Galaxy Tab: The Missing Manual

Connecting via Wi-Fi

When you connect via a Wi-Fi hotspot, you’ve hit the mother lode of connection speeds. Wi-Fi hotspots can be as fast as a cable modem. If you’ve ever taken a laptop on the road, you may already know where the best Wi-Fi hotspots are. Some coffee shops and hotels offer free Wi-Fi, while others make you pay for it. More and more, you find Wi-Fi coverage in airplanes, libraries, and even entire cities. In fact, if you connect your computers to the Internet at home using a wireless router, you have your own Wi-Fi hotspot, and you can connect your Tab to the Internet via your home network.

Your connection speed varies from hotspot to hotspot. At a public hotspot, you’re sharing the connection with any number of other people, so if the hotspot isn’t set up to handle that many connections, your speed may suffer. Also, Wi-Fi isn’t a good bet when you’re in motion. Hotspots have a range of only about 300 feet, so you and your Tab can move right past them. Your 3G or 4G connection is a better option when you’re moving.

Note

When you’re connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, your Galaxy Tab uses it for more than just Internet access. It also uses Wi-Fi for finding your current location in apps like Google Maps (unless you turn on GPS, as described on Notification Panel and Quick Settings). The Tab uses a clever technology that finds nearby Wi-Fi networks and employs fancy algorithms to determine your location. It’s not as precise as GPS, but it’s still pretty good.

Depending on how ...