Camera and Internal Storage
To start off with, the imaging department is something that the Tab 3 10.1 does not fare well at. At the rear is a 3.15MP snapper with the ability to record 720p videos and it is aided by a 1.3MP camera for video calling. For a tablet that costs something north of Rs 30,000, the imaging unit that the Tab 3 10.1 brings to the table is pretty much unacceptable. The internal storage capacity of the Tab 3 10.1 is 16 GB out of which about 12 GB will be user available and it can be expanded by another 64GB courtesy of a microSD card slot. It isn’t something extra-ordinary but will surely get your work done.
Processor and Battery
Doing duty under the hood of the Tab 3 10.1 is a 1.6 GHz Dual Core Intel Atom Z2560 which can be found in tablets which cost less than half as much as this one so processing power is something it misses out on. It teams up with a 1GB RAM to aid multitasking but even that does not justify the sky-high price tag of the tablet. A 6,800 mAh battery is present to juice things up and Samsung claims it can last up to 9 hours of video playback or 140 hours of music playback. Expect real world performance to be way below that and we highly doubt if it can go on more than 5-6 hours of continuous media usage.
Display and Features
The display unit is a 10.1 inch IPS display which has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, resulting in a pixel density of 149ppi and we think you might just notice more pixels than you would like to in the Tab 3 10.1. So it isn’t really among the better looking screens on sale right now. It gets Dolby Surround Sound Enhancement as the saving grace and it runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean which again is something Samsung just can’t afford to launch a device at this price point with. We really think that Samsung should have given it a thought or two about updating it before the launch.
Comparison
A lot of tablets do put forth a strong case when it comes to competing with Tab 3 10.1. iPad Airand 4th generation iPad with Retina display come across as tablets which will easily blow the Samsung offerings case out of the water. You can also get the Note 10.1 by putting in a little extra money and get yourself benefits way more than worth the price difference.
Key Specs
Price and Conclusion
And the buck stops here. Priced at Rs 36,340, the Tab 3 10.1 does not make any sense whatsoever. Its almost an year old and you can get yourself a 64GB 4th generation iPad for Rs 4,000 less instead. Samsung has gone over the board with its pricing and we think the device is not the one you should be looking at if you were in for a 10 inch tablet in the market.
