Samsung Galaxy Tab E Review. Better on the big screen.

Yes at 9.6 inches it is big. It’s an equally big way to consume media. Here are my experiences with the Samsung Galaxy Tab E.

Right off the bat I can confirm that typing is just pure joy. In fact interacting with the touch is just so pleasant owing to the spacious buttons on such ample real estate.

The following is a technical review of this device. For a simplified summary scroll down to the ‘In a nutshell’ section at the bottom of the review.

Unboxing

Contents from the box are pretty basic

• x1 Samsung galaxy Tab E
• x1 Charger head
• x1 USB cable
• x1 User Guide
• x1 Warranty card

Phone Exterior

The face of the device is dominated by a 9.6 inch TFT display 1280 x 800 worth of pixels. It’s not what you would call sharp and the colours don’t do it much justice as well as they seem a bit washed out as you can see in the sample below.

The touch panel is very responsive and features adequate sensitivity and i’m happy to note the face sheds off some bezels which we love.

Above the display is some branding right at the top center and a 2MP front facing camera camping to its right.

The bottom of the display houses the standard array of Samsung keys that is a clicky physical home button right in the middle and capacitive keys flanking it, the recent apps button to the left and the return button to the right.

It would be nice if the capacitive keys came illuminated though.

The top of the device is home to the micro USB port right at the centre with a 3.5mm headphone jack to its right.

The right edge is home to the SIM slot and the SD card slot and the left edge houses the power button and the volume rocker.

The bottom  edge is where you find the pinhole for the primary microphone skewed to the right.

Flip the whole tablet over you find the back populated by a 5MP camera with a loudspeaker to its left and some branding as well.

The body is made out of plastic which doesn’t really give a premium feel and with such a large footprint we would have loved some form of enhancement to the strength of the display.

Camera

The tab features a 5MP main snapper and a 2MP secondary snapper with the primary  camera capable of taking video at 720p 1280 x 720 HD.

Image quality is average to below average owing to poor focus in images resulting in some blurry shots.

Also the time is takes between pressing the shutter key and the image being saved is an eternity. But then again you really won’t buy a tablet to take pictures.

Videos are really smooth with the camera pushing out a solid 30 frames per second regardless of lighting conditions. However video quality is not really the best out there but with excellent lighting you can manage to get some decent shots.

Audio

We kick off this section with the loudspeaker which provides a pretty rich serving of sound. Only issue holding it back is low volume levels.

At 69 decibels it will be difficult to hear it ringing in the living room whilst you frying a steak in the kitchen.

Connect a pair of earphones and the sound quality doesn’t disappoint at all. Audio output is clean and rich with beefy low end bass that does not silence the treble.

Again volume levels could be better but if you find yourself some noise cancelling headphones  then that should be no issue at all.

Connectivity

The Galaxy Tab E has a SIM slot meaning it can make and receive calls and messages. Connectivity goes as high as 3G and reception is good.

There is no earpiece so unless you don’t mind having every conversation on speaker then I would strongly recommend you consider a headset.

Connectivity suite also includes bluetooth 4.0 and no support for CDMA lines.

Battery

The battery pack comes in the form of a non removable 5000mAh unit which can pull through a day’s worth of average usage without too much trouble.

After putting it through an endurance test is suffered a dent of 32% after an hour each of continuous video streaming, gaming and video recording. Not at all a bad number considering brightness was set at maximum.

However the device does have a lower resolution display which could have added to its advantage.

 This is a completely artificial test which allows us to provide a uniform test environment for all of our devices for purposes of comparison.

Performance

The Tablet is a device designed for individuals that want to consume content. It is a media centric piece of hardware which can handle productivity applications quite well.

Everyday usage for document viewing and editing, viewing videos and images it can handle those happily. It sports a Spreadtrum SC7731 CPU bundled with a Mali-400 MP GPU offering pretty basic performance values.

We threw it on our synthetic benchmarks and it managed a score of  18 694. What this means is you are perfectly fine if you keep away from heavy applications and games.

Storage options are pretty lean as well with RAM set at 1.5GB and 8GB internal storage. But worry not because the Tab E comes with expandable storage of up to 128GB for all the stuff you may need.

Software version is 4.4.4 Kitkat with touchwiz overlay which was a smooth performer when thumbing through the UI.

Spec Sheet

O.S	Android 4.4.4 Kitkat
CPU	Spreadtrum SC7731 Quad Core 1.3GHz
GPU	Mali-400 MP
Display and Protection	9.6 inch TFT LCD Display 1280 x 800 resolution.
Main Camera	Touch Focus 720p HD video at 30 frames per second
Secondary Camera	2MP 1600×1200 480p video Face beautify
Storage	1.5GB RAM 8GB Internal Storage SD card slot up to 128GB
Connectivity	2G, 3G Wifi Bluetooth 4.0
Sensors	Acceleration
Battery	5000mAh
Endurance	32% Power drain after an hour each of Continuous video streaming Continuous gaming Continuous video recording
Antutu 6 Score	18 694
Price $	347
Weight	485 Grams
Loudspeaker Loudness	69dB (below average)

Extras

Slide your finger from the right edge of the device and 2 columns pop up with a list of applications that you can access on the go from any application.

These same applications support multi window that is you can run 2 applications simultaneously on the display.

In A Nutshell

+ Spacious display

+ Splendid battery life

+ Multi window works well on such a large display

+ Good audio quality

– Display colours could be better

– Performance is below par

– Camera a bit of a let down

– More RAM and internal storage wouldn’t hurt

Yes it is not built for the power user. However if you need a device to view media and make some express touchups on the go, this might just be what you are looking for.