Repairing my Asus Transformer TF300 Tablet

I went to the Asus Service Centre at Burn Road on 7 March 2014 (a Friday) to send my TF300 tablet for servicing. The problem with the power switch button had worsened tremendously, and no matter what technique I tried to depress the button, I just could not get the tablet to power on. I had called the service centre earlier, and was told that because the warranty had already expired, there will be a $60 diagnostic/labour charge. Replacement parts will be charged separately, should I decide to have the unit repaired after their initial investigation. I decided to risk a $60 gamble to send the tablet for repair. If it can be repaired, then I will regain a working tablet for only $60. If the replacement parts were too costly and I decide to not proceed with the repair, then I will only be out by $60.

Trivex Building at Burn Road is just 200 metres from the new Tai Seng MRT station (Circle Line), so getting to the service centre by public transport was relatively easy. The service centre was relatively quiet. There were only 2 customers ahead of me, so I was attended to within 5 minutes.

I showed the service officer the problem with the power switch, and told him that I had been able to, occasionally, power on the tablet. I also told him that if the tablet screen turns off due to sleep mode, it will be very difficult to turn it on because of the power switch problem. The service officer took the tablet, and told me that I will get a call within 5 working days with a quote for the repair.

On the evening (around 4 pm) of 14 March (the next Friday), I got a call from the Asus Service Centre. The service officer told me that there was some problem with the circuit board on the tablet, and a replacement board will cost $848!

Of course, this makes repairing the tablet pointless. At recent electronics fairs held at the Singapore Expo, the TF300 tablet was being sold for just $399. And that is with both the tablet and the keyboard dock. If you exclude the cost of the keyboard dock (which has its own battery), then the tablet itself is probably worth $299. It is a mockery to charge $848 for a replacement motherboard, when buying a brand new device will cost just one-third the amount.

I told the service officer that it does not make sense to repair the tablet. I also told him that I can give the faulty tablet to him so that he can salvage it for spare parts to repair other faulty TF300 tablets. But he said rules and regulations does not allow for this. He then said he will reassemble the tablet, and send me an email later to collect my unit.

Of course, I was pretty disappointed that it was so costly to repair something that appeared so trivial. To me, it is just a problem with the on/off switch, and the fact that I could occasionally get the tablet to turn on doesn't strike me as a cataclysmic fault on the motherboard that required its wholesale replacement.

In my mind, the replacement motherboard should at most cost $120. Together with the labour charge of $60, I estimated a maximum repair cost of $180 (I was willing to pay up to $200). But now, the total cost would be a ridiculous $848 + $60 = $908 to repair an already outdated device! Even Asus itself is selling their latest TF701 table for just $700 (brand new and with one year warranty).

But what hankered me most was the fact that I now have to pay the $60 labour charge to get back my non-working tablet. Although I knew this was a possibility before I sent my tablet to the service centre, the outcome still stung when it came true.

On Tuesday (18 March), Asus sent me the email to collect my tablet from the service centre. I went down the next day (19 March), resigned to the fact that I will have to pay $60 for nothing. However, I have already decided that the best way to make of this situation is to trade in the faulty tablet at the next computer show for a new gadget. Although Asus does not have a trade-in program, HP does, and during the last computer show, HP was offering a $50 trade-in for non-working tablets. If the trade-in promotion is still on, I will trade in the faulty TF300 tablet for one of HP new slates.

After the service officer handed my tablet over to me, I asked him wasn't I suppose to pay the $60 diagnostic fee first? I have seen the other customers ahead of me making payment for the repair charges at a separate cashier counter before they could collect their unit. He smiled and said there is no charge, since no repairs were done.

Immediately, the $60 cloud that had been hanging over my head disappeared, and my spirits were lifted. I thanked him for waiving the $60 charge. It is amazing just how happy a company can make their customers feel by simply doing the right thing, and not charging for something as nebulous as a "diagnostic fee". Sure, Asus have to spend money to run the service centre and to hire the staff to run it, and charging a "diagnostic" fee is not an unscrupulous thing to do to maintain the service centre. But surely this (the cost of maintaining a service centre) is peanuts compared to the advertising cost that they expend  routinely to promote their products? By waiving the $60 fee, Asus goodwill has created a happy customer in me, and I will be more likely to promote Asus products in the future because of this.

And the service centre itself is also a facet of the public relations department for Asus. Unfortunately, Asus service centre is still not top notch. Every one knows that it is ridiculous to charge a customer more for repairing a unit than buying a new one. If Asus is smart, then they should also have their service centre advising the customer to buy a new device, say with a discounted price (e.g. trade-in discount for the faulty device), and allowing the new device to be purchased on the spot. But the Asus service centre does not have a section for conducting such sales, so the opportunity is lost.

If a customer determines that it is ridiculous to pay more to repair than to buy a brand new device, the customer may decide to buy a COMPETITOR's device for the replacement instead of another Asus device. Asus then loses in 2 areas:

1. The customer will be dis-enchanted with Asus for "gouging" on repair charges. Good will/feeling with the Asus brand is lost.
2. Asus will lose the sale of a new device to its competitors.

Happy Postscript

Back home that evening, just as I was about to box the tablet and shelf it into the cupboard, I decided to depress the tablet's power on switch one more time just to confirm that the tablet is truly dead.

And a strange thing happened.

The tablet powered on immediately, displaying the usual lock screen with all my contact information.

I couldn't believe it. Didn't the service centre say that the tablet had a faulty motherboard, and that it was not repaired?

But there it is. The tablet is working, right as rain. And has been doing so for the past 4 days since it came back from the service centre. Some how, when the service centre reassembled the tablet to return it back to me, they must have inadvertently fix the on/off switch problem.

So, Asus had some how "repaired" my tablet despite everything. And thanks to the goodwill from Asus of waiving the diagnostic fee, I did not have to cough out $60 to get it repaired!

I am very happy now that the TF300 tablet is again in good working condition. But since I have now endeared myself to my new Samsung Galaxy Note tablet, I probably won't be using the Asus tablet on a daily basis any time soon.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Tablet

I bought this gizmo last week (01 March 2014) at the IT Show 2014 held at Marina Bay Sands. This is my THIRD Android tablet, and wow, the hardware specifications for this is the most souped up of all the tablets I've owned. If there is one thing about Samsung, they really know how to jazz up the hardware specifications.

Why?

I have been living comfortably with the Asus TF300T Transformer tablet for the past one 1.75 years. However, like the Archos tablet before it, the Asus tablet has been stricken with a power button problem. On the Monday evening of 24 February, I found great difficulty pressing the power button to turn on the Asus tablet display. I tried depressing the power button for 10 seconds to force a reboot, and occasionally, the tablet will reboot and then proceed to function normally. But once the tablet goes to sleep, I will face the same difficulty in getting the tablet to turn on again.

As the tablet is already one year and nine months old, the warranty has expired. So this was a great opportunity to excuse myself to splurge on a new tablet.

I wouldn't mind getting the Asus TF701T tablet as I like the build of Asus tablets. But unfortunately, the Asus TF701T is stuck with an outdated version of Android 4.2.

Ever since Google introduced Android 4.3 last year (July 2013), I had been waiting for Asus to come up with their firmware update for this. Android 4.3 fixes a very critical flaw in earlier versions of Android (4.2.x and earlier) with regard to Flash Memory support. The earlier versions of Android did not implement a function known as TRIM, which is critical for the proper functioning of computing devices using solid state storage. 

When you erase a file from the internal storage, the space that was previously occupied is marked as free for use. However, the storage space cannot actually be reused unless the flash memory is first "erased". Because Google forgot to implement TRIM support in Android 4.2.x and earlier, the storage space that can actually be used became lesser and lesser, even though the OS indicates that there is plenty of "free space". And the only way to "erase" the flash memory to reclaim the "free space" was to do a factory reset of the tablet.

With my old Asus tablet, running Android 4.2.1, I had performed this factory reset twice to clear the flash memory problem. After every 6 to 9 months, the device will slow to a crawl because the OS cannot find any real "free space" in the flash memory to write new files, even though the OS was reporting 16 GB of "free space" - all bogus. After the factory reset, the tablet will run like the wind for the next few months, until all the flash memory is filled up again.

With TRIM support in Android 4.3, the OS is able to "erase" the flash memory properly and reclaim the space dynamically. This eliminated the gradual slowdown of the tablet after a few months of use. 

Unfortunately, Asus appear to have diverted its attention to Windows 8 tablets, and have stopped the Android support for their flagship products like the TF300T. There is no Android 4.3 firmware update for every single Asus Android tablet excepting the Nexus 7 (Google provides the firmware updates for the Nexus devices). When Google released Android 4.4, which boasts of more efficient memory use, and Asus is still introducing Android tablets with Android 4.2, I decided to abandon Asus for a manufacturer who is more current with providing the latest versions of Android.

Strangely enough, in Singapore, the only manufacturer of Android tablets (non-Nexus) with Android 4.3 or later is Samsung! (Lenovo, Acer, Sony, Toshiba, as well as Asus - only had Android 4.2 tablets).

It is imperative for me that any new Android purchase include the Android 4.3 OS as a minimum, given my experience with the TRIM problem with flash memory. This means that my choice had been narrowed to just Samsung.

Now, although the Nexus devices will always have the latest Android version, I have already discounted Nexus devices because they do not have a MicroSD card slot. Despite all proclamations by Google, a MicroSD card slot is a must-have if you intend to keep a lot of media files like MP3, JPG/PNG, MP4 on your device. The internal storage of the device is never sufficient. The promise of cloud storage is absolutely bogus because transferring a GB of files over wi-fi is extremely slow, and if on 3G or LTE, you will pay through the nose for each GB of data you transfer over those networks. 

So for me, devices without MicroSD slots are ruled out.

Coincidentally, my Asus tablet failed on the same week as the IT Show 2014. And at the exhibition, Samsung introduced a new 12.2 inch tablet (the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 Wi-Fi) retailing at S$1098, and slashed the price of the Galaxy Note 10.1 Wi-Fi (2014 Edition) by S$100 (from S$798 to S$698). Their internal specs were comparable, so I decided to get either one of them. However, because I mainly use my tablet as an e-book reader and for browsing the internet, the 12.2 inch tablet was actually too large to use comfortably. It weighed 750 grams, and will be unwieldy to hold while standing in the MRT train. The 10.1 inch tablet only weighed 540 grams (which is actually 110 grams lighter than the Asus TF300T tablet), and whose smaller form factor is one that I have already grown accustomed to, and would also be easier to handle inside a crowded train. The fact that it is S$400 cheaper than the 12.2 inch tablet also clinched the deal for me.  

Impressions

A comprehensive detailed specification for the tablet can be found at various sites:

• GSMArena
• Samsung

There are also very comprehensive reviews about the tablet by professional news organisations. So, I will not cover them in this post. Instead, I will describe my personal opinion about the ones that I care about most:

3 GB RAM

This tablet comes with a whopping 3 GB of RAM. Most other tablets have only 1 GB of RAM. As most users should know, performance is better with more RAM.

However, despite the provision of so much RAM, the user interface on the tablet still stutters. There are comments that this is due to Samsung's TouchWiz interface being too resource hungry/poorly programmed.

In fact, I don't face the kind of lag/stuttering on my Asus Transformer.

Another interesting thing is the reappearance of frequent Forced Close issues when running programs. I have not experience this problem for a long time with my Asus Transformer tablet, and that has a meagre 1 GB of RAM. But the Samsung tablet faces this problem very frequently. In fact, I am encountering a Forced Close problem almost daily.

The Asus Transformer comes with a very lightly tweaked interface, so the bulk of the OS is almost pure Android. TouchWiz modifies Android quite heavily, so I suspect that all these Forced Close issues - despite the generous 3 GB RAM, must be due to poor memory handling by the TouchWiz interface.

Hopefully, future software updates (including Android 4.4) will fix these TouchWiz problems.  

2560 x 1600 pixel 10.1 inch Super LCD Screen

Small fonts are easier to read on this screen than the Asus TF300T, which only has a 1280 x 800 pixel 10.1 inch screen. Letters are indeed sharper and more legible. 

On my Asus tablet, I typically set the screen brightness to 10%. For this Samsung tablet, I need to set the brightness to 20% for the same level of reading comfort. 

2560 x 1600 pixel (approx 299 pixel per inch) may be overkill for reading, and drains more battery power. But this is the trend for displays.

Also, I suspect that the high resolution display is partly the cause of the lagginess/stuttering problem with the user interface. The Asus tablet, despite its lower 1280 x 800 resolution, never has the laggy/jerky/stuttering problem that I find with the Samsung tablet. The jerkiness is especially noticeable when browsing a big web site.

Also, I believe that the high resolution display is responsible for the "warmness" of the tablet. Even when I am just running my e-reader (CoolReader) or my browser (Dolphin) program (with "Power Saving" mode enabled), the tablet feels warmer to the touch than the Asus tablet.  

32 GB Built In Storage / SDHC microSD Slot (supports up to 64 GB)

The tablet comes with 32 GB of built-in storage, like my old Asus tablet. However, because of bundled apps ("bloatware"), the Asus tablet gave me only 27 GB free. The Samsung tablet was bundled with bigger apps, and out of the box, I only had 25 GB free.

This is why it doesn't make sense to get tablets with built in storage of 16 GB or less. With 7 GB already taken up by the system and bundled apps, a 16 GB machine will only be left with 9 GB of storage. 9 GB is probably insufficient if you intend to load a lot of programs or store lots of files (particularly media files). I am curious why Samsung bother to even produce tablets with only 16 GB of built-in storage. For such premium products, surely 32 GB should be the minimum?

I like the fact that there is sliding door cover over the microSD slot. In the Asus and Archos forums, there have been reports of people losing their microSD cards when they pressed the card in the microSD slot accidentally and ejected the card out of tablet. On the Samsung, this will not happen because of the cover door.

Unfortunately, the price of 64 GB microSD cards are still very expensive. While I can get a 32 GB microSD card for $22, a 64 GB card retails for $70. For $70, I can buy three pieces of 32 GB microSD cards (96 GB of storage in total).

Exynos Octa-Core CPU

The tablet uses Samsung's Exynos CPU, which contains 4 cores of Cortex-A15 running at 1.9 GHz, and another 4 cores of Cortex-A7 running at 1.3 GHz. And although there are 8 cores, the CPU can only activate either the four A15 cores, or the four A7 cores, but never the 8 cores simultaneously. The faster (and more battery draining) A15 cores are used for "heavy/resource intensive" tasks (playing games, multi-tasking), while the slower A7 cores are used for light tasks such as downloading emails in the background/maintaining the alarm clock.

In comparison, my Asus tablet runs on an Nvidia Tegra 3 CPU with a quad core Cortex-A9 running at 1.2 GHz. 

However, as I have enabled "Power Saving" mode on my Samsung tablet, I presume that to mean that the CPU will typically use only the four Cortex-A7 cores running at 1.3 GHz, which might speed-wise be the same as my Asus tablet.   

S-Pen

I won't be using the S-Pen stylus much, since I am primarily using my tablet as an e-reader. However, I like its availability. There are many possibilities for using a stylus if you are doing sketching, or if you prefer to jot down notes in freehand. I can also see commercial applications making use of the stylus for signatures. However, if I were to develop an Android app using the stylus, it may be restricted to just the Galaxy Note tablets manufactured by Samsung.

Another problem I have with the stylus is that my worry that it will "scratch" the screen. This is a common problem with the Windows Mobile PDA/phones and the Palm Pilots I owned many years ago. It is necessary to protect the screen from stylus scratches by affixing a screen protector. However, in the user manual, Samsung do not encourage using a screen protector as it will cause the Wacom digitizer (the S-Pen) to not work properly. Perhaps the famed Gorilla Glass is "scratch" resistant, and is thus less proned to scratches unlike the earlier devices. But I won't test this out as I simply won't be using the S-Pen that constantly.

Magnetic Sensor / Tablet Casing

One advantage of buying a Samsung tablet is the range of third party accessories available. For my Archos and Asus tablets, I simply could not any tablet cases from third-party manufacturers, and always had to buy the "expensive" ones from the manufacturer. The Archos case was actually $80 (although I bought it at $45 at a clearance sale after a year of waiting), while I bought my Asus sleeve case for $68.

For Samsung tablets, third-party cases were widely available, and at the IT Show, I saw a fair number of cases for the Galaxy Note 10.1. However, Samsung actually produced an earlier "Galaxy Note 10.1" (model N8000) and the new "Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition)" (model SM-P600), and their form factors are just different enough that a case that fits the N8000 will not fit the SM-P600. Luckily, I did a Google search and learnt of the difference, so I made sure I bought a case that fits the SM-P600 model.

The case that I bought is from a manufacturer called Kakusiga. It is a pretty nice white "book cover" case for a reasonable price of $25.

After I inserted the tablet into the casing (some force is needed to seat the tablet inside the plastic protective shell - watch this Youtube video for an idea on how the plastic shell looks like), I discovered that I was actually able to turn off the tablet by simply closing the lid over the front of the tablet. Apparently, there is a magnet embedded in the lid, and when the tablet's magnetic sensor detects the magnet, the tablet turns itself off. When the cover is opened, the tablet will automatically turn itself on.

Although it was quite magical to see the automatic turning on and off of the tablet by simply opening or closing the lid, I discovered 2 big problems.

1. When opening the cover, I will flip the lid from the front of the tablet all the way to the back of the tablet. Unfortunately, the tablet's magnetic sensor is too strong, and it detects the presence of the magnet even when the lid is over the back of the tablet, and powers off the tablet.
   
   This has been really problematic because I need to fold the lid over the back of the tablet so that I can hold the tablet with one hand for my e-reading. So every time I open the lid and fold it over to the back of the tablet, the tablet will power on, and then immediately power off. I have to press the Home key to power on the tablet again.
    
2. Even though the tablet is now powered on, because the tablet detects the presence of the lid's magnet, Samsung's TouchWiz software is "tricked" into thinking that the lid is covering the front of the tablet. Because of this, TouchWiz will not allow me to open the Android Notification Tray by swiping down from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen. If I want to open the Notification Tray, I must first flip the lid away from the back of the tablet so that it doesn't touch the back of the tablet.
   
   This is really irritating because when I receive an e-mail notification, or if I wish to activate or deactivate wi-fi/bluetooth/flight mode, or if I want to adjust the screen brightness, I cannot easily open the Notification Tray via the downward swipe if the lid is touching the back of the tablet. I must first separate the lid from touching the back before I can open the Notification Tray. But if I then fold the lid back over the tablet's back, the magnetic sensor will then proceed to power off the tablet.

I searched the forums, but was not able to find any suggestion about a software setting that can disable the magnetic sensor. Despite the plethora of settings available to configure TouchWiz, there is not a single one for disabling the magnetic sensor to automatically power on or power off the tablet. 

In fact, most of the other people who have been aggravated with the same problem resorted to buying a new tablet case - one without a magnet on the lid. However, as the current case costs $25, buying a non-magnetic case seems a waste of money. Hopefully, Samsung will provide some way to disable the magnetic sensor in a future update in the firmware.

I was hoping that there was an app that will provide this capability. I found one called Magnet Unlocker  by Rubber Big Pepper that seemed to fit the bill, but unfortunately, I can't get it to disable the magnetic switching. The app itself was a bit confusing. There is a checkbox called:

[  ]  Unlock device using magnetic field sensor

[  ]  Lock device using magnetic field sensor

And there are 2 buttons labelled [Enable Unlocker] and [Disable Unlocker]

I tried all combinations that are possible, but it didn't perform what I wanted. I think this app is designed for tablets that have a magnetic sensor, but whose firmware do not provide the magnetic switch on/off capability. For such tablets, running this app will provide the capability to turn off the tablet by closing the lid. Unfortunately, this app cannot disable the magnetic switch on/off functionality provided by another program such as the TouchWiz that is already running.

Charging via the Micro USB Port

One of my complaints with my Archos and Asus tablets were their use of proprietary chargers. With the Note 10.1, I can finally charge the tablet via its micro USB 2.0 port. As Asus was charging $60 for the proprietary TF300 charger, I gave up on the idea of buying a 2nd charger to carry around with me. I do not have this problem now that I can charge from anywhere using just a standard micro USB 2.0 cable. The ability to finally charge the tablet via the micro USB 2.0 port was a godsend.

However, charging over the micro USB 2.0 port is extremely slow. The Asus tablet can be charged from 15% to 100% in just 1 hour using its proprietary charger. With the Samsung tablet and its provided USB charger, it took almost 1 hour to charge from 15% to 25% ! Charging the tablet to 100% took another 7.5 hours. 

Also, Samsung provided a micro-USB cable that was just 1 metre long. That is too short. Asus did the right thing with its proprietary charger by providing a cable that was 2 metres long. Trust me, if the power outlet is near the floor, a 1 metre long cable will not be able to reach the top of the table. 

As I did not want to put my tablet on the floor every time I need to charge it, I spent $10 to buy a 2 metre long micro USB cable from the Popular Book Store at Northpoint. It is really surprising that the Challenger outlet at Northpoint did not stock micro USB cables (they had a lot of Apple iPhone cables though). The other computer retailer, CyberActive, did sell micro USB cables, but they were only 1 metre long (and cost $10 too), which was what I already had. Thus, I was really surprised that I could get what I wanted - a 2 metre long micro USB cable - from a non-computer retailer such as Popular.

Battery Life - 7.5 Hours

Due to the premium hardware specs on this tablet, the battery depletes pretty rapidly. According to many review sites, a full battery charge will run down in approximately 7.5 to 8.5 hours. Coincidentally, that is also the amount of time I took to charge the battery from 15% to 100%.

The wi-fi is a big drain. With wi-fi activated, I lose about 10% of battery per hour. If I activate Flight Mode - which turns off all wi-fi radios - the battery loses only 5% per hour. The battery duration is not as fantastic as the one on the Archos (10+ hours with wi-fi) or the Asus (9+ hours with wi-fi). Battery life is a price we pay dearly with for all this fanciful hardware that comes with the tablet.

In fact, Asus was selling the Asus T100 Windows 8.1 tablet for a mere $599, which boasts of an 11 hour battery life. Lenovo was selling an Android Yoga tablet for just $529 which claims an 18 hour battery life. However, the Asus T100 runs Windows 8.1, and I despise the Metro interface (I prefer the home screens and icons and widgets design of Android). The Lenovo was interesting, but its specs were very similar to my spoilt Asus Transformer TF300T, and having already used that for close to 2 years, I just wanted a tablet that was more powerful than the Asus TF300T. How nice it would be if the powerful specs on the Note 10.1 tablet was also accompanied by an 18 hour battery!

The Note 10.1 tablet uses an 8220 mAh Lithium polymer battery. One of the free gifts with my tablet purchase was a 9000 mAh Power Pack. Samsung was wise to include a Power Pack that has enough capacity to fully charge the tablet. However, this 9000 mAh power pack is bulky and heavy. Also, it took almost a full day to charge it with the Note 10.1 USB charger. According to the manual, it requires 18 hours to charge the battery pack using the USB charger! 

It is unfortunate that Samsung is not able to provide faster charging for these tablets. The new 12.2 inch tablets from Samsung (the Galaxy Note Pro 12.2) comes with a micro USB 3.0 port. I wonder if the new USB 3.0 port on the Note Pro 12.2 provides faster charging than the Note 10.1 USB 2.0 port.

Software

Samsung provided its own Samsung Apps store. I discovered that the tablet came with the following freebies which were useful to me:

• 50 GB of Dropbox for 2 years
• Evernote Premium for 1 year

The full list of software freebies can be seen here. There were quite a number of free software (New York Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek), but I don't find them as useful. They were automatically downloaded and installed from the Samsung Apps store after I have set up my tablet.

The presence of this alternative app store just serves to highlight how amazing the Google Play store is. It is possible to use the web site of Google Play to download apps to any of my Android devices. However, this is not possible with the Samsung Apps web site, so apps that I want to install from Samsung Apps must be done via the app already pre-installed on the tablet. Also, some of the apps require using KIES to download and install on the tablet. That is not really user friendly.

Samsung did this because they wanted an independent store that will also work with their Windows Phone and Tizen devices besides Android. However, the execution is quite mediocre. It reminds me of the TouchWiz experience. Although TouchWiz has a lot of things going for it, its laggardly behaviour is quite disappointing, reflecting poorly on the polish of Samsung software/programming skills. The Samsung Apps store is another facet of this.

However, Samsung has come a long way. When I bought my first Samsung feature phone (the Ultra Edition 8.4), the software that accompanied it was absolutely dreadful. Later, when I bought the Samsung Galaxy S (Super LCD), the software was still bad, but significantly improved. Although the software/firmware on the Note 10.1 is bloated and suffers from sluggish performance, stuff like Multi View, Air View and Air Command are nothing short of amazing.

As I don't use the stylus much, I don't use Air View or Air Command as extensively. But Multi View is something that I use almost every day, as it allows multi-tasking (2 concurrent apps) on Android, something which even Google Nexus devices do not have.

Multi View is how Microsoft should have done their original Metro multitasking interface when Windows 8.0 was first launched. In Metro, the widths of the 2 running tasks were hardcoded to 75% and 25% of the screen width. Multi View allows the user to decide how to resize the width of the 2 concurrent windows.  

In Air Command, you can use the stylus to draw a Pen Window to run another app in a user resizeable/moveable window. Pen Window however is restricted to running a few apps within the small window, unlike Multi View which seems to support a larger number of apps.

I do have a quibble. The S-Pen software doesn't seem to offer a good handwriting recognition utility that will work with any third party app. In the Windows 8 tablets, there is a pretty good handwriting recognition utility that will work with Notepad, Wordpad, or any other program. The S-Pen handwriting recognition seems to work only with the S Note app, but not with other apps.

 

Final Thoughts

The pace of hardware innovation on tablets is slowing. New iterations of tablets generally come with more RAM, more storage, more screen area, more CPU cores, more camera mega-pixels. There isn't any new breakthrough component that will make one gasp with excitement. 

With hardware improvements plateauing, the only way for manufacturers to stand out is with more gimmicks (thumb print scanner), or with more innovative software. As the hardware that Samsung is providing is already top notch, Samsung should strive to improve on the firmware/software by optimising the tablet for performance or battery life. I hope Samsung will roll out the update to Android 4.4 for the Note 10.1 quickly, and to vastly improve its responsiveness.