Samsung Galaxy Tab A review – 8 inch screen with 4:3 aspect ratio

Samsung Galaxy Tab A is a quad core powered tablet that comes with a single SIM slot with 4G LTE support. This tablet sports an 8 inch XGA TFT screen and is running Lollipop out of the box. Galaxy Tab A is priced at ₹20,500.

Tab A Unboxing
Inside the box you will find the 8 inch tablet (4:3 aspect ratio), data cable, travel charger (5V ~ 1A), user guide and warranty card.

Design and Display
The moment you hold it you will realize that the Samsung Galaxy Tab A looks different, that’s because of the 4:3 aspect ratio. The dimension however looks and feels good. It is more comfortable to hold and perfect for reading purposes. Weight with battery is 320 grams and thickness is 7.42mm.

Tablet is using a plastic body, good quality with a silver metallic border on the sides. The Smoky Titanium colour with matte finish looks great. On the rear side you will find two circular points to attach the flip cover (as seen on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S).

There are 3 dedicated navigational buttons on the front. A single speaker vent, 3.5mm audio jack, micro USB and mic is placed on the side. Power button, volume rocker, micro SD card slot and micro SIM slot is placed on the right side. This tab supports single SIM with 4G plus voice functionality.

Tab A is using a TFT screen of size 8 inches with a 4:3 aspect ratio, supporting 1024 x 768 pixels resolution. Colour reproduction is good, touch is smooth and responsive. Viewing angles are okay. Though this tabs screen ratio is good for reading books the fonts are not that sharp, you can clearly see the characters are bleeding and even the graphics are pixelated. There is reading mode that is best suited for reading eBooks however it does not improve the font quality / sharpness.

There is no LED notification. Native video calling is supported. There are two sensors – accelerometer and light.

Memory, Storage and OS
Tab A comes loaded with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage space. On the first boot you will get about 10GB free space for apps and 1.2GB free RAM. Apps are getting installed on internal storage but there is an option to move to SD. OTG works! (I was able to access the contents of OTG pendrive).

Tab A is running Android 5.0.2 (32 bit) with touchWiz UI.

Performance
The Samsung Galaxy Tab A hardware is not that impressive because the same is used on many smartphones. It is the qualcomm snapdragon 410 64 bit quad core (MSM8916 cortex A53) processor clocked at 1.2GHz with Adreno 306 GPU.

Performance is smooth and you can play games in low resolution mode. Tablet does not heat-up much.

Benchmark

Gaming
This tablet is specially made for reading purpose and that is where the 4:3 aspect ratio works. Though you can play games and watch movies on this tablet it looks weird on the 4:3 screen (if using full screen mode). I played Asphalt 8 (got installed on internal storage). Game was playable in high graphics mode but it was lagging, it did well in medium mode.

Camera
There is 5MP AF camera on the rear without LED flash and a 2MP camera on the front. Rear camera can shoot HD (720p) videos. The camera quality is good but not that great. Check the sample images and videos at the end of this review.

Others
Sound is loud and clear. There is in-call speaker you can use this tablet for making and receiving calls. 4G (2300 band) worked, no issues with Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth.

Battery
There is 4200 mAh non-removable battery that delivers 5 to 7 hours of continuous moderate to heavy usage.

Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy Tab A though looks really great and especially made of reading, unfortunately it is using a TFT LCD screen of size 8 inches with 1024 x 768 pixels resolution, the font / graphics are not that sharp and that spoils the fun. The 4:3 is really not meant for gaming / entertainment though it can be used for both.

For the price tag of ₹20,500 Samsung should have at least added a super AMOLED screen with high resolution.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A is priced at ₹20,500.

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