[carrjm2]

I am a college student, looking for a tablet that is affordable (again, college student) that can be used in replacement of my laptop in class. It is difficult to carry my laptop to class all the time, but I sometimes need it for taking notes and occasionally the internet. It would not be used as my main computer, just for in-class things. Would the Galaxy Tab 3 work for this?

[Robin Hebert]

Yes I believe so. It has very good note taking apps and its portable yet big enough to see what you're doing

Posted via Android Central App

[orion430]

The Tab 3.8 will probably be better suited than the 3.7 due to the bigger screen but obviously is more expensive. The speech to text function could be handy for short notes but is not always reliable even with practice. This is an example i tried on my tablet and it seemed to catch every word. The previous sentence is fully unmodified. Had mine 3 days and am still learning but loving it.

Posted via Android Central App

[Relgoshan]

I think for a student especially you want a 1.5GB RAM model with Multi Window, either the 8.0 wifi or 7.0 LTE. Or a different brand. Good mix of keyboard options, multilingual voice typing, you can have chat and a PDF or office doc on screen at the same time. I haven't heard much about bluetooth HID accessories but the menu includes mouse/trackpad sensitivity...? Lots of nice cases cheap.

[relic74]

NO, stay away from these tablets at all costs. Their slow (real slooooowwww), cheaply built(the screen will scratch if you put a sock on top of it), horrific battery life(4 - 5 hours) and the resolution is comical for 2014. Buy a Nexus 10 or 7, it's the same price and magnitudes better. I would actually investigate in getting a Chromebook. I am also going to school and my HP 11 has been a great companion. Please, for your own sanity stay away from the Tab 3's, their just absolute crap, Samsung should be ashamed of themselves, spec-wise they are already 2 years out of date when they came off of the assembly line.

[Relgoshan]

Oh hi Google troll, tell me more about the eyestrain-inducing choppy scrolling experience in Chrome on the 'faster' Nexus 7? Because I can not stand that. My 7.0 lte is smooth as butter and delivers 8-10 hours screen on time with 4g/bluetooth/wifi ON.

[bluzman]

Since I would assume the ability to take notes is important to any student, one of the Galaxy Note (8.0, 10.1) series seems like it should merit some consideration. Here's a 10.1 refurb, for example, for a reasonable price that has much more capability than GT 3.

Amazon.com: Buying Choices: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (16GB, Deep Grey)

[relic74]

Hi back, I was focusing my attention on the 10.1 version, not the 7, I actually have now idea how it performs but again for the same price I would prefer the Nexus 7 or EVGA Tegra Note7, according to benchmarks there so much faster that's it's almost embarrassing that Samsung thought they could be competitive, better resolution, faster graphics etc. Anyway, The 10.1 version is slow, I'm not trolling as I use and enjoy Android tablets very much, when their good. I have since bought a Nexus 10 and I full heartedly recommend this tablet over the SGT3 10.1. It's the same price but you get another 1GB of RAM (which you need!), higher resolution screen and my favourite, no TouchWiz crap. The SGT3 10.1 only has 300mb of free memory for apps, come one, even a closed minded person as yourself must see that as a bad thing. So call me whatever you want, I'm just warning people to stay away from these tablet at all costs, Complete GARBAGE. If you want a Samsung tablet pay a little more and get one of the new pro's or notes because their mid level stuff is just not competitive in todays market. Going back to your 7" inch, were you high when you bought it, the specs for that thing have got to be the worst I have seen for a tablet that's being sold in 2014. Look below;

SGT3 7
Price 200
Processor: 1.2GHz Marvell Armada PXA986 CPU DualCore (A Marvell CPU, are you kidding me)
Graphics: Vivante GC1000+ (One of the slowest performing graphic GPU's being sold today)
RAM: 1 GB
Hard Drive: 8 GB
Resolution: 1024x600 (170 ppi) (yeah, it's that bad)
Camera: Front 1.3MP fixed focus; Rear 3MP auto focus
Other: SD Card

Nexus 7 v2
Price: 220
Processor: 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro Quadcore
Graphics: Adreno 320, 400MHz
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 16 GB
Resolution: 1920x1200 HD IPS display (323 ppi);
Camera: Front 1.2MP fixed focus; Rear 5MP autofocus
Other: you will always have the latest version of Android

EVGA Tegra Note 7
Price: 200
Processor: 1.8GHz quad-core Tegra 4 CPU
Graphics: GeForce 72 cores (Insanely fast GPU)
RAM: 1 GB
Hard Drive: 16 GB
Resolution: 1,280x800;
Camera: Front .3MP fixed focus; Rear 5MP auto focus
Other: SD Card, Active digitizer, stupid fast CPU

I can't fathom why you would want a Samsung Tab 3 7, I'm actually dumbfounded why you chose this model. It's like someone let you choose between a 2014 BMW M5 or a 2005 Honda Civic for the same price and you chose the Civic. There is no way you can convince me that you made a wise purchase. Did you even bother reading the reviews, there isn't one that didn't conclude with; mediocre performing tablet that was outdated the second it left the factory, bad value.

The conclusion of this forum is such, no the Samsung Tablet 3's are not recommended for school. The hardware is dated especially for the price that Samsung is charging. There are those who might own one of these devices in this forum who will disagree and have but please do yourself a favour and just read the reviews. If that doesn't sway your opinion then just go and play with one. I don't want you to end up with a machine that you will regret. Go for the Nexus series, their a good value and are much faster than Samsungs offerings. If a SD card is important to you, Kingston sells a wifi device called MobileLite that can connect a SD Card, Mini SD Card, USB Stick and an external harddrive via Wifi to your tablet. It's like a mini NAS, pretty cool for 50 bucks, you can also share your data and use it as the main connection for LAN party's. It's a also an emergency battery for your tablet or phone.

[Relgoshan]

I mostly agree with your criticism as directed to the Tab 3 10.1, its Atom chipset is held down by the low RAM and cut features. All of us expected more from that price. And I now want to learn much more about the Tegra Note7.

That being as such, my Tab 3 7.0 (LTE) is *not* from the same *planet* as the 7.0 (wifi).

SM-T217S (Sprint LTE)

Price: Mostly $50 or $0, no hidden activation, plus data plan
Processor: 1.7Ghz dual core Snapdragon 400 MSM8930AB
Graphics: Adreno 305
RAM: 1.5GB
Storage 16GB + MicroSDXC up to 64GB
Resolution: 1024x600 (balanced, not contrast-y with good angles and great brightness) ...glossy
Camera 1.3MPx fixed/3.0MPx fixed, good colors but weak in every other way....very happy with the mic tho.
Other: 100% working infrared remote/TV Guide solution (tested in five cities and eleven 'rooms')
Other: Multi Window and Smart Stay, 4G/wifi autonomous control system prioritised to save battery
Other: Physical home button and 'real' back/menu buttons, Voice control preintegrated in a few places

In my subjective experience the 7.0 LTE was much less choppy in Chrome than the Nexus 7, probably because it did not have to upscale the display. Youtube launched two seconds faster, navigated to and started playing a video 4-5 seconds faster. Gaming felt about the same overall, but that could change. In reading I get over ten hours, in a battery burn test I get six hours compared to the N7 at four. While on paper the Nexus 7 looks better, sitting in my hand I want to destroy it. I will definitely look into that tablet from EVGA though, its specs are good enough to merit a subjective review.

DO YOUR RESEARCH before coming in here to troll.

[relic74]

I'm not trolling, I'm trying to prevent someone from making a mistake and I do my research. I didn't notice that you had the LTE version sorry about that, that being said though I would still stay away from it and I doubt this person wants to start a new contract, especially from Sprint. Buying it outright, Samsung 7 LTE is 350 dollars, you are now getting into Samsung 8" Note or LG P 8.3 territory, which are much, much better tablets. Even with the faster Qualcomm CPU, the Samsung 7" LTE is outdated, sorry but it just is. I'm sure when you bought it your provider didn't have much in the way of options at 7" but I would have just bought a better wifi tablet and used my data connection through the phone. That being said, If you need data in your tablet then the Nexus 7 32GB LTE model is still a better tablet for the price. I have not experienced any of the slowdowns your describing, every application opens instantly and that screen is just magical. I also can't stand TouchWiz or the amount of useless apps Samsung stuffs down peoples throats. This is about a tablet for school and I highly doubt this person wants a 7" or even an 8" tablet. 10.1 is a good size to be productive and the Samsung Tab 3 10.1 is garbage, so again he is better off buying a Nexus 10. Enough talk of 7" tablets. I'm glad your happy with your purchase.

To be honest the Samsung Tab 7.7 3G is still the best 7" tablet Samsung has ever made.

[Relgoshan]

Meh. Your diatribe slowly redeems itself, but I have yet to meet an unmodded Nexus 7 that 'feels' fast. Sadly I have yet to *see* a Nexus 10 in person at all...so no response to that. The N5 phone seems pretty nice but I could not live with that battery.

The Snapdragon 400 is hardly outdated, it's only being replaced now by the x01 iterations and we're still waiting for OpenGL ES3 games that actually matter. Compared to the Krait classic 1.5 GHz quad S4 Pro, the Krait 300 1.7GHz dual 400 is up to 30% faster per clock per core in a few test cases...this is not subjective it is two NEWER cores at higher clock against four OLDER cores at lower clock running apps which are *mostly NOT* multicore enabled. Most applications still using at best two cores, the 7.0 LTE will in fact outperform the N7 in some real life apps.

The graphics of the N7 are more powerful but also more power hungry and limited by the massive increase of pixels to render(nearly 4x more). The already smaller area screen is further squeezed by the on screen buttons, my 7.0 LTE has +0.5" or about four more lines of extra text rendered in portrait view. So the N7 is nearly as big as a Tab 3 8.0 but has a viewing area smaller than the Tab 3 7.0, forget the pixels I cannot make that trade in size.

My screen is set to 30sec timeout but Smart Stay works as advertised, and I can read a full page of a PDF without ever touching the screen to keep it awake. N7 does not have this feature.

I do agree the old 7.7 was great when it launched, but its time has passed. Aside from the flagship Note 10, most of the current Tab line are not *fast on paper*, but they sell just fine and work fairly well. I think I am doing great for $0+data rather than $200+data. The heaviest games, PDFs and spreadsheets I've hit it with ran fine. Virtual desktop client very smooth. Some nice Samsung-only bonus features without the price and bulk of their other offerings. Where is the subjective downside?

DO YOUR RESEARCH before looking down on us.

[brosko]

Well said, especially the part about the n7 being way bigger than it has to be! That makes it much less desirable imo.

[Relgoshan]

I am a college student, looking for a tablet that is affordable (again, college student) that can be used in replacement of my laptop in class. It is difficult to carry my laptop to class all the time, but I sometimes need it for taking notes and occasionally the internet. It would not be used as my main computer, just for in-class things. Would the Galaxy Tab 3 work for this?

Among all of our foolish bickering I feel that your question has been neglected. For typing and browsing, any tablet under $200 should be fine. Or a Chromebook if wifi is ubiquitous. If you need mobile data I still suggest the Tab 3 7.0 LTE but prices and plans are not as good as they were even a month ago. For jotting and sketching, the Note 8 could be nice at its price point but I am also interested in the EVGA Note7 mentioned by that condescending basement troll...if it looks and runs good for $200 I may buy one for my niece.

[Hurrycanejohn]

Not to mention, that some of us like that Touchwiz crap.

Posted via Android Central App

[xmostwanted559x]

I got mine for 135 bucks new so I don't mind

Posted via Android Central App

[Relgoshan]

I'm not trolling, I'm trying to prevent someone from making a mistake and I do my research. I didn't notice that you had the LTE version sorry about that, that being said though I would still stay away from it and I doubt this person wants to start a new contract, especially from Sprint. Buying it outright, Samsung 7 LTE is 350 dollars, you are now getting into Samsung 8" Note or LG P 8.3 territory, which are much, much better tablets. Even with the faster Qualcomm CPU, the Samsung 7" LTE is outdated, sorry but it just is. I'm sure when you bought it your provider didn't have much in the way of options at 7" but I would have just bought a better wifi tablet and used my data connection through the phone. That being said, If you need data in your tablet then the Nexus 7 32GB LTE model is still a better tablet for the price. I have not experienced any of the slowdowns your describing, every application opens instantly and that screen is just magical. I also can't stand TouchWiz or the amount of useless apps Samsung stuffs down peoples throats. This is about a tablet for school and I highly doubt this person wants a 7" or even an 8" tablet. 10.1 is a good size to be productive and the Samsung Tab 3 10.1 is garbage, so again he is better off buying a Nexus 10. Enough talk of 7" tablets. I'm glad your happy with your purchase.

To be honest the Samsung Tab 7.7 3G is still the best 7" tablet Samsung has ever made.

Quadrant score 7.0 LTE 8k vs N7 2013 at 6k
Vellamo 2k/750 vs 1500/700
Linpack 200-250/285-380 vs 85-110/150-240
Antutu 20k vs ... 20k?

3DMark the N7 mops the floor with my LTE, but GFXBench and Windmill do not agree. Your battery life is at best equal and at worst 4hrs to my 6hrs. Your page loading, app loading, storage traversal, RAM speed, driver overhead and firmware overhead are all inferior fresh out-of-the-box. Now that I have wasted time gathering the figures, calling the 7.0 LTE 'outdated' is a gross injustice. In *most* cases my device should be substantially faster than yours in real applications!

This is a pleasant surprise.

[Sean Leckie]

What the heck are you talking about? The tab 3 7" has a battery life of 10+ hours. So far, it's very durable (though my last tablet got waterlogged so I'm not taking any chances) and the speed isn't bad at all. Polaris office or Google Drive and Quickword work well as Microsoft office docx creators, and are ideal for typing up notes, or as mentioned before, voice typing works too. I highly recommend it.

[Relgoshan]

6 hrs burn-in battery life is amazing. I can go 10+ for light duty, yes. The key term there was 'worst case'.

Although could you please do a few benches and screenshot/dropbox them for me? I need comparison figures from a 7.0 wifi and no one can be bothered to provide them.

[Gregory Bull]

Can anyone reccomend a BT keyboard and app on my GalaxyTab 3 that will allow me to comfortably type in the 'notes' window of a powerpoint in an outline format during class? I'm hoping to avoid carrying my mac book pro around, since its heavier and much more expensive. My top priority is that the notes are formated correctly(headings, indentations) so I do not have to fuss on my laptop after class.

Office Suite Pro seems to be the best app for editing powerpoint slides, but the notes do not format like an outline (indentation). Maybe this will go away once I get the BT Keyboard since there is no 'tab' key on the onscreen keyboard.

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I am going to Physician Assistant school so I'll be pushing by G.Tab 3 a lot harder in the next couple years.

[Relgoshan]

The Swype keyboard included does have a tab key but seems like many apps do not typeset the tab when the key is pressed. Worth experimenting tho. Just about every iBlank accessory keyboard works on the Tab 3 also. So Polaris does not do good Powerpoint annotation? I haven't really messed with the Powerpoint sorry.