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Electricpig opinions: Readers rate the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Orange San Francisco, Sony A33 reviewed

Posted: 31 Oct 2010 05:00 AM PDT

The week is done and dusted. But before we wrap things up, it’s time to roundup in bitesize chunks our verdicts on the tech we reviewed this week. This week’s tech includes the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet, Sony A33 Digital SLR and the budget Orange San Francisco Android phone.

Samsung Galaxy Tab review, by you, the readers

Well, seven of you. For those who missed out, or don’t know what we’re talking about, we gave seven Electricpig readers the chance to go hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Tab so that they could tell is what they think.

Our readers discussed four key areas: Size, Android on a tablet, what they’d use it for and price. On the size, our readers were split – but many praised the size of the Samsung Galaxy Tab in comparison to the larger iPad. Reader Dan Robins said “I like the size – I found the iPad too big, it was a bit unwieldy, but this is great. I think it’s perfectly watchable.”

And what of Android on the Galaxy Tab? Chad Potter said it wasn’t "as cool as an iPad…the flicking from portrait to landscape, it's just not as smooth". Simon agreed: "Sometimes it's jut not always responsive…It does seem a little bit slower than what I'm used to when I used the office iPad."

When it came to what they’d use it for, the usual suspects popped up: email, web surfing and watching BBC iPlayer – “just the little things you can do on a laptop…but I want Flash,” Matthew Lyons told us.

Like us, they weren’t too impressed with the video camera, but Ken Liu has a use for it. "Video calling is the sort of thing that does actually have appeal…I video call my mum now and again."

As for pricing, it seems Samsung must do better. Our readers weren’t impressed with its £530-£550 price tag. “"It just feels plasticky. With this it's hard to say you'd pay £500 for something that feels so plastic," Ken baulked.

Niall Johnson also felt it was overpriced, and hinted that he might wait for it to come down in price. "I look at this and it's lovely, but see you in two or three years – the price is insane."

Do you agree with the initial thoughts of our readers? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Sony A33 DSLR reviewed

Reporter, Jennifer Allan got to review the Sony A33 DSLR. Sony was proud of it when they showed it off, but how did it stand up to Jen’s scrutiny? Pretty well, in fact, scoring a fab four stars.

Jen liked how quick and compact it was, but hated its whirring when recording videos. Otherwise Jen goes on describe the Sony A33 as “the perfect entry level DSLR.”

Hit the link above to check out her review for yourself, complete with sample pictures and video.

Orange San Francisco: Budget Android reviewed

Budget phones can perform just as well as high-end handsets. Just ask Andrew Williams. He had the task of reviewing the budget Orange San Francisco Android handset. Any low expectations he had were soon put paid to. He loved its hi-res 3.5-inch AMOLED display for its £99 price, and slim body.

“How has Orange managed to reproduce such high-end features at such a low price? Not a clue, but we're impressed.” OK, so he hated its user interface, and wasn’t too fond of its 3.2 megapixel camera.

“The Orange San Francisco's 3.2-megapixel camera is awful. The autofocus is so slow that you could be forgiven for thinking you'd set it up for a 3-second delay. Even with the hands of a surgeon – and not one of those jittery alcoholic ones you see on TV either – your photos will often come out as a blurry, distorted mess. Yuck.”

But don’t let that put you off. Far from it. Andrew went on to give the Orange San Francisco a full five stars:

“While these shortcomings became evident fairly soon after getting our hands on the Orange San Francisco, we'd urge you to forget them. If you're watching your wallet, this is the best Android phone you could ask for, and it's not that far off phones that would cost you £400 or so, SIM-free.”

Agree or disagree with any of the opinions voiced? Drop us a message in the comments section below.

Video of the week: Nissan Leaf all electric car test driven

Posted: 31 Oct 2010 01:00 AM PDT

Doing its bit for the environment Nissan is soon to release the Nissan Leaf – an all-electric zero emissions producing city car. If you’ve already seen our hands-on of the Nissan Leaf you’ll know we were pretty taken with it. Read on to see why, and have a peep at our hands-on test drive.

The Nissan Leaf shows that owning an electric car doesn’t have to mean losing face losing face in your personal credibility stakes. While it’s clean design won’t have more luxurious car types honking in jealously, it hardly looks as if it’s fallen from the ugger tree.

The Nissan Leaf features connected sat-nav, Bluetooth stereo and air-conditioning as standard, and simple controls, without gears. Instead of filling it up with petrol you plug it into a charging station, or at home. Quick charge tops up the battery to 80 per cent in just 20 minutes. That sounds long, but compare that to the length of time it takes to charge your phone.

According to one of the captions in our test-drive video below, it’s ‘wheely rather good’, so do check it out in our video of the week.