Like clockwork, Samsung has gone live with the TouchWiz UX update for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and you can pull said update down to your tablet right now. While custom skins aren’t usually praised, the TouchWiz UX on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 brings new features to Honeycomb without taking away from the core experience. So what’s new?
The TouchWiz UX brings everything we love (and somethings we don’t) of the custom skin to the Galaxy Tab. We were happy to see the new way to move icons and widgets by tilting the tablet, like the Galaxy S 2, has been implemented. You’ll also find the neat tilt to zoom feature in browser as well. Even if these nifty gestures likely won’t change how we interact with our devices, Samsung definitely brought something novel to the table.
The UI tweaks don’t become terribly apparent until you begin to dig into the software. A new soft key lines the bottom of the tablet now, next to the back, home, and multitasking button, which is for taking screenshots. We’re glad to see this dedicated option here, as you don’t have to press a certain key combination.
TouchWiz also provides a centralized button at the bottom of the tablet’s action bar, which is used to launch apps like the Task Manager, Calendar, World Clock, Memo, Calculator and Music Player. When launched, these mini-apps act like floating widgets, offering enough functionality without needing to jump into a dedicated application, but you have the option if you so choose. We really like this quick launch option and have little complaints about its implementation, as you never have to look at it if you don’t want to.
The notification panel has also undergone a few tweaks. Given you have no notifications, the notification panel looks nice and clean. Quick settings options are now displayed in a horizontal, scrollable, layout. Below that, you’ll find the brightness setting and the option to dive right into the full settings menu.
You’ll find a couple of new Samsung widgets in the latest update, including AccuWeather, digital clock, Social Hub, Yahoo! Finance, and more. You’ll also find some familiar live wallpapers available, Blue Sea and Aurora 2.
The TouchWiz UX doesn’t take away from the Honeycomb experience in the least bit. If anything, TouchWiz showcases some of the things that Honeycomb could use.
There are a couple of morsels we haven’t covered in Sammy’s latest update, but they’ll be left unspoken so you have at least something to be surprised about. Check out some more screenshots below.
