Help Tab performance and setup disappointing.

[shrike2000]

I picked up a new Tab yesterday to take it for a test drive. It's going to be used by my wife for her business, but being the techie in the family I get to figure it out and pass on what I've learned. I was excited about the Tab as I've owned an HTC Evo for a while and was looking forward to a larger device. What I've learned is that as-is, the Tab isn't going to work.

I want it to work, I really do. Maybe it's just that I don't know enough about the device to make it work the way I want it to. That's why I'm posting here. I hope to get some advice on the Tab.

The first thing I did when I got home with it was to download some movies on to the SD card. I was flying out in a few hours and wanted to watch a movie on the plane. While on the plane waiting for everyone to board, I whip out the Tab and try to start one of the movies. Nothing. The machine sat there with a black screen and eventually locked up. I tried several times to get it to work, but it just wouldn't play the movie.

I thought it might be the player, so in the few moments I had left before they shut the door I downloaded QQ Player. At cruising altitude, I tried watching movies again but only one would play. About halfway through, the Tab locked up again and when I tried to get it to start at the same spot it wouldn't. In fact, I couldn't fast forward to any point in the movie.

I had downloaded Robo Defense before taking off, so I thought I'd play that for a bit. Unfortunately it was so laggy it was unplayable. Strike 2.

I get to my hotel and start setting up Exchange to connect to Microsoft Online Services. Every time I put in the information for the connection, it says it can't find the server. Notably, the domain and user name boxes are separate on my HTC while on the Tab they are in the same box. Don't know if that's an issue, but connecting to MS Online Services doesn't work.

Finally, the Android weather/news/etc widget doesn't seem to know where it is. The Accuweather clock/weather widget works fine, but the Android one can never pull up the local info.

Hopefully all of these things that are going wrong are because I'm doing something incorrectly. Of course, if this is the way it is and I'm just asking too much of this device, please let me know. Thanks.

TL;DR The Tab doesn't perform as well as an HTC Evo

 

[cmcollins001]

I have about 9 movies on my Tab that I downloaded to the SD card, all of which play perfectly, even with the stock player (although I prefer mVideoplayer). I have my work email synced with exchange without any issues what so ever. I can't comment on the stock clock/weather widget as I use a different widget I got from the market.

 

[shrike2000]

Did you have to downsize the movies or are they the same size and quality you'd use on a tv? Regarding exchange, are you syncing with microsoft online managed archives our an actual exchange server? What is your experience with game performance?

 

[lekky]

Sounds like a dodgy tab to me, haven't installed some cpu hungry app?

 

[shrike2000]

Based on what I've seen elsewhere, I'm going to reduce the size of my movies to see if they'll play better. Right now they're big screen quality. For other slowness, I'm trying to manage applications better to see what might be slowing it down.

 

[jonbos]

I just bought the tab and have not loaded much on it. After installing TuneIn Radio and Pandora, I first noticed that the OS was struggling to handle the workload . Very slow to respond. Later that day, and continuing until this very moment it not only freezes up - locks up, as you put it, but the power button has to be pressed repeatedly to get it to power up or power down. I paid the full price for it, preferring not to be bound by a 2-year contract. For that amount of money, I could have bought a relatively trouble-free 16gb Ipad. And that's exactly what I have to do to get my money's worth. I'm saddened and shocked that the tab is not yet ready for the market and yet was rushed out to the stores. Samsung has dealt itself a grievous blow.

 

[jonbos]

I picked up a new Tab yesterday to take it for a test drive. It's going to be used by my wife for her business, but being the techie in the family I get to figure it out and pass on what I've learned. I was excited about the Tab as I've owned an HTC Evo for a while and was looking forward to a larger device. What I've learned is that as-is, the Tab isn't going to work.

I want it to work, I really do. Maybe it's just that I don't know enough about the device to make it work the way I want it to. That's why I'm posting here. I hope to get some advice on the Tab.

The first thing I did when I got home with it was to download some movies on to the SD card. I was flying out in a few hours and wanted to watch a movie on the plane. While on the plane waiting for everyone to board, I whip out the Tab and try to start one of the movies. Nothing. The machine sat there with a black screen and eventually locked up. I tried several times to get it to work, but it just wouldn't play the movie.

I thought it might be the player, so in the few moments I had left before they shut the door I downloaded QQ Player. At cruising altitude, I tried watching movies again but only one would play. About halfway through, the Tab locked up again and when I tried to get it to start at the same spot it wouldn't. In fact, I couldn't fast forward to any point in the movie.

I had downloaded Robo Defense before taking off, so I thought I'd play that for a bit. Unfortunately it was so laggy it was unplayable. Strike 2.

I get to my hotel and start setting up Exchange to connect to Microsoft Online Services. Every time I put in the information for the connection, it says it can't find the server. Notably, the domain and user name boxes are separate on my HTC while on the Tab they are in the same box. Don't know if that's an issue, but connecting to MS Online Services doesn't work.

Finally, the Android weather/news/etc widget doesn't seem to know where it is. The Accuweather clock/weather widget works fine, but the Android one can never pull up the local info.

Hopefully all of these things that are going wrong are because I'm doing something incorrectly. Of course, if this is the way it is and I'm just asking too much of this device, please let me know. Thanks.

TL;DR The Tab doesn't perform as well as an HTC Evo

I thought I was doing something wrong too, until I read your post. That makes 2 of us who have experienced the Tab not able to perform well. I'm returning mine today.

 

[jonbos]

New update. The system unresponsiveness and sluggishness appears to have been resolved by resetting the device to factory settings. But I bought the device to use it as I please, not to be limited to the factory settings. Having restored the factory settings, and restored the Galaxy Tab's natural pep, vigor and zip, T-mobile will not be able to accuse me of damaging it in some way and I should get a full refund. I so wanted to stick it to Steve Jobs and his stubborn refusal to add an SD card slot as a feature on the iPad, and his refusal to support Flash. But, I must say, I'm beginning to believe that if the Galaxy Tab has failed to slay Emperor iPad, no one will. I'm waiting no longer - iPad 2.0, here I come!!

 

[mcampellone]

New update. The system unresponsiveness and sluggishness appears to have been resolved by resetting the device to factory settings. But I bought the device to use it as I please, not to be limited to the factory settings. Having restored the factory settings, and restored the Galaxy Tab's natural pep, vigor and zip, T-mobile will not be able to accuse me of damaging it in some way and I should get a full refund. I so wanted to stick it to Steve Jobs and his stubborn refusal to add an SD card slot as a feature on the iPad, and his refusal to support Flash. But, I must say, I'm beginning to believe that if the Galaxy Tab has failed to slay Emperor iPad, no one will. I'm waiting no longer - iPad 2.0, here I come!!

I love your comments. I have had my iPad since day one and I love it! I have the iPad 1, 64GB model and it FAR outperforms this tablet. I bought my Galaxy Tab just because I wanted an Android device to play with, and I got it through Verizon. My last day to return it would have been a couple days ago (I am going on 3 weeks with mine now so I ran over the 14-day return point), and I am frankly VERY disappointed with it now. I have a couple other posts on here about SIMPLE things, like disappearing icons from the desktop, dodgy WiFi performance, and other issues like stuttering and lockup. I am not happy with having to keep factory settings either. So - I have an expensive brick now, and I am locked into a two-year data plan with Verizon.

Sheer boredom with life drove me to buy this tablet so I would have a new toy to play with. Will I never learn? I am truly hoping through this forum that I will be able to get this to a point where it is at least workable enough to be a bedside YouTube browser and email checker and play some simple puzzle games, but so far - nope, not happy.

Thanks for sharing your post!

Mike

 

[clitrenta]

Sorry but this is one vote for the Tab. I actually bought a show from the Media Hub and it worked great. I also tried playing a movie that I had ripped myself. This I played using the Allshare app (the movie itself was on my computer) and it too played flawlessly. So while I can appreciate that it doesn't work the way some of you are using it, it works great for me. Shoot, even the app "PrinterShare" works great. I can print to my wireless printer at home while I'm work. Very cool.

 

[mcampellone]

Sorry but this is one vote for the Tab. I actually bought a show from the Media Hub and it worked great. I also tried playing a movie that I had ripped myself. This I played using the Allshare app (the movie itself was on my computer) and it too played flawlessly. So while I can appreciate that it doesn't work the way some of you are using it, it works great for me. Shoot, even the app "PrinterShare" works great. I can print to my wireless printer at home while I'm work. Very cool.

Hi there! DON'T be sorry, not at all - I am very happy that the Tab is working for you the way you need it to. I think the main problem that I am seeing here, is that we (a lot of us posters) don't really know how to use it to the fullest. In my case, I just lack patience. I want the simple point-and-click ease that I am used to with i-Devices, and I need to just dig deeper. Like some of the other posters, I noticed that as I added more of my own assp that I particularly like, it makes it slower and slower - so I am fairly certain it is something that we are doing.

I just wish it was simpler than it is - I don't want to have to "manage" any device; I want it to just work for me, plain and simple.

At any rate - I am a realy cover collector - it's a huge fetish of mine. I have the Otterbox defender, along with a Frogz and a few others - I love changing them out. This device is at least giving me something DIFFERENT to play with, other than an i-Device.

I just hope someone can come up with at least an IDEA as to what I can do to workaround my icon and WiFi issues.

Have a great weekend,

Mike

 

[clitrenta]

Well mc, I think that was the whole purpose behind Apple products, to make something that takes little or no effort to use. While that is great for people who don't know how to figure out things or who simply don't want to, I think the purpose of Android was to make it so you could do a lot more. Of course, that also requires that you do more and probably also learn more. It's a tinkerer's OS. I wouldn't recommend an Apple product to anyone unless they simply want something that works out of the box and don't want to or can't figure out how to do things. My hubby would defintely be an Apple guy. He'll use the phone exactly how it is when he opens it and doesn't really care abut figuring out how to do things. So long as it does what he wants right off, he doesn't care what elese it can do. Sad. Still, it is what it is. Me, I'd get totally bored with an ipad/iPhone because I NEED to be able to constantly change the look of things. I LIKE being able to have widgets and different wallpapers on it. Just having a screen full of icons doesn't work for me. Besides, the size of the Tab is much more suited to me carrying it around in my bag. I'd never carry that iPad around all the time. To big. Nothing against it because it works for some people but I prefer the Tab's form factor.

 

[mcampellone]

Well mc, I think that was the whole purpose behind Apple products, to make something that takes little or no effort to use. While that is great for people who don't know how to figure out things or who simply don't want to, I think the purpose of Android was to make it so you could do a lot more. Of course, that also requires that you do more and probably also learn more. It's a tinkerer's OS. I wouldn't recommend an Apple product to anyone unless they simply want something that works out of the box and don't want to or can't figure out how to do things. My hubby would defintely be an Apple guy. He'll use the phone exactly how it is when he opens it and doesn't really care abut figuring out how to do things. So long as it does what he wants right off, he doesn't care what elese it can do. Sad. Still, it is what it is. Me, I'd get totally bored with an ipad/iPhone because I NEED to be able to constantly change the look of things. I LIKE being able to have widgets and different wallpapers on it. Just having a screen full of icons doesn't work for me. Besides, the size of the Tab is much more suited to me carrying it around in my bag. I'd never carry that iPad around all the time. To big. Nothing against it because it works for some people but I prefer the Tab's form factor.

LOL - I agree with you Connie. Ironically, I am a computer engineer and I work for a very large nationwide chain of drug stores. I think I fall into the latter of what you mentioned, "don't want to figure out" - I think it's because I am so burned out with technology that by the time I get home and look at my own devices, I don't want to bother. Yes I am lazy LOL - but at least I admit it! LOL LOL....

Did you ever experience the weird "icon disappearing" thing? I notice that the icons that disappear from the home screens are indeed the apps that I have installed on the SD card. Any of the apps installed on-board don't have that problem. I just hate having to rebuilt my desktops when this happens.... Do you have any ideas or third-party launchers that I might try?

Thanks again,

Mike

 

[clitrenta]

I've not actually installed any apps to the SD card yet so no, I haven't had that problem. I'm an IT person myself but my job doesn't usually involve "fun", just "get it working" stuff. I like my job but it's devices like the Tab and whatever phone I have that give me my "play" time. And lets face it, it's a lot more fun figuring out stuff that you're going to use personally than the stuff you do for work. I guess when I get tired of doing that, I'll just get me an iPhone. It's a great phone but it just wouldn't hold my interest for long. You know? Besides, I don't particularly care for AT&T and Verizon is a little pricey.

 

[lekky]

Sheer boredom with life drove me to buy this tablet so I would have a new toy to play with. Will I never learn? I am truly hoping through this forum that I will be able to get this to a point where it is at least workable enough to be a bedside YouTube browser and email checker and play some simple puzzle games, but so far - nope, not happy.
Mike

Are you telling me its not workable enough to watch youtube, check your email and lay simple puzzle games?

Because it does a hell of a lot more than that for me, out of the box.

With regards to your disappearing icons issue, cant you just install every app internally? Would that not solve the problem?

 

[Furiousposter]

Odd thread this, lol. If you want a Mac OS system and large display, buy the Mac. If you want portablity and android buy the galaxy.
Neither are comparable.

last year I went Mac mad and changed my lap top for a Macbook Pro and my PC for an iMac 27 and though they are quality products they are different to any windows PC, some things are better some are awful. After some months with the Mac OS I divided my HD between windows 7 and Snow leopard so I have the best of both worlds.

I have no idea why I bought my Galaxy pad, I just love techno even though I know zero about this stuff. I do know I so often see people mention anything Mac in glowing terms when in fact Mac stuff is very expensive and has as many software and hardware problems as most others computing products.

I went for the Galaxy as I wanted small. I cannot for the life of me think why one would want to spend a load of cash on an iPad with a large screen when a net book may be better.....Each to his or her own.

I think the Galaxy pad is a bloomin wonderful piece of kit and does what it says on the box. Please dont mention Kies though.
I liked the galaxy pad so much last week I went and purchased the Nexus S. I like that also but again, dont mention Kies.

I say thank heavens for the choice.