3.1) – 2547

Battery…

“The 6,100mAh battery on the Tab 8.9 lasts very long”

So we’ve got a very nice and slim tablet by Samsung, something you would expect to use here and there for many things, so, you would expect it to last a fair amount of time. Well, when it comes to lasting power, the 8.9 does not disappoint at all, all though it doesn’t last quite as long as the 10.1, never the less, it’s still excellent. The 10.1 comes with a 6860mAh battery while the 8.9 comes with a 6000 mAh battery.

I ran a little test to see how long the battery would last, I stitched together a very long video and ran it on the device while timing it, surprisingly it ran over 9 hours before turning itself off. On the basis that most users wont run it none stop for 9 hours, and will most likely use it now and then when they need it, the battery will definitely last them 3 days or so. If you use it slightly more heavily, you should still expect it to last a whole day, so no worries in the battery department.

Conclusion…

“It’s impossible to dislike the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9″

Unlike some other Honeycomb tablets out there, the 8.9 doesn’t lag as much or randomly force close things. It’s well made, very light and extremely comfortable to hold, although the screen is 8.9inches, it’s big enough for browsing the web, checking email and watching films, but also small enough for one-handed use.

For those of you who want to buy a tablet just for home use, you might prefer a slightly larger display, so you should opt for the Tab 10.1 instead. If however, you want to take the tablet out and about with you, the Tab 8.9 is obviously much more portable, but regardless of which one you choose, both the 8.9 and 10.1 are great devices and the difference in cost isn’t much.

As I’ve probably mentioned a few times in this review, the Tab 8.9 is really just the right size, and it fits the sweet spot in terms of portability, of course, as with any device, I do have some annoyances.  The auto-brightness function seems to be too sensitive; I had to turn it off, otherwise the screen brightness kept on changing too much. The front display is prone to smears and fingerprints, so you’ll find yourself constantly wiping the screen even with your sleeves if you have to. Another issue I had with the device is the lack of an HDMI out and SD card slot, you’ll just have to use one of Samsung’s proprietary cables to connect it to your TV, and that’s pretty much it with the issues I faced.

I’ve received quite a few questions through email and YouTube, I hope I’ve answered them in the review but there was one question that a lot of people asked me and that was: does the Tab 8.9 3G support voice calls? Unfortunately out of the box it doesn’t. It’s possible that someone one day might enable it, but as for now you’ll just have to be happy with the ability to send SMS.

Overall, the device is fantastic, it’s pretty much impossible to dislike, it demonstrates the benefits of having a smaller device and of course I would highly recommend the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 if you’re in the market for a tablet.