Verdict
Hands-on – The tablet that wants to be a TV
Samsung’s made a big tablet with a handle. By big I mean 18.4-inches, which is huge. Most laptops have 13 and 15-inch screens, so the Galaxy View is in a different league of big.
The reason is straightforward: it’s a TV. Well, it’s a tablet – it runs Android and does all those Androidy things. But Samsung’s pitch is that’s it’s the perfect tablet for watching TV in bed, on the sofa, in the kitchen and anywhere else you fancy watching TV.
To that end, Samsung’s included a kind of video service hub that’s designed for the huge screen. It’s nothing special, though, just a big set of tiles that launches various video services.
More interesting is the design of the Galaxy View. It has a built-in ‘2-way’ stand with a handle for toting it about the home.
The best way I can describe the stand is that it’s like those laptop stands you can buy – the ones that stop your laptop from burning your thighs. It tilts back and forth depending on how you want to use it, and it’s designed to sit comfortably in your lap.
I can’t speak to that point as I didn’t get the chance to sit down with the Galaxy View, but I had plenty of time to admire it’s bigness.
So much so, I really struggle to understand why it’s quite as big as it is. I can kind of see, within reason, the appeal of a big tablet for TV – I watch Netflix on my iPad at home all the time.
But the difference between a 10-inch tablet and this is astronomical. I can’t help thinking it could feel clumsy – will it fit where I want it in my kitchen, for example?
I only hesitate in dismissing it because I remember dismissing the original Galaxy Note because it was too big, and we all know how that worked out.
Beyond size, the specs of the Galaxy View seem unremarkable enough. Its screen is only a Full HD LCD, but that’s somewhat understandable – a higher resolution screen would be prohibitively expensive at this size.
It uses Samsung’s Octo-core 1.6GHz processor, so it’ll be more than fast enough, and Samsung claims it will last 8.5 hours of video playback. There’s 32GB of built-in storage and somehow Samsung has found space for a microSD slot as well – an amazing feat.
But, aside from its size, the Galaxy View is an unremarkable thing. It’s plastic, it’s black – it doesn’t look especially memorable, but that’s not a problem.
Does the world need an 18-inch tablet? Probably not, but I could be wrong. Let us know your first impressions on the comments.
How we test tablets
We test every tablet we review thoroughly. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly and we use the tablet as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
