Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1)

The Tab 2 (10.1) attempts to strike a balance between price and performance, forgoing hardware upgrades and instead focusing on an improved user experience from Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich."

While it won't win any awards for innovative design, the Tab 2 (10.1) is still an attractively built plastic tablet. At 10.10 by 6.90 by 0.38 inches (HWD) and 1.25 pounds, it is nearly identical in size and weight to the original.

The same 1,280-by-800-pixel TFT display remains, which is a higher resolution than the iPad 2's 1,024-by-768-pixel display.

Android 4.0 is a major upgrade from 3.2 (Honeycomb), but there are still some problems here. Samsung uses its signature TouchWiz Android overlay, and animations like swiping between home screens lack the fluidity found in other ICS tablets, like the TF300, and the mini app tray that was so useful on the 7.0 was often laggy in my tests.

A Wi-Fi only tablet, the Tab 2.0 (10.1) connects to 802.11b/g/n networks and integrates Bluetooth 3.0. The rear-facing 3-megapixel camera from the original Tab 10.1 remains, but the front facing camera has been downgraded from 2 megapixels to VGA resolution.