Samsung GALAXY Tab 3 10.1-inch Pro Reviews

It's obvious that the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 is the inferior tablet here, but the questions is – is its price cheaper enough to make it a worthy alternative to the iPad Air? The Wi-Fi only model can be yours for $360, which is $140 cheaper than the starting price of the iPad Air. While this shouldn't be overlooked, if we consider the way better experience one would have across the board with the iPad Air, we believe that Apple's tablet is worth it the extra cash. With its premium design, great platform and unsurpassed application catalog, you can do so much more with the iPad Air, and all of it will feel so much better. Still, if you can't afford to spend $500 on a tablet, then the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 will not be such a bad choice. It has decent performance and camera, plus the Android OS has its advantages like homescreen widgets, and higher customizability.

The Galaxy Tab line has always been one that we perceive to be a good choice, but nothing outstanding. Samsung has once again delivered a tablet that is good, but not amazing. The Galaxy Tab 3 is a competent enough tablet that will perform many of the tasks you want it to, although some of the noticeable lag when opening applications may turn off some owners.Samsung certainly improved the look of the Galaxy Tab 3 to reflect its smartphone Galaxy devices, which may be a hit or miss to some users depending on how you feel about either device’s plastic exterior. We just wish Samsung would put as much effort into the internal specs and overall performance of the Galaxy Tab 3 to help make it a must-have tablet, but at this point, it’s full of more disappointment than.

Nothing ever really changes when it comes to Samsung's 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab. The Tab 3 10.1 is proof positive of that. This 2013 iteration is a parallel move for the line that attempts to mix up the package of mid-range specs with a terrible brown plastic coat. In a pinch, it'll do what you need it to adequately: stream video, serve as a widescreen browser and e-reader and hub for all your social communication needs. It just won't look pretty doing it, nor will it dazzle with brisk performance -- in fact, you should expect some stuttering. The Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 excels in mediocrity, but for the money you can take a step back in time (and dollars) for the same-y GTab 2 10.1 or resign yourself to paying a little more for something better.

The Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 isn’t a bad tablet. It isn’t a great one either. It lies somewhere, perfectly in between the two. The issues we’ve had with the third-gen Tab 10.1, however, are deeply rooted. It scratches easily and stays oily and fingerprinted at all times; it comes with only a small fraction of Samsung’s value proposition that is TouchWiz; it consistently lags and suffers from performance issues; the display is quite awful by today’s standards; and it’s a 10-inch, primarily landscape tablet with physical navigation buttons. Yet there are a few highlights, such as battery life. With all that, plus the meager, early 2012 specifications, the Samsung still asks for $400 its latest Galaxy Tab. Frankly, the third-generation Galaxy Tab 10.1 is out of its league. It’s a mid-range tablet asking for a flagship price. With the Galaxy Note 10.1 – which ships with many more TouchWiz features, as well as S Pen support and more capable specifications – just $100 more and the Nexus 10 with its 10-inch 2,560 by 1,600 pixel display at the very same $400 price point, we can’t fathom why anyone would even want the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1. You’re practically paying $400 for a year-old tablet in a newer, glossy (read: easily scratched) chassis with an Intel Atom chipset that suffers from its fair share of performance problems. At $250 or $300, we might have recommended the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1. And in a few month’s time, it will probably be that price anyway. But if you’re looking to spend $400 on an Android tablet, Samsung itself offers much better products in the same price range.

The midrange tablet market has few offerings at this screen size, and most of the alternatives that can compete with Samsung's price are older-generation devices. Of course, the likes of the Xperia Tablet Z and the Google Nexus 10 are way out of the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1's league. It seems Samsung are exploring a niche at a safe distance from the competition's flagships.

Samsung gives its Galaxy Tab 3 a facelift and sends it to the starting line with a 10.1-inch screen. Notebookcheck has had both the smaller 7-inch and 8-inch models in review, which provided us with a first impression about the new Galaxy Tab product line. The main feature is the large touchscreen with a somewhat disappointing resolution of 1280x800 pixels.

For all its shortcomings, the 8.0 stands out from the competition by simply being an 8-inch tablet. The Kindle Fire HD is cheaper and has a better screen, but the 8.0’s larger screen is a real advantage. The iPad mini offers a vastly superior app ecosystem and a much better design, but the cost of repurchasing all those Android apps might make the cost disparity too high. If you’re already invested in the Android ecosystem, that’s enough to justify my recommendation. The Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 is good enough, and just the right size, in a category where those two things rarely come together. At least until a new and higher-res Nexus 7 quickly rises back to the top of the class. The 10.1, is a slightly different story. It’s not even the best $399 10-inch Android tablet made by Samsung. That honor goes to the Nexus 10, which has Google’s uninhibited software, a beautiful high-res screen, and far better build quality. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 is a better tablet, with more software and great pen input; so are most other 10-inch slates.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 isn't a bad tablet, but it already feels dated right out of the box, and you can do much better for $400.

Once regarded as the premium tablet offering from Samsung’s camp to compete against Apple’s mighty iPad, the Galaxy Tab series has now taken the back seat as an entry-level model – leaving the Galaxy Note series to occupy its former throne. Brandishing a $399 price point for the base 16GB Wi-Fi model, the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1-inch might seem like a tempting offering, especially when it’s priced below the $500 mark, but seriously, it just doesn’t seem enough to overpower some of the other noise makers in the same category. Heck, the sluggish performance and ho-hum specs doesn’t particularly make it as prized as the Google Nexus 10, which has undoubtedly redefined the Android tablet space.

My experience with the Tab 3 10.1 was more frustrating than functional. Even while cutting it some slack for being a midrange tablet that's impressively small and light for a 10-inch device, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 fails to make a good case for taking it home. The tablet's specs resemble the Tab 2 10.1's too closely to be considered an actual upgrade. The Tab 3 10.1's tendency to lag coupled with its flawed navigation array functionality don't justify the starting price of $399. For the same amount of money, you can get the Google Nexus 10, which offers faster performance, a better screen, and no frustratingly sensitive capacitive buttons.

This device is ready to be a lovely addition to your Samsung Galaxy S 4 family of smart devices. If you’ve got a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, there’s little reason to upgrade – and you might just want to skip this generation if you really enjoy your front-facing speakers which do not appear here in 2013 – unless you’ve got the Galaxy Note 10.1, of course. The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 instead is the topmost hero tablet for the Samsung universe at the moment, running a quad-core Samsung Exynos processor and rolling with an S-Pen to boot.While the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 also brings some heat to the party, it’s with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 that this smaller form-factor does battle with. It’s also missing the front-facing speakers, while we’re on the subject. Where did they go, and why did they disappear?