nickdalzell
Extreme Android User
No forum currently exists for this tablet (which just showed up in the Best Buy here this weekend, in sale for the nice price of $169) so apologies to posting it here if it's the wrong forum
That being said, it has not been that long since i got the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 a few months ago, as a replacement to my failed Nexus 7 and obsolete/laggy Kindle Fire First Edition. My intent was a basic e-reader that has TouchWiz and S-Voice support, to maintain consistency with my other Samsung products (which dominate my mobile lifestyle, i'm a bit of a Samsung fan given that they have never failed me and offer a superior experience in my view, plus i like the consistency of having the same UX on all my devices) and to replace the Nexus tablets that seem to share shelf space more than time in my hands.
When i got the Tab 3 i was glad to see the S3's version of TouchWiz still on it, as at the time i did prefer the default weather widget over the later flatter one that came out in the next iteration, and battery life was superb, but was really let down by a few things. first, S-Voice is the same, laggy, ancient version found on the Galaxy S2 and does not support the High Quality voice engine used in the later models, with the iconic Samsung female voice that sounds a bit like the iOS 7 Siri voice. instead it uses an old Gingerbread TTS engine and sounds horrid on the stereo speakers. it also tends to freeze rendering it unusable. it was also stuck with a low-spec of RAM and a slow dual-core CPU, which results in a laggy experience for a newer product, especially given it's running TouchWiz. the screen will give you migraines or eye strain as it's a lousy 1024x600 that even Samsung cannot fix with their infamous oversaturation of color.
However, they seem to have improved the new generation with the Tab 4 7.0, including adding in HQ voice engine support, the S5's TouchWiz with the much cleaner flat design. at first, seeing the S5 and being a huge fan of Skeuomorphism, i was turned off. the S5 demo in the stores here all loved to showcase the worst possible color for a male user--PINK! it was as if Pinkie Pie herself from My Little Pony was the intended user of the UX. the background was a live wallpaper ironically similar to the iOS 7's same live wallpaper (pink floating bubbles!) and the icon set seemed to blend in and almost dynamically changed color to make it even more pink. the notification shade was full of Android L-inspired toggles with pastel color. the lock screen had (surprise!) BUBBLES. gone was the nice S4's lock screen light effect that felt more in line with Samsung's Nature UX which had dominated TouchWiz for a long time, and lost its science fiction style sound along with it.
However, having seen some later Sci-Fi movies with fictional yet beautiful Flat Designs, i rethought how i felt about the design itself and figured 'hey maybe it's not flat design itself that's to blame, but the fact most OEMs make horridly feminine-themed UXs or made flat designs that seem like throwbacks to ViziOn and GEoS or NeXT....so it felt dated, boring, sterile, unnatural. part of what has drawn me to Samsung products after the horrid iOS 7 rendered Apple moot to me was the UX known as Nature UX and the half-skeuomorphic look of TouchWiz.
However, either they have updated its look or changing the wallpaper to a more proper flat design pattern made that much of a difference, but using the new TouchWiz which the Tab 4 7.0 has, really is nice. it's clean, faster, feels lag-free, and the sounds are very subtle and not overblaring as they were. i'm really taking a liking to it. the battery life is pretty much as good as the Tab 3 7.0, and the new tablet has KitKat installed.
The two disappointments so far is the lack of lockscreen voice commands, as well as the lack of the Galaxy S5 Weather widget. they lost the 'scene' look of a field with a tree that dynamically updated after the S4 had it replaced with a more 'sky view' that more or less looks the same despite the weather. the S5 rethought the nature scene view but changes it to a more Windows XP themed 'Bliss' background, that also changes depending on the weather.
On the Tab 4 7.0, it reverts to the same sky view, but even harder to notice, as the wispy cirrus clouds are harder to notice among the same bluish-pink background. it seems to try too hard to be Dashclock widget with the additional info it provides, and i really looked forward to the S5 Weather since the rest of TouchWiz in its new look is otherwise the S5's version. this might be due to the tablet's still-limited spec.
those who hate lag will be happy this one is lag-free, it has a Quad Core CPU vs the Tab 3's dual-core, and an additional half-gig of RAM. the screen might still be well below that of a Retina or AMOLED, but it has improved resolution and pixels are hidden a bit better by the new TouchWiz UX. color saturation might not be as good, lord knows i hate the washed-out colors of the Nexus tablets (although many would claim it's more 'natural' but to me it's simply more akin to looking at a 20-year-old projection TV with fading color picture tubes inside) but for those who prefer it over Samsung's beautiful yet oversaturated colors, it will be a nice welcome.
I haven't had much use other than the initial test but i hope this helps anyone considering this tablet.
That being said, it has not been that long since i got the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 a few months ago, as a replacement to my failed Nexus 7 and obsolete/laggy Kindle Fire First Edition. My intent was a basic e-reader that has TouchWiz and S-Voice support, to maintain consistency with my other Samsung products (which dominate my mobile lifestyle, i'm a bit of a Samsung fan given that they have never failed me and offer a superior experience in my view, plus i like the consistency of having the same UX on all my devices) and to replace the Nexus tablets that seem to share shelf space more than time in my hands.
When i got the Tab 3 i was glad to see the S3's version of TouchWiz still on it, as at the time i did prefer the default weather widget over the later flatter one that came out in the next iteration, and battery life was superb, but was really let down by a few things. first, S-Voice is the same, laggy, ancient version found on the Galaxy S2 and does not support the High Quality voice engine used in the later models, with the iconic Samsung female voice that sounds a bit like the iOS 7 Siri voice. instead it uses an old Gingerbread TTS engine and sounds horrid on the stereo speakers. it also tends to freeze rendering it unusable. it was also stuck with a low-spec of RAM and a slow dual-core CPU, which results in a laggy experience for a newer product, especially given it's running TouchWiz. the screen will give you migraines or eye strain as it's a lousy 1024x600 that even Samsung cannot fix with their infamous oversaturation of color.
However, they seem to have improved the new generation with the Tab 4 7.0, including adding in HQ voice engine support, the S5's TouchWiz with the much cleaner flat design. at first, seeing the S5 and being a huge fan of Skeuomorphism, i was turned off. the S5 demo in the stores here all loved to showcase the worst possible color for a male user--PINK! it was as if Pinkie Pie herself from My Little Pony was the intended user of the UX. the background was a live wallpaper ironically similar to the iOS 7's same live wallpaper (pink floating bubbles!) and the icon set seemed to blend in and almost dynamically changed color to make it even more pink. the notification shade was full of Android L-inspired toggles with pastel color. the lock screen had (surprise!) BUBBLES. gone was the nice S4's lock screen light effect that felt more in line with Samsung's Nature UX which had dominated TouchWiz for a long time, and lost its science fiction style sound along with it.
However, having seen some later Sci-Fi movies with fictional yet beautiful Flat Designs, i rethought how i felt about the design itself and figured 'hey maybe it's not flat design itself that's to blame, but the fact most OEMs make horridly feminine-themed UXs or made flat designs that seem like throwbacks to ViziOn and GEoS or NeXT....so it felt dated, boring, sterile, unnatural. part of what has drawn me to Samsung products after the horrid iOS 7 rendered Apple moot to me was the UX known as Nature UX and the half-skeuomorphic look of TouchWiz.
However, either they have updated its look or changing the wallpaper to a more proper flat design pattern made that much of a difference, but using the new TouchWiz which the Tab 4 7.0 has, really is nice. it's clean, faster, feels lag-free, and the sounds are very subtle and not overblaring as they were. i'm really taking a liking to it. the battery life is pretty much as good as the Tab 3 7.0, and the new tablet has KitKat installed.
The two disappointments so far is the lack of lockscreen voice commands, as well as the lack of the Galaxy S5 Weather widget. they lost the 'scene' look of a field with a tree that dynamically updated after the S4 had it replaced with a more 'sky view' that more or less looks the same despite the weather. the S5 rethought the nature scene view but changes it to a more Windows XP themed 'Bliss' background, that also changes depending on the weather.
On the Tab 4 7.0, it reverts to the same sky view, but even harder to notice, as the wispy cirrus clouds are harder to notice among the same bluish-pink background. it seems to try too hard to be Dashclock widget with the additional info it provides, and i really looked forward to the S5 Weather since the rest of TouchWiz in its new look is otherwise the S5's version. this might be due to the tablet's still-limited spec.
those who hate lag will be happy this one is lag-free, it has a Quad Core CPU vs the Tab 3's dual-core, and an additional half-gig of RAM. the screen might still be well below that of a Retina or AMOLED, but it has improved resolution and pixels are hidden a bit better by the new TouchWiz UX. color saturation might not be as good, lord knows i hate the washed-out colors of the Nexus tablets (although many would claim it's more 'natural' but to me it's simply more akin to looking at a 20-year-old projection TV with fading color picture tubes inside) but for those who prefer it over Samsung's beautiful yet oversaturated colors, it will be a nice welcome.
I haven't had much use other than the initial test but i hope this helps anyone considering this tablet.