Given those specs, it's surprising how inconsistently the Note performed. Once again, the device proved itself to be okay but not great: I experienced plenty of lagginess and stuttering even in basic tasks like swiping between home screens and opening and closing the app drawer. System animations were jerky at times instead of being smooth and crisp like they should be, particularly with the kind of power this device is packing. All considered, it's hard to blame anything but Samsung's bloatware for those problems (more on that in a bit).

The Galaxy Note 10.1 has a 7000mAh battery, which I found to be more than sufficient for keeping the tablet up and running during the day. The Note seems to hold its charge well; even with a full day of moderate use, my review unit never came close to hitting the empty mark. With typical levels of daily activity, you ought to be able to easily go a few days without having to recharge.

As mentioned earlier, the Note comes with a choice of either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage. Its microSD slot allows you to add up to 32GB of external space, according to Samsung. The Note also includes a free two-year subscription for 50GB of cloud storage from Dropbox. If you want to keep the subscription beyond those two years, you'll have to pay $10 a month or $100 a year; otherwise, you'll be defaulted back down to Dropbox's free 2GB level.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 does not have Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities, meaning it cannot take advantage of the shown off in Samsung's marketing of its recent .

The S Pen