Gadgetory

samsung's latest line of tablets is here available in two different sizes the Galaxy Tab A series offers the Samsung experience for under $300 this is Bailey Stein with Android authority and this is my full review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab a 8.0 and nine point seven the differences in design between the eight inch model and the nine point seven inch model of the Galaxy Tab A are minimal with the exception of an extra speaker and a slightly less protruding camera on the nine point seven inch model the tablets offer the same aesthetics the story here consists mainly of a matte plastic rear with a silver dis light frame while the plastic is certainly on the cheaper side when it comes to overall feel both tablets resist fingerprints well sadly there are parting lines to be found on the sides and the corners of each tablet being more noticeable on the white model well this is unlikely to bother the average user I do feel that it is worth noting there are two Smart Cover connectors on the back if you'd like to add one of Samsung's covers to the tablet well there is no backlighting on the bottom keys there is an ambient light sensor on the top of the device which enables auto brightness to the right of that there's a 2 megapixel front facing camera both tablets are about seven and a half millimeters thick and weigh 313 grams and 450 grams respectively unlike many Android tablets Samsung has chosen to go with a four by three aspect ratio as opposed to them sixteen by nine ratio this makes the tablets slightly wider and more iPad like the eight and nine point seven inch displays have the same 1024 by 768 resolution that leaves for very low pixel densities of 160 PPI on the 8 inch model and 132 PPI on the nine point seven inch model it seems kind of paradoxical to have a four by three aspect ratio which is usually best for reading you have some of the lowest resolution displays despite the noticeable lack of sharpness both panels have vibrant colors and excellent viewing angles sunlight readability could be better but the displays are bright enough for most indoor use cases there is a thin black border around each display which sort of adds to the bezel of the device it's more noticeable on the white model and I imagine that some people may be bothered by this performance on both tablets is about the same with each model being powered by the same quad-core Samsung processor clocked at 1.2 gigahertz it's slower than what I would expect at this price point but both tablets are still more than usable the benchmark scores are relatively low as well especially for the price each model includes one and a half gigabytes of RAM which does offer a bit a more breathing room compared to the dreaded 1 gigabyte of RAM but not much it's enough to play music and browse the Internet at the same time but it's not enough to dismiss my concern over how future-proof the device truly is the Galaxy Tab a tablets were able to play most games without any issues thanks to the Adreno 306 GPU occasionally there are some dropped frames but the tablets are otherwise able to handle gaming well both tablet support 802 11 and Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 Samsung has also announced LTE models but it's unclear when those models will be released if you do app for one of the LTE models you'll get 2 gigabytes of RAM instead of one and a half as well as 32 gigabytes of storage as opposed to 16 thankfully you can always expand the internal storage by using a microSD card up to 128 gigabytes the speakers on the Galaxy Tab A are reasonably loud and sound pretty good they are sight firing however which makes them easy to block while holding the tablet the larger nine point seven inch model does have a slight advantage over the eight inch model with its dual stereo speakers however audio quality on both devices is about the same in real-world use cases the five megapixel rear camera is on both tablets produce some decent looking images however I would still strongly suggest to use your phone instead the camera app offers a few different modes as well as a few different effects with 4200 milliamp hour and six thousand milliamp hour internal batteries respectively the Galaxy Tab a tablets both offer great battery life during my battery test I used each tablet with Wi-Fi on and brightness set to about 75% both tablets lasted for just over 14 hours with nearly 7 hours of screen on time on the 8 inch model and 8 hours of screen on time on the nine point seven inch model Samsung has included a standard power saving mode as well as an ultra power saving mode the standard mode is similar to what can be found in stock Android and the ultra power saving mode goes beyond that by offering a minimalistic launcher and by limiting the number of usable apps unsurprisingly Samsung is shipping both tablets with TouchWiz over Android 5.0 point 2 lollipop with the exception of 6 Microsoft apps old tablets are free of third-party apps which is pretty nice the Microsoft apps don't really bother me since I would have downloaded them anyway and Microsoft is offering 100 gigabytes of free storage for two years if you choose to use onedrive in addition to that Samsung is offering other incentives when you buy a Galaxy Tab A including a three month subscription to next issue one free Kindle eBook every month for a year three free audiobooks from audible and three months of Sirius XM Radio for new users some of the positive points for the software experience include quicker access to the quick toggles the ability to edit those toggles a split up settings view a close all apps button and Samsung's multi window I really wish all Android tablets had multi window and the addition to the tab a may just be the strongest selling point in the software Department what does seem to be a bit confusing to me however is the amount of duplicate apps for example there's two web browsing apps two note-taking apps two email apps two app stores and three music apps although it may not confuse the enthusiast how is the average user supposed to know whether they should use music milk music or Google Play Music in addition to that issue I also found the non-alphabetical organization method to be a bit confusing and the keyboard to be mediocre at best these aren't that big of a deal however as you can always download a third-party launcher or keyboard to remedy this both models of the Samsung Galaxy Tab A can be purchased in either white smoky titanium or smokey blue the Galaxy Tab a 8.0 is available with 16 gigabytes of storage starting at 229 for the Wi-Fi model the nine point seven inch model is also available with 16 gigabytes of storage although it does carry a slightly higher price tag of $2.99 you can purchase the nine point seven inch model with an S Pen for an additional $50 if that's something that interests you for those prices the Galaxy Tab A is a tremendously tough sell on the positive side of things the tablets do have good audio quality great battery life and a few Samsung exclusive software features however the low resolution display slower performance and high price tag make it tough to recommend the Galaxy Tab a if you're in the market for an affordable Android tablet you should instead look towards Lenovo's a series the xiaomi knee pad the Nokia n1 or even Samsung's own Galaxy Tab s 8.4 another good option for those on a very tight budget might be the Nexus 7 if you don't mind buying used the Nexus 9 or Nvidia shield are also better options thank you for watching this video and please make sure to give it a thumbs up below if you enjoyed it also please make sure to subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more content and feel free to leave a comment below finally be sure to visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage as we are your source for all things Android