Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Review: A New Affordable Samsung Tablet

Hey guys, this is Shane, and I'm back with another video to share my full review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7. This is a new, affordable, budget-oriented tablet from Samsung. It is on sale on their official website. I'll have links down in the description. The price is $230. It comes in the colors silver, dark gray, and this gold color here. It has 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM. You can pay $50 more to get 64GB of storage. But my personal recommendation, just go on Amazon and buy a microSD card for around $20. You're going to get a lot more storage for a lot less money. So let's see what we get for $230. Like I said, I've been using this for the last two weeks. I just put it back in the box for show. See what you get. So in this pamphlet here, we just have a little bit of paperwork. We also have the ejection tool to put the microSD card into its slot. And on the other half here, we have a 7.5W charger with a USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable. Taking a look at the tablet itself, again, this is the gold color. But to be completely honest, this is not really that gold. If you compare it to the Mystic Bronze color of the Galaxy Tab S7, there is a lot more gold going on there. This more so looks like a tan color to me. When I saw this color on the website, I thought I definitely would want to go with this color. But now that I have it in hand, I would probably prefer to get the silver or dark gray color. So just keep that in mind when you're looking to purchase this for yourself. Now just because this is a more affordable tablet certainly doesn't mean Samsung skimped out on the physical form factor. This is a very solid feeling tablet here. Feels just like any of their other tablets regardless of the price. We have an aluminum body construction here. On the side, we have a power and volume buttons and a mic. We have a single camera setup, which we'll check out later. And we have that slot for our microSD card. We have Type-C here in addition to a headphone jack. We have that dual speaker setup. Two on the top and two on the bottom. Taking a look at the display, we have a 10.4 inch 2000 by 1200 pixel resolution with some fairly larger bezels on the sides here compared to other Samsung tablets. But honestly, with tablets, it's perfectly acceptable. You're going to be having your fingers on the edges of the tablet anyway. You don't want to be hitting that screen by accident. So the bezels are forgivable here. You can see here I can get a very nice grip on this tablet with no issues at all. Now to get into the Tab A7, there is facial recognition and I've got to tell you guys, the facial recognition is amazing on this tablet. It works from practically any distance you're sitting from. So in this example here, I took out the tablet very close to me and I gradually am unlocking the tablet further and further away, all the way to the point where the Tab A7 is completely across the table and it is still unlocking. So it doesn't matter what orientation you're in. It doesn't matter if you're laying in bed or you're looking at it at an awkward angle. This is always going to unlock. I really enjoyed the facial recognition on the Tab A7. But back to the display, in terms of the colors and the pixel resolution itself, it is a great looking display, but it is worth noting that it is kind of hard to see the display when you have it turned to its sides. Compared to some other tablets, you may be able to perfectly see it from the side or from another angle. So you have to be looking at the tablet straight on, but that's probably what you're going to be doing with the tablet anyways. It's just worth noting that. And also the brightness, it gets kind of bright. I would say it's definitely not as bright as something like my Galaxy Tab S7, but it does get bright enough. And most times I either have the tablet at about 50% brightness or I have it completely maxed out. But now getting into the meat and bones of this review, how is actual use with the Galaxy Tab A7? I am happy to report that my general use case with this Tab A7 for the last two weeks has been excellent. I have actually been doing most of my tasks on my Tab A7 here. I was surprised at how much this tablet could do. Since it is a cheaper tablet and since it does have an inferior processor on paper, I was thinking you weren't going to be able to do a whole lot with this tablet. But to my surprise, all of your general tasks that you already do on a daily basis, this tablet is going to handle it very well. So my one use case, of course, is watching YouTube and watching YouTube content was great on here. Colors looked good, fills up most of the display. You don't have extra black chunks on the side or anything. I saw some people on other videos and comment sections worried about rotating the device because on some of the older Samsung tablets, it's a nuisance trying to rotate to a different orientation without having a lot of lag or anything. So here I'm going to show you what it's like turning around the device to a different orientation. And yes, you do have to wait a split second compared to an iPad that pretty much instantly transitions when you turn the tablet. But really, it's not that big of a deal. It works fine. It works every time you turn the device, all in all, no issues there. I was also doing a lot of web browsing and surfing the web and online shopping. Whatever activities you do on the internet, it handles it very well through the Samsung internet app. And you can see here that scrolling through web pages, it's perfectly fine. I'm on Google News here. We've got a ton of different thumbnails and images and whatnot, and it scrolls through it like a champ. Now, I know a big area of concern for a lot of people here is the three gigabytes of RAM on board with this tablet. But honestly, it's not that big of a deal. Yes, when you do open an older application, you're just going to have to wait a split second like right there. I just had to wait just a second for that to open back up. But in day-to-day use, that's not a big deal. I didn't need that to instantly open back up to be satisfied with the experience here. You just have to wait a little bit, and then it opens back up. I was also doing a lot more gaming on the Tab A7 than I thought I would have originally because again, I was surprised at how good the gaming performance was here. One of my favorite games, Stardew Valley, can tend to struggle on some lower-end devices and on some iPads as well. I had difficulties running a smooth game here. But on the Galaxy Tab A7, really no issues at all. Sometimes when I would scroll out and look at the whole entire map at once, there would be a little bit of stutter. But when you're actually moving your character around, performing actions, doing tasks, there's no lag at all. Very smooth 60 frames per second experience. Now, I truly believe you can get so much more out of a tablet if you have accessories to go with it. So that's why I purchased the official book cover from Samsung's website. This is $50, but if you order the Tab A7 from Samsung.com, they give you 50% off. So the book cover here for $25. Again, I've been using this for two weeks. I just put it back in the case for show. But this is what you're going to get. It has a matte, rubbery sort of feeling to it. It's got some grip to it on the bottom, so it's not going to be moving around too much when you have the tablet inside of it. You'll see that it's very easy to fit your tablet inside. Just a couple clicks and you're in and ready to go. And what I like the most about this book cover is that when you lift it up, it's going to automatically wake that screen. It's going to initiate the facial recognition. So it's going to get you in super quick, and then it also just closes right up and puts the tablet to sleep. You don't have to be reaching over for the power button because a lot of times with this tablet I'll reach over and I can't tell if I'm hitting the power button or I'm hitting the volume buttons. It's so much easier to just open up to turn it on and close it to turn it off. We actually have some good protection here for the Tab A7. On some of the other Samsung tablets, the case doesn't go any further than the tablet. You can see here that the case goes beyond the tablet. We have some extra edge on all the sides. So I definitely feel like my tablet is more well protected in this book cover compared to some other book covers that Samsung sells. And of course the biggest benefit here is having some different stand options. So you have two magnetic connections for your standard tabletop modes that just feel really good. They click in really soft and it just feels really good to click them in. And then also we have this mode where it's just a little bit raised up and this is my preferred use case. It really doesn't wobble that much when you press against the screen and you're in this orientation because you're not connected to any magnets or anything. It's just kind of hanging, but it really is the best orientation for me. It just brings it up a little bit off the table and it's just great for tabletop use. You're just able to very easily see what it is you're doing. You're not kind of reaching over. You're not kind of hovering over the table to look at your content. You can just sit comfortably wherever you are, whether it's on the couch or on the table and you're able to see everything you're doing without any issues. So overall, I highly recommend getting the book cover case to go along with the Tab A7, especially if it's only $25 if you're getting it from Samsung's website. This is a great option.