The back has the camera centered along the upper top with a LED flash below the lense. This is completely opposite of intuition and seems like an oversight to me. I kept messing up the volume since the right (down side in portrait) is volume up and the left (up side in portrait) is volume down. The IR port, volume button, and power button are on the top. The headphone jack and other stereo speaker are on the left side. The Note 3 has a USB 3.0 port and I would have thought the Note 10.1 with the larger battery and more reason for transferring large files would have had this as well. The microUSB port is on the bottom and strangely it is standard USB 2.0. The microSD card slot, one of the stereo speakers, and S Pen silo are found on the right side (assuming a landscape orientation as the Note 10.1 is optimized for). The front facing camera is near the center, to the left of the Samsung logo, above the display. There are touch capacitive areas to the left and right for menu and back, respectively. Samsung still has a physical Home button centered on the bottom, but it is placed where landscape is the preferred orientation. It is a great display, but the stark blacks and eye-popping colors on their Super AMOLED displays they use on their smaller Note line is something I personally prefer. The Note 10.1 is dominated by the 2560x1600 pixels 10.1-inch LCD display.

My Apple iPad still has a higher quality feel, thanks in large part to the metal casing and curves.

I had an original Samsung Tab 7-inch tablet and it is pretty amazing to see how far Samsung has come in terms of hardware design. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition), just called Note 10.1 from here on out, is an excellent piece of hardware with a thickness of only 0.31-inches, gorgeous high-resolution display, and updated plastic back with a leather look and feel. It is a gorgeous piece of hardware, but for S Pen functionality and price, I would personally go for a Galaxy Note 8.0. I guess they chose 2014 instead of 2013 in hopes it is forward looking. The last of the three devices I picked up to review last week is the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition).

Best tablet for handwriting notes 2014