Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 or P310 or P3100 Review: Great power at a great price

Phone and messaging

The Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is among those tablets that can make and receive voice calls, and you don’t need earphones for that (although it would look a little weird one holding a 7-inched to your ears and talk though). The GSM radio makes it possible to make calls with the dialer and there is also call logs and favorite contacts etc. just like in a smartphone.

Messaging app is usual with threaded view.

Camera and video recording

The 3.15MP back camera of Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is nothing special, but clicks decent pictures. We expected at least a 5MP camera though. There are options of smile shot, panorama, self-timer, exposure settings, various effects like negative, b & w and sepia – and other general settings. The front camera is VGA and expectedly shows just about enough details, but which also means your video callings are much cheaper – afterall who needs crisp videos while you’re just talking ( except if you have a really beautiful lady on the otherside J )

Moving to video from the camera mode is just one slide. You can customize the size fit for mail or mms. The other settings are mostly similar to that of the still mode. The camera records video at a maximum of 720p.

Multimedia playback

The galley has the pictures organized in the typical Android 4.0 ways, not stacked but in groups of two. No surprises here. It also syncs with your Picasa web album.

The audio interface of the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 has a simple yet detailed layout that we liked. Apart from the usual album, artist, songs etc. listing, it also shows folder navigation which is very useful. In fact even years is a nice little addition. The output through speakers is bold, crisp and not flat. It also does not crackle even at a very high volume.

Video playback is also very smooth, even at the highest level of 1080p playback. The frame rate does not seem to dip much while moving from watching a 720p video to that of a 1080p full HD. The video has an edit option in the menu which takes you to the video editing app. Here you can do some basic editing before sharing your video.

There is no FM radio app.

Organizer

The S Planner organizes your plans and shows them in year, month and day format. We really liked the 3-day format in the Note, but not sure why it was not implemented elsewhere. You can also make agendas and list down the tasks.

Samsung provides its own file explorer on the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 which is basic but nullifies need to install an additional app nonetheless.

Productivity

There is the mail app where you can configure your Exchange account. There is also the Gmail app. The calculator turns to scientific in landscape mode. There is the usual Memo app that does not support pen input. The photo and video editors can be used for basic editing purposes.

Browser

It’s the stock ICS browser with little customization from Samsung. There is that multiple tab pane on top, the desktop view in the menu, incognito window etc. It by default renders the mobile version of your site. Fast but the texts looks hazy while in portrait mode due to the not-so-high resolution of the screen.