Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7.0 Review

The Galaxy Tab 4 7.0 is the smallest and cheapest of  Samsung’s latest trio of tablets but it’s packing the same amount of punch in terms of design and specifications.  The build quality is very typical Samsung with an all plastic construction and a fake leather back that still feels like plastic.  Despite it’s plastic construction it feels very solid and sturdy with a very nice amount of weight.  Samsung has also trimmed down their use of chrome on the Galaxy Tab 4 line up making the design look much more aesthetically pleasing.

As the name suggests, on the front is a 7.0 inch display with a resolution of 1280×800.  It’s not super high resolution so pixels are noticeable, but it’s certainly far from a bad display as it’s very bright with good color reproduction, easy to see outdoors, and  has great viewing angles. Internally it’s being powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, and 8 gigs of internal storage which will run out quickly unless you augment by micro SD expansion.  They’re very mediocre specs and the overall performance throughout the OS is passable with very few hiccups.  Graphically demanding games are still playable but it’s certainly far from buttery smooth.

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Just like the rest of the tablet the camera is nothing to write home about.  It’s a 3 megapixel fixed focus camera so photos are very low resolution meaning you won’t be able to zoom and crop due to the lack of detail.  It does fairly well with plenty of light but once you take it indoors photos become grainy especially in low light and with no autofocus the camera struggles to take clear shots.

The biggest highlight of this tablet is the battery life.  It’s packing a 4,000 mAh battery inside and it lasted me about 2 days under heavy usage as I primarily used the tablet for gaming with some light web browsing and social networking.  At the end of it all I wound up with slightly over 7 hours of screen on time which is quite impressive so I have no doubt this tablet could last between 3 to 4 days with average use.

The Galaxy Tab 4 7.0 ships with Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface.  TouchWiz is still TouchWiz, but the version on the Galaxy Tab 4 line up is much more slimmed down.  Many features found on Samsung’s more high end offerings like My Magazine and Air Gestures are not included, but all of the more useful features like multiwindow, palm swipe, and smart stay remain intact.

The Galaxy Tab 4 7.0 is available now in black and white models for 199.99.  It’s WiFi only as of right now but 3G/LTE variants will be coming to carriers later this year.  The price is a little steep, especially when you can get a Nexus 7 for 30 dollars more and get a better bang for your buck when it comes to specs making the Galaxy Tab 4 7.0 a really tough sell unless you need that micro SD expansion or just want a Samsung made tablet.  It’s small, portable, and cheaper than Samsung’s PRO line but it isn’t without it’s shortcomings.  With other competitive options for similar prices you might be better off looking elsewhere.