Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 (Jelly Bean 4.2)
NoahDesign 4
The Tab 3 8.0 borrows a lot from the Galaxy S4 in design. This is not good news. I am using the “brown” tablet with gold trim. However, the “brown” part is only applicable if the tablet is in direct light. Otherwise, you’ll be left thinking you got the wrong color. The back of the tablet is a glossy plastic that advertises your fingerprints for free, no effort required on your part. Yes, it just grabs finger smudges as though they are glue and shamelessly displays them, even in very low-light condition. Also, the back scratches more easily than I have ever seen. And believe it or not, those scratches show up very well too. In short, this is the worse material I have ever seen used on a tablet. The front of the tablet has the same glossy plastic for bezels. At the bottom is a physical button which acts as a home and multi-tasker button. To the right and left of this physical button are two touch buttons, one for “Back” and one for “Settings”, the latter of which, if pressed and held, launches Google Now. The placement of the capacitive buttons is rather poor; several times I have accidentally touched them, exiting a Youtube video, pausing a game etc. Extremely annoying. It seems Samsung has stopped trying to make products out of good material. And some of the placement choices leave me wondering if, and for how long, the tablet was tested. If they truly had consumer’s best interests in mind, let’s just say this tablet would look and feel totally different. The dual speakers are placed at the bottom of the 8.0 and you’ll definitely be covering at least one of them when you’re using it in landscape mode. Display 6.5 Although the resolution is disappointing low, colors are accurate and really pop on the 1280 x 800 screen. Blacks on the other hand are not very deep at all, and turning the brightness up all the way makes it quite noticeable. Text doesn’t look so impressive, as the screen can’t boast it’s great colors. If you plan on reading a lot, I suggest looking for a higher resolution tablet. Samsung has no excuse for putting a low resolution panel into this tablet when the 2013 Nexus 7, for $70 less, boasts a 1080p display. The screen offers a fairly good in brightness. Due to the extremely reflective glass, the 8.0, just like every other tablet, is not usable in sunlight. User Interface 6 The Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 comes with Android 4.2, overlaid with Samsung’s Touchwiz UI. It modifies stock Android significantly. My opinion of Touchwiz, in short, is that Samsung prefers quantity over quality. There is one notifications panel, which houses many shortcuts for toggling common functions on and off, such as Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth and a slew of others. This in and of itself I think is an improvement, as stock Android does not allow you to instantly toggle these on and off from the notifications panel. Notifications themselves are presented in a fairly standard way, but one very annoying Touchwiz exclusive change is that tapping the “clear all” button both clears all notifications and closes the notifications panel, forcing you to open it again to take any other actions there. Another annoyance with the notifications panel is that it sometimes doesn’t open when I swipe down from the top. Apparently it’s very picky about where on the bezel I start the motion from, and what finger I use. For example, using my thumb never fails to open the panel, but my index finger is hit and miss. My main complaint with the UI on the Tab 3 8.0 is the lag that imposes itself everywhere. This is no doubt a mixture of poor software optimization and lack of power. Opening the apps tray, multi-tasker, swiping between screens and much more have random jerks and moments of lag. There is a noticeable pause between: tapping the power button to wake the 8.0 from sleep and the device actually turning on, pressing the home button and actually seeing the homescreen, and pressing and holding the home button to bring up the multi-tasker. There is also a pause between tapping certain apps and the app opening, sometimes causing me to tap it twice when in doubt as to whether or not it registered my touch. The lock screen is loaded with features, a universal feature of Touchwiz. There are cards aplenty, an optional “personalized message”, and shortcuts to apps of your choice. Unlocking the device, by default, involves swiping your finger from anywhere on the screen to the edge of an almost invisible circle. It looks as if you’re moving a sunray when doing this. The animation itself is smooth, but a couple times I would be greeted with a blank, or partially blank home page. The apps and widget would then stutter onto the screen. |
DanielDesign 6
Most Galaxy devices are made of polycarbonate. It sounds cool, but really just means plastic. In this case, glossy, slimy plastic, just like almost every other Galaxy device. Holding the Tab 3 just isn’t enjoyable, like the Nexus 7, iPad, or even the Kindle Fire. The plastic back displays fingerprints like they’re collector’s edition, and it gets scratched really easily. The Tab 3 looks very much like a blown up Galaxy S4; it comes in white and brown. We used the brown (with gold trim) model, and it looks pretty nice when the back is clean. It’s got some cool features like an IR blaster, a physical home button and capacitative back and menu buttons, and micro SD, but it still looks fairly neat and tidy. I did think the headphone port was in an odd spot, about ¼ of the way along the top side of the device. I think the corner would have been a better placement, I found myself trying in vain to find a comfortable place for my fingers when watching a movie or gaming with headphones. I liked the fairly thin bezels along the display, the tablet was easy to hold in one hand, and it made it feel like it was more display and less device than something like the 7” Galaxy Tab 3. The speaker grills are located on the bottom in the edge of the device. It was usually pretty easy to cover one grill when holding it in landscape mode, but rather hard to cover both. My natural hand position for portrait mode usually didn’t cover either. Display 7 At 1280x800, the 8” display isn’t exactly pixel dense. It’s definitely the best display of the Tab 3 trilogy, but it doesn’t compare to cheaper tablets such as the Full HD Nexus 7. Pixels aren’t glaringly noticeable, but the screen is definitely not as crisp as it could be. Other than that, it was bright, colorful, vivid, and viewing angles were solid. The display is good, and I don’t have any major complaints, but it could have been fantastic, and for your $299, you should be getting a fantastic display. User Interface 6 Samsung's TouchWiz is one of the few android skins that are worth considering over Google’s stock android, but in many ways, I prefer the simplicity of stock. Samsung adds some features that makes me second guess my preference. Probably what stands out most is the ability to add app shortcuts to the lock screen, making for a quick launch. Other interesting features include SmartStay, a feature that keeps the display on as long as the device detects your eyes; Multi Window, the ability to use multiple apps side by side, similar to Microsoft Windows; and a close all apps button, which is strangely missing from stock android. However, for every cool feature on TouchWiz, there’s half a dozen that are worthless or simply don’t work well. S Voice still isn’t very good, the notification panel simply doesn’t match the dual panels of stock android, there’s plenty of weird apps that should just be left in the Play app store, and it’s Samsung’s delayed OS updates are ever frustrating. Otherwise, it basically just looks a little different than stock android. It still works the same, for the most part, and though you might get usage out of some of those odd features, you’ll probably just ignore most of them after vainly trying to make them work right. |
Battery Life
We’re pretty sure there was something wrong with the battery on our specific device. We noticed several major glitches, such as the battery not charging, draining extremely fast, etc. We’ve read several other reviews, and we can say that you could probably expect 8-9 hours of constant light usage, but not much more than a couple days even without any use. We’ve decided not to give the battery life a rating this time, since our experience with the device was probably inconsistent with how most users will experience it. However, if we do get a chance to test a different unit, we will update this review.
We’re pretty sure there was something wrong with the battery on our specific device. We noticed several major glitches, such as the battery not charging, draining extremely fast, etc. We’ve read several other reviews, and we can say that you could probably expect 8-9 hours of constant light usage, but not much more than a couple days even without any use. We’ve decided not to give the battery life a rating this time, since our experience with the device was probably inconsistent with how most users will experience it. However, if we do get a chance to test a different unit, we will update this review.
Social 6
Having access to to the Google Play app store, all of your common social apps are available. However, many are blown-up phone apps, which look terrible on larger screens. This isn’t so apparent on an 8” screen if you’re holding it in portrait mode, but in landscape the unoptimized apps become painfully obvious. This is really the issue of the app makers, and the Tab 3 8.0 is not in any way to blame for this. The stock keyboard of the 8.0 is a mixed bag. I like the dedicated row of numbers at the top, but the keyboard leaves out dedicated keys for the slash, dash and apostrophe symbols. This is partially remedied by the ability to press and hold on certain letters to get these symbols, but it takes extra time. I believe they thought the generous spacing between keys would be more accurate, but I much prefer bigger keys with smaller spaces, as I have found that to be more accurate. The Flow feature works relatively well, but I found gesture typing on Google’s keyboard more accurate. Samsung does not include any emoji or dedicated smiley face button, which makes chatting a much slower affair, assuming you use faces. Once again, the Google Keyboard delivers, with a dedicated smiley face button, which when pressed and held, allows the user to slide their finger to one of the other faces. Bottom line: the stock Samsung keyboard is pretty good, but I suggest downloading the Google Keyboard, which is free, and better in a few ways which I have mentioned. The Email and Gmail apps are smooth and quick to use. Everyday tasks are simple, but the Gmail app is ahead of the Email app in interface and ease of use. Simple things such as being able to swipe emails away instead of checkmarking and then tapping delete just make it nicer to use. Gaming 5 Do you enjoy some serious gaming on a tablet? This isn’t the tablet for you. Or perhaps you consider yourself a casual gamer who wants to play the occasional Temple Run 2. This isn’t the tablet for you. The extremely popular title, which runs flawlessly on most tablets, shows noticeable jerks every five to ten seconds. This is extremely annoying on any game, but especially for one such as Temple Run that tests reflexes. It decreases the enjoyment of Temple Run 2 considerably, which entirely removes the point of playing it. Now this could very well be due to a lack of optimization for the Tab 3 8.0, and perhaps a future update from Imangi will fix this problem, but for now Samsung has no excuse for using processing units with the inability to smoothly render such a graphically undemanding game. Strangely enough, EPOCH, a game that utilizes Unreal Engine 3, plays flawlessly, both during cutscenes and gameplay. Real Racing 3 runs smooth while playing, but the cutscenes at the beginning of races are laggy. The blacktop looks terrible: it’s a light grey color, with strange streaks that I believe are supposed to be tire marks. When I booted up The Dark Knight Rises game, a very graphically demanding title, I was unable to get past the loading screen. This is the first tablet this has happened on, so I’m not sure if it’s a lack of compatibility or the fault of the tablet, but it does not leave me with a good impression. Web browsing 7 Using the internet on tablets should be fun, quick and easy. The Tab 3 8.0 delivers part of the package. Pinch-to-zoom is smooth, and text is fairly crisp, although a higher res display is definitely missed here. Pages load quickly, but random stutter while scrolling and slow, jerky orientation detract from the overall experience. The stock browser has a good array of sharing options for pages, even allowing you to directly copy the URL to the Memo app. There are options to save for offline view and desktop view, as well as a few other features, some essential and some not. Media 6 The speakers on the Tab 3 8.0 are reminiscent of virtually every other tablet, especially other Samsung tablets. Bass is nonexistent during instrumental sections, but voices come through fairly full and clear. The speakers get pretty loud, but cranking them all the way up results in distorted music and sound effects. As I mentioned in the design section, holding the tablet in landscape mode will cover up at least of the speakers. However, this isn’t as much of a problem as on many tablets, and I would say the placement is fairly good. The camera will do in a pinch: colors are a bit dull, and details are rather lacking. Zooming in any amount pixelates the picture terrible, and at full zoom images become unrecognizable. Pixels are easily visible. Watching movies on the 8.0 looks excellent. Colors are accurate and full, but blacks could be deeper. I didn’t find the low pixel density obtrusive at all. If you’re a reader, this is definitely not the best tablet for you. Text is lacking the clarity seen on today's 1080p and higher displays. If you're looking to read a lot, you'll appreciate the 2013 Nexus 7's great display and far better capacitive button placement. |
Social 5
For starters, Android doesn’t have a very good Facebook app, and the bigger the screen you’re using, the worse the experience is. At 8”, it’s usable, but in landscape mode it’s seriously weird. The interface is old, and it doesn’t feel as intuitive as the new iOS app, or facebook.com on a PC, but it’s getting better. Google play is better, and it’s awesome in landscape or portrait. Twitter was okay, but every picture in my feed looked horrible. Both Facebook and Twitter had pretty laggy scrolling, and once in Twitter it made my streaming music stutter pretty severely in the background. The tablet comes with a universal Email app and a Gmail app, which both worked pretty well. Email seemed to have a better tablet interface than Gmail, but Gmail had more gesture based controls, and Email relied heavily on buttons. Personally I prefer Gmail, but it’s got a way to go before it’s perfect. Samsung's default keyboard isn't my favorite. The keys are too small, and typing in general is just slow. I like the dedicated number buttons along the top, but overall, I prefer Google's keyboard which is much more intuitive and it has bigger keys. Google keyboard is available in the app store for (you guessed it) free. Gaming 4 I’ll be honest, when I first picked up the Tab 3 and started using it, my first thought was “hey, this can’t be too bad for gaming, can it?” It was the perfect size, had nice thin bezels, and it was even a cool color (though I’d love to see Razer make a Black and Green 8” tablet). It was fairly speedy with regular use, and the screen was bright, colorful, and responsive. I was pumped. So right then and there, with the embarrassing plastic film still on the back, I hopped on Google Play and downloaded some games. The first to come was Temple Run 2, so I fired it up and ran (yes) through the tutorial. I don’t usually fail the tutorial. Not to make excuses, but the tablet had mastered the art of lagging right at the most critical moment, which seriously cramped my style. When I put the graphics on the lowest setting, the game was playable, but it’s not hard to find cheaper devices that are a lot more fun to play Temple Run with. The Dark Knight Rises didn’t even load, I’m not sure if that surprises me or not. Basically, you can game on this tablet, but it seems like it was made without any attempt to make a good gaming experience. Some games play pretty well, other games don’t. At all. The GPU performed rather poorly considering it’s only pushing 1 million pixels. EPOCH, Real Racing 3, and Angry Birds were worth playing (if you like Angry Birds), but personally I’d shoot for an iPad mini or Nexus 7, both of which have better performance and better screens. Web Browsing 7 The Galaxy Tab comes with Samsung’s default “Internet” app and Google Chrome preinstalled. In either case, browsing was a little laggy and rendering was a bit slow, but Chrome seemed a tad better than Internet. Otherwise, pages loaded relatively fast, and all of Chrome’s great features are present here as well. Android isn’t known for having extremely smooth internet scrolling, so I’m not sure if Samsung is to blame here, but it seems like smoother scrolling could be a headline feature of a skin like TouchWiz. Media 6 On the 8” 1280x800 screen, watching HD movies was pretty decent for quality, but I switched back and forth between HD and SD and didn’t notice a lot of difference, as compared to night and day differences on the 1080p Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Movies seemed a little bit grainy either way, but it wasn’t a huge distraction. Google charges a pretty penny for movies on the play store, I wish this tablet had access to Amazon Prime instant streaming. Netflix and Youtube will have to satisfy my free movie desires. There are indeed cameras, so you can video chat your folks or shoot a few 5 MP photos if you so desire. Photos are rather grainy and the colors are washed, both issues are dealt in more extreme portions to the front camera. Either side, the cameras aren’t super useful, but if you want to try and get a good picture, it’s worth a shot. Google Play books are as cool as ever; text seems a little jagged on the low resolution screen, but it’s not distracting. I gotta mention the page turning animations, which are pretty slow, but they look nice and add to the reading experience. Spotify and Pandora are nice, but I finally broke down and tried out Google Play All Access. I love it, I might pay the $10 per month after my 30 day trial. The speakers on the Galaxy Tab were loud enough to fill a fairly quiet room, but it’s hard to hear details if there’s background noise at all. It depends on the song, for most uses you should be fine. If you’re watching a movie, however, use headphones or external speakers. |
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