All about Samsung Tab 3 : The new android Phablet

1. Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Review : A new Android Phablet
Shreya Kumar
2012100
Shreya12100@iiitd.ac.in
Dept. of Computer Science
Devyani Rohilla
2012034
devyani12034@iiitd.ac.in
Dept. of Computer Science
IIIT Delhi
IIIT Delhi
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Pros:
Cons:
Good video support
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Key Features:
Poor value
Low-res screen
Mediocre performance for price
Rubbish camera
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Dual-core 1GHz Marvell CPU; 1GB RAM; 7-inch 1,024 x 600 pixel screen
Manufacturer : Samsung
Bottom-line :
It costs a bit more than we'd like, but the Galaxy Tab 3 is Samsung’s best non-Note tablet yet.
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1. Introduction:
It’s becoming clear that people love smaller tablets. The
Google Nexus 7 and iPad mini are fantastic success stories,
and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 is Samsung’s latest
attempt to capitalise on this newfound popularity. The
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 is a 7-inch screen tablet with a
budget price of ₹ 15276.26, which makes it slightly less than
the new Nexus 7 2 but more than the Asus MeMO Pad 7
HD. Will the new Galaxy Tab 3 carve a niche for itself in the
market or further muddy the already distinctly murky 7inch tablet segment? We shall be exploring it in our review
further.
2.
Design of the Tab:
Typical of the Galaxy series phones and tablets, the
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 casing is plastic. It’s shiny, glossy
plastic just like rear of the Samsung Galaxy S4 or Galaxy S3.
Unlike Samsung’s phones, though, the rear of the tablet is
not removable. This helps to ensure the back doesn’t feel
too flimsy. However, there are a few light creaks you can
squeeze out if you put pressure on the wrong part of the
casing.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 is also significantly chunkier
than the 2013 Nexus 7, at a thickness of 10mm. (At around
1cm (9.9mm) thickness, it is not the thinnest tablet in the
market but is comfortable enough to hold.) The tablet
weighs over approximately over 300g making it like most 7inch tablets – light enough to use one-handed.
It has a memory card slot, hidden under a plastic flap on
the left edge of the tablet. You get 8GB of internal storage
as standard, so the card slot is really a necessary addition.
Only around half of the internal memory is actually
available to use.
4.
Screen:

2. 2
As its name suggests, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 has a 7inch screen. In one respect it’s pretty good – viewing angles
are solid – but in most other respects it is poor.
Resolution is very low. It’s a 1,024 x 600 pixel display, with
pixel density of 169ppi. That’s far, far lower than the new
Nexus 7’s 323ppi.
It’s also lower than the 1,280 x 800 pixel density of the first
Nexus 7 and the cheaper Asus MeMO Pad 7 HD. To really
show up how poor the screen resolution of the Galaxy Tab
3 7.0 is – it’s the same resolution as the original Galaxy
Tab that was released three years ago.
Given the amount of tech development that has happened
over the last three years, continuing to use such a low
resolution in 2013 is borderline unacceptable. You might
accuse us of wilfully forgetting the iPad mini, whose first
model has the same pixel density as this tablet. But that
tablet’s display is of a higher quality, and its larger screen
tends to encourage you to hold it further away. Plus we
complain about the iPad mini’s limited resolution pretty
regularly.
Aside from screen resolution, the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0’s display
is let down by its colours, which are not particularly
accurate.
Pure display quality doesn’t see the end of the Galaxy Tab 3
7.0’s screen problems, either. The touch sensitivity of the
Galaxy Tab 3 211 is decent and we did not encounter any
issues while using the tablet. One of the serious problems
we encountered was with auto-brightness, which at times
set the screen to very dark, to the extent that we had to
switch to manual brightness.
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5. Camera:
There is no hardware button for camera so one has to do
with the on-screen buttons. As there is no flash on the
tablet, we were not able to take any respectable shots in
low-light conditions. The Galaxy Tab 3 is slow to focus and
produces generally noisy, low-quality images.
However, the Galaxy Tab 3 camera app does offer a lot of
options like shooting mode such as single shot, panorama,
'Share Shot', 'Buddy Photo Share' and 'Smile Shot' as well as
photo effects like negative, black and white and sepia. The
camera app also gives an option to change the resolution of
the images clicked and can be set to default 3.2-megapixel
with 2048x1536 pixels, or 2.4-megapixel with 2048x1152
pixels, among others. The 1.3-megapixel front-facing
camera is fine for video chats and self-portraits, but
produces predictably grainy images.
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3. 1. Software/ Interface:
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The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly
Bean out-of-the-box and comes with company's
Touch Wiz UI on top. Considering that Android 4.3
Jelly Bean is already out in the market, we were a
little disappointed to see Android 4.1 on the
tablet. Anyway, we hope that Samsung soon rolls
out an update for the tablet's firmware before it
gets dated.As expected with a Samsung 'Galaxy'
product, one can hardly notice any vanilla Jelly
Bean interface on the tablet, as everything has
been completely customised with the Touch Wiz
UX UI. While we felt some of these tweaks of the
UI were good, but others were totally redundant,
like the unwanted default touch sound, which
cannot be turned off, until you select the profile
Silent on the Galaxy Tab 3.The app drawer is on
the bottom right side of the home screen, and
opens the menu divided in three sections apps,
widgets and downloaded apps. The notification
tray and quick access settings for Wi-Fi, GPS,
sound, screen rotation, Bluetooth, mobile data,
blocking mode, sync and power saving mode are
located at the top area in the notification tray of
the Galaxy Tab 3, in a manner which is a bit
different from the stock Android interface.The
Galaxy Tab 3’s user-interface spans three home
screens, to which more can be added if required.
The home screen can be further customised with
app shortcuts and widgets. No real complaints
with the Galaxy Tab 3 here, other than the
aesthetics of some of Samsung's icons.Samsung
has added a blocking mode feature to the tablet
which when enabled, will disable alarm, incoming
calls and other notifications - perfect for those
moments when you do not wish to be disturbed.
The company has also replaced the default
Android apps for Calendar, Browser and Email with
its re-worked versions, which seem to add no
value.The Galaxy Tab 3 does not come with too
many preloaded apps, but the ones that are there,
are good for normal entertainment, social and
office use. On long-pressing the settings option on
the front panel, it launches Google Search.
Navigation was not a problem either, thanks to
some Google apps. The other major feature that
Jelly Bean brings is 'Google Now', a voice-based
information assistant and an extension of Google
Search, and we noticed that the voice search
worked well.
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6. Performance / Battery Life:
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The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 is powered by a 1.2GHz dualcore processor, the company has not specified the chipset,
though. It has 1GB of RAM on-board , comes with 8GB of
inbuilt storage (roughly 5.5GB user usable) and supports
expandable storage up to 64GB via a micro SD card.
Considering there is a fairly respectable dual-core processor
running under the hood of the tablet, the Samsung Galaxy
Tab 3 manages to chug along just fine. In day-to-day
activities of the tablet you do not see crashes so often.
However, we did notice frequent lags in the system even
while navigating through the app menu or while loading an
app. Things get choppier when playing heavy-graphic
games like Vector, Dead Trigger and even Temple Run 2 on
the device. On the sound front, the Galaxy Tab 3 ships with
the same music player we have been seeing on previous
Galaxy Tab range. The sound is loud and clear with the twin
loudspeakers, and even better with headphones .However,
the on-screen keyboard's keys are not cramped and we had
no problems hitting them easily, when using both hands.As
a surfing device, the Galaxy Tab 3 worked well, and loaded
the browsing Web pages fast. It supports flash and we had
no problems checking out our favourite YouTube videos on
the tablet.The Galaxy Tab 3 tablet's dialler feature is similar
to the one found on Galaxy smartphones .The Samsung
Galaxy Tab 3 comes with a 4000mAh battery, which we feel
is adequate, especially if playing music, browsing the Web
and watching videos are a major part of your daily usage.
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In
our rundown battery test, the Galaxy Tab 3 was able to
play about five hours of continuous video (720p HD) with
full charge and brightness set on auto, which we think is not
at all bad. We were able to get about 8 to 9 hours of
standby time on the tablet with push notifications for
emails, Facebook, texts and What’s App with some
browsing on the Internet and talking on the device with
calling. We were able to get about 16 to 18 hours with
normal usage that includes Wi-Fi turned on for all time,

4. Web browsing, a few calls lasting for not more than half an
hour, display set on auto-brightness and with the usual
7.
Verdict:
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 is a deeply unremarkable
tablet with underwhelming performance and a low-res
display that remains ostensibly unchanged since the launch
of the original Galaxy Tab. It's a deeply average tablet that's
8.
References:
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http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_t
ab_3_7_0-5422.php
http://www.samsung.com/in/consumer/mobi
le-phone/mobile-phone/tabletsmartphone/SM-T2110GNAINU
http://www.samsung.com/in/consumer/mobi
le-phone/mobile-phone/tabletsmartphone/SM-T2110GNAINU
http://www.fonearena.com/samsung-galaxytab-3_2522.html
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/tablets/reviews/sam
sung-galaxy-tab-3-211-review-424700
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/tablets/reviews/sam
sung-galaxy-tab-3-211-review-424700
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Samsu
ng-Galaxy-Tab-3-7-inch-Review_id3512
been way over-priced by Samsung.We liked the form factor
of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 211, and must admit that we
had no problems operating it one-handed (except for
typing messages or emails). The tablet performed well with
its responsive touchscreen, and decent battery life. We
were not very convinced that it can be actually used as a
phone on a regular basis but the Galaxy Tab 3 does
represent a good attempt to combine a 7-inch tablet with a
mobile phone.