I’m a big of Samsung and really like their phones and tablets. I have the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet and think that it’s a great device. I love the S pen and it’s the best tablet for note taking and drawing. But one issue is that I don’t like the Samsung TouchWiz software on the tablet. I think it doesn’t work so well and it is slow. Luckily you can easily root your tablet and try different software. I installed the recently released CyanogenMod (CM) 10.1 nightly which is based on Google AOSP software like the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablet. Let’s take a look at what CM 10.1 offers.
One thing to note is that installing CM 10.1 means that you lose all S apps specific to Samsung like S Note. You also don’t have the multi-window feature or some of the other Samsung features like the popup video player. But most of those features can be replaced from apps on the Play Store. In regards to note taking, I prefer Papyrus app which works with the S pen and there are many others apps that you can try. But what you gain from CM 10.1 is a much, much faster interface. You also get advantages of the latest features of Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean.
Installing CM 10.1 means you get the new Android 4.2 lockscreen which includes widgets. You also get the new CM Chronus clock widget which looks really nice and has weather info as well. The main screen includes a nice app dock at the bottom of the screen in both landscape and portrait mode. You can have up to 9 apps and 3 pages for the dock. There is the new quick-setting that you can pull down from the top-right. The notifications can be pulled down from the top-left of the screen. There are also many CM 10.1 features built-in that lets you resize grids, change number of homescreens, hide icon labels, and much more.
Overall I found the CM 10.1 to be very stable and no major issues except for the camera which is not working. That might get fixed in future nightlies but not guaranteed. Mainly this software is very fast and I have been very happy with it. Since the S pen is still functional you are getting the best of Samsung and Google AOSP in one tablet. But do remember that these nightlies do have bugs and you can expect some minor issues. But if you are rooted I would recommend trying the new CM 10.1 and see how you like it. Currently CM 10.1 is available for the N8000 and N8013 model. Always remember to do a full nandroid backup before installing any new software and enjoy. Leave us a comment if you have any questions.
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