Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 (T311) review: Better

Today quad core processors are becoming so common in tablets and smartphones that most of us have started equating it with performance, and any device above Rs 15,000 is taken for granted as having a quad core processor.

So when Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 (T311) was released in India for a price of Rs 25,000 plus, many voices were concerned about its dual core processor. Besides, there were concerns about its size, the viability of calling etc. So we put Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 T311 through many tests and here is what we found out about the device.

Design

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 T311 comes with an 8 inch display, but before you jump to any conclusion about its perceived bulkiness, here are some facts: The tablet is just 7.4 mm thick, 123.8 mm (12.38 centimeters) wide and 209.8 mm (20 cm) long. Since it is uniformly thick you can guess how slim it actually is. In fact, it is slimmer than most smartphones available in the market today. In addition it weighs just 316 grams, a lot less than Asus Nexus 7's 340 grams and just a tad bit higher than iPad Mini, which weighs 308 grams.

The light profile and slimness make it very comfortable to hold and operate; you will feel the magic of Tab 3 especially while reading e-books; People with large hands like me can even operate it in one hand.

Samsung has also done its job well while placing the buttons and keys. First of all, the power key and the volume rocker are placed on the top right hand, close to each other but not so close that you will accidentally press the wrong button. The volume rocker and power key will be suitable for both right and left handers. The micro SD card slot and SIM slot are placed on the left hand side and are well covered. Most importantly, Samsung has placed two speakers at the bottom, which make it possible to hear callers very loud and clear. The micro USB port cum charger is between these two speakers.

Otherwise, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 T311 has all the characteristics of a usual Samsung device. It has full glass covering on the front, a metallic strip that runs around the sides, a shiny yet non-slippery back panel, and a home button below the display flanked by menu and return touch buttons.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 T311 is a superb tablet vis-à-vis its construction and is better than most 8 inch tablets in the market.

Display

As stated earlier, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 T311 comes with an 8 inch display. The TFT capacitive touchscreen offers 800 x 1280 pixel (high definition) resolution. Though it has no fancy technology like IPS, Super Amoled or Gorilla Glass, the display has wide-angle viewing. It is not a fingerprint magnet, nor is it that reflective, which is essential for a tablet, on which one is supposed to read e-books and watch movies a lot.

The response of the touchscreen is smooth. It has good colour reproduction and decent brightness that would make it easy to use in bright sunlight too.

OS and interface

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 T311 comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean operating system and if we were to go by the history, Samsung would definitely release the Android Kitkat version for it as well. Of course, it comes with TouchWiz user interface, which is common to most Samsung devices.

It has, like most Android handsets, a notification panel; but in this tablet you can customize that and can shuffle notification items as per your wish. You can create seven home screens.

Also, it has Samsung's celebrated applications, like Smart Stay, which keeps the device awake as long as you are viewing it from a certain angle. Besides, the tablet has something called Reading Mode that optimizes the tablet for reading and is applicable for certain apps. Besides, it has a multi-window feature that opens a notification like panel irrespective of what you are doing on the tablet-be it watching videos, or reading an e-book, or playing games. This makes it easy to switch to other tasks like calendars, browsers, email, YouTube etc, quickly making it a truly multi-tasking device. It also has the pop-up video feature that lets you do small tasks while you are watching a video.

Memory

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 T311 comes with a massive 16 GB of internal memory, which is sufficient for any user. If you need more don't worry as it has an expandable storage slot too that can accommodate up to a 64 GB micro SD card.

Dual core processor and apps

The performance of this tablet was one of our main concerns perhaps not unlike many of you, as it has a dual core processor. Its 1.5 GHz dual core Exynos 4212 too looks feeble in the league of quad core Mediatek and Nvidia Tegra processors.

To test its mettle, we played many high end graphics heavy games like Modern Combat 4, Beach Buggy Blitz, Dead Trigger, RipTide GP2 etc at high resolution. But to our surprise, the tablet played them with ease; it did not freeze or hang even once. Neither was there any lag even during multi-tasking when we played games and surfed the web, read an e-book and opened many other apps simultaneously.

This is perhaps due to the high level of processor optimization, the 1.5 GB RAM, and Mali-400MP graphics processing unit.

Moreover, Samsung has armed the tablet with many applications like Smart Remote, Polaris Office and Paper Artist. I would like to highlight only one app - called Readers Hub. It is unique only to Samsung's devices. This e-book app is wonderful and nothing like other e-book apps available in the Google Play store. With Readers Hub, reading e-books is a fresh and pleasurable experience.

Camera

The Galaxy Tab 3 T311 has a 5 megapixel autofocus rear camera and a 1.3 megapixel front camera. The tablet's camera comes armed with a CMOS sensor. However, it does not perform like we had expected. Pictures clicked through the rear camera looked washed out. The front camera too is good for video chatting but not for self-portraits.

Below are some images that would give you a decent idea about the camera quality of Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 T311.

Connectivity

The Tab 3 8.0 comes with a micro SIM slot. You can use any operator's SIM to make calls and access 3G networks. Do you wonder how easy it would be to make calls using an 8 inch tablet?

Believe me, its slim and light profile makes it very easy to use for calling. As I said in the design segment as well, the two speakers at the bottom also let you hear the caller's voice clearly. Anyway, you can use Bluetooth to make or receive calls, but of course the device is not a replacement for traditional mobile phone as you can't put it in your pocket.

The tablet has WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. It has a micro USB 2.0 charging port, which can also act as an HDMI port (MHL).

Battery

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 (T311) comes with a huge 4450 mAh Li-ion battery that claims to provide 24 hours of 3G talktime, which itself sounds very incredible. So we put it though a strenuous test. In one occasion, we kept its brightness at high; volume at mid-level (as we used the headset); and even kept WiFi on, and played Modern Combat 4 for exactly 40 minutes, and watched YouTube via WiFi for another hour. All this usage cost only 30 per cent charge.

With normal use like two hours of e-book reading, few minutes of calling, an hour of game playing, and a few minutes of web browsing, it can easily last for up to a day and half.

Conclusion

Though the tablet impressed us with its performance and quality, we really were surprised to see no headset in the review unit box. However, some online retailers are offering headsets with the tablet, and sell it for around Rs 24,500-much less than the official best buy price of Rs 25,500.

In a nutshell, it is a very good tablet which looks classy and performs better than many low cost quad core devices I have reviewed so far.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 (T311) review
Network
Operating System	Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
Dimensions	Just 7.4 mm thick, 123.8 mm (12.38 centimeters) wide and 209.8 mm (20 cm) long
Display	8 inch, 800 x 1280 pixel (high definition) resolution, Weight-316 grams
Input Method	TFT capacitive touchscreen
Processor	1.5 GHz dual core Exynos 4212, Mali-400MP graphics processing unit
Memory	1.5 GB RAM.16 GB of internal, up to a 64 GB micro SD card
Connectivity	micro SIM, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI port (MHL)
Multimedia	Supports all major audio file types
Camera	5 megapixel autofocus rear camera and a 1.3 megapixel front
GPS	Yes
Additional features
Battery	4450 mAh Li-ion
Warranty	1 year
Price	Rs 25,000

Apple iOS 7 Review

Apple has taken a different route with the user interface and changed experience with the iOS 7 software update.

PROS

• Refreshing flat user interface
• Faster and responsive on new hardware
• Quick access of essential controls, notifications

CONS

• Motions and Animation overload
• Icons don't look that great
• Most app remain the same, mere cosmetic facelift

Apple released iOS 7 software version on September 18 for all iOS users across the globe. After hammering the Apple download servers for hours, finally millions got to enjoy the totally new refreshed look bearing iOS 7. The comparison of the iOS 7 with Google Android had sparked way before the former was officially released for the public.

Apple has redesigned the user interface and added over 200 new features to the iOS 7 software update.

We also managed to get our hands on the software update and had a closer look to the iOS 7 software update on iPad Mini tablet. Here is our experience so far with the Apple iOS 7 update.

Complete aesthetic overhaul of the iOS 7 update is indeed the biggest change in the iOS so far. Meanwhile the rival Google Android mobile operating system underwent several face lifts and changes in last six years. We could write endlessly about the new iOS 7 user interface and new features but it would get really tedious to write as well as read. We thus here tried to cover major improvements and changes in the iOS 7.

Look and Feel

The new iOS 7 software looks nothing like any of its predecessors. Apple has loaded the iOS 7 with 'parallax motion effects' so when the user turns or moves the device, the background image along with icons move on the screen to match the movement of the device. It may cause several people to freak out with over responsive user interface. Thankfully Apple has offered an option to reduce the motion throughout the system. The text by default seems slimmer and many might find it difficult to read. Thankfully the text can be made larger and bolder.

Apple has packed plethora of customisation capabilities in the Accessibility section of the Settings app. Fiddling around with that will help the user to make visual changes in appearance of text, effects and much more on the user interface. Right from lockscreen to every button in the system, everything has been flattened and decorated with the Helvetica Neue font. Most of the applications and menus will have a white background with chrome borders. The new font and white background makes the screen appear rich and clean. Right form dialer to keyboard, every aspect of the user interface appears flattened.

Since this is a full overhaul, even the icons have been redesigned and flattened. The design and colour of the icons are different than all previous icons so it may take a while for users to get familiar with them. The animations at times slow down the performance on the iPad Mini which thus becomes sluggish several times. However, changing the wallpaper from dynamic to deep did help a bit. Only those who are accustomed with the iOS user interface would totally feel like home and won't take much time to get used to the user the options.

Getting started with iOS

The most glaring change in the new iOS version is the placement of Spotlight. Now you have to swipe down from the center of the homescreen to find the Spotlight search box. Similarly the Multi-tasking interface has been changed from wiggling icons at the bottom to rich card-based access. Long pressing the Home button brings the list of open apps with icon and snapshot card of the relevant app on top of it. Users can simply tap and push the app card upwards to stop the app.

Control Center is one of the most talked about feature of iOS 7 as well. Swiping upwards from the bottom of the screen reveals a new translucent menu tray - Control Center. All the major controls that require simple toggle or scrolling are available in this tray including Airplane Mode, WiFi,Bluetooth, Rotation Lock, Volume Control, Brightness Control, Music Control, Torchlight, Timer, Calculator, Camera and Air Drop. Apple has introduced a new method of sharing apps and other content between iOS device using AirDrop that provides a secure and fast way to share information. In a way, Control Center will remind you of the inverted Notifications Tray of the Android devices with Settings included.

You will also find an improved Siri which is no more in beta stage. Several new search additions and features have been added to Siri but not even half of those features would be made available in India region. Since Siri takes over the search, Spotlight takes a backseat when it comes to searching content from the web apart from that on the iOS device.

In iOS 7, several native apps have background auto-update feature so that you get the latest weather and stocks information. The Lockscreen now offers access to the Notifications tray along with new Missed for missed calls while the 'Today' feature shows itinerary, weather and other information for that day. Notifications have been improved and appear less intrusively distracting than earlier.

As mentioned earlier, Apple iOS 7 provides several new controls such as Background Application Refresh and customisation options in the Settings app. Apple has attempted to make the iOS 7 more robust and automated in terms of fetching data to show updated information without having the user to refresh an app.

App Refresh

Apple iOS 7 also brings revamped native applications with new look and features in order to raise the standards above the third party apps available in the App Store. Talking about the App Store, Apple has improved this by like about five times. In iOS 7, the App Store can automatically download and update your apps in the background. Of course there is a setting for you to allow that. The App Store is snappier and faster compared to older versions. The iTunes app also is quite responsive when it comes to browsing videos or songs. The download processor on both App Store and iTunes is shown like a Hydrogen Atom model changing itself. At any point of time, the users can share the information with friends over Air Drop.

The Mail and Calendar apps have been updated with the flat style look and responsiveness. The Calendar still has things to learn and adopt from the third party Calendar Apps. Even the Weather app is great looking with the information fetched from Yahoo! Weather.

One of the most important change in the native app occurs in the Camera app. Apple has made this app very fast to load and very easy to use. The Camera app in iOS 7 now offers different formats to choose from - Still, Panorama, Video and Square. The Square format now allows clicking photo in a square dimension by default. Not only that, the new filters can help the user choose the best look for their images. Best part is that the users can choose a filter to see a preview right before clicking an image in both still and square format. Once the photos have been clicked, you can head to the new Photos app that has a smart algorithm to sort all the images by date and location. This classification is tagged as Years, Collections and Moments. Collections are the folders carrying images geo-tagged to specific location. All these photos can be shared using Air Drop and with other users by creating a Shared Stream using iCloud. Clicking pictures is apparently very easy and faster than in previous versions.

Apple Safari mobile browser drops the all grey panels in one single bar at the bottom with back, forward, Air Drop, Reader Mode and Tab view buttons. These buttons are merely depicted using thin lines so one can barely call them buttons. The address bar has been transformed into unified search box so you simply can feed any keyword to search or type out the URL of a website you wish to check out. New Shared links shows list of Twitter updates with URLs shared by the users in your Twitter Timeline. Also, you can add web pages and articles to your Reading List so that you can re-visit them any time. At this moment, iTunes Radio service is limited only to the US region and we hope that it will be available to other regions including India.

The apps did load a wee bit faster than on iOS 6.0 so we see a slight improvement but at times the performance stuttered. Hopefully an update could fix some of the underlying issues and get the iOS 7 fit for everyone. Apple Maps app seems to be little more responsive but that could be over call and we did not dare to venture out using that.

Security of the data is covered with the new Activation Lock feature that requires logging into the iOS device using Apple ID bound to that iPhone in order to unlock it. So if the phone is stolen or lost, the owner can not only lock the device but also make it unusable for anyone.

Final Thoughts

Though we spent just four to five days using the iOS 7 on iPad Mini, it is good enough time to conclude that the update makes the overall experience smooth and interesting. Of course, the lack of buttons and over load of animations as well as motion is disturbing at time but thankfully we can turn them off. Google Android users have seen more makeovers with the operating system than the iOS users. Of course, this is a radical change from the iOS updates of yesteryears to a new, refined, and colourful user interface.

Several changes have happened under the hood which will change things for coming years - for instance, the 64-bit support. That aims to make the iOS platform more fast and robust to handle large data requests and heavy app usage. Apple has realized the growing love of users for the Android's transitions and animations, so the iOS 7 clearly reflects the baby steps to integrate something similar for the iOS 7 platform. Control Center, improved Camera app and better notifications are some of the major improvements that are worth a praise. Like many others, we too have spotted some issues with design and inconsistencies at places but overall iOS experience has been more pleasant.

For those using latest iPhone, iPod touch, iPad mini and iPad, the iOS 7 will certainly change the way your device's user interface looks but does not change the way you interact with it. Installing the iOS 7 on your device will be like taking a power-up to upgrade and boost your performance over the time.

review: Lenovo P780

Lenovo P780 comes with dual-SIM facility, 5 inch display, quad core processor and a massive battery. While the smartphone sounds good on paper, let's find out what the device is actually worth.

Look and Feel

Lenovo P780 has a big 5 inch display and the manufacturer has tried its level best to make the device sleek as much as possible. The handset comes with glossy front and matte Black color rear panel, accented with metallic trimmings on the sides; overall, it looks great and classy.

The front of the device has been protected with the use of Corning Gorilla Glass which provides some protection from scratches. The flush front is accented with three hardware feather touch keys with variable control for backlighting for battery savings. The key placement of the device is a bit of a hassle as the power key has been placed right on top making it difficult to access considering the big size of the device.

The back panel of the smartphone has been constructed entirely of metal and that too adds durability to the device. Another interesting innovation that Lenovo has adopted for the Lenovo P780 is that they have used the back cover as a heat radiator source for the battery with proper metallic buffer being provided at specific points on battery and between the back plates for better heat dissipation.

Lenovo has also announced a magic flip cover for the P780. However, to reduce cost the flip cover is not included in the box. Users can get it form the seller separately. The magic flip cover actually enables the auto display turn on and off feature for the Lenovo P780. What that means for the user is that they no longer need to manually lock the device by pushing the hardware button anymore all they need to do is close the flip cover and device goes to standby .

The Lenovo P780 at 176 grams is too heavy for a smartphone but you should also consider the fact that it has a massive 4000 mAh battery.

Display

The 5 inch display of the Lenovo P780 has 1280 x 780 pixel resolution. The IPS technology based display offers better contrast as well as brightness and colour vibrancy too. The maximum brightness supported by the display makes it perfect device to be used even in bright light conditions such as outdoors.

The display is for sure the biggest battery consuming hardware on the device followed closely by the processor. And the Lenovo P780's 5 inch display is bright enough to deplete the battery in one whole day. But to control that the Lenovo P780 gets a very accurate ambient light sensor and the integrated battery saving utility that control display's brightness optimally to offer maximum battery performance.

Hardware and Operating system

The Lenovo P780 utilises the Mediatek 6589 chipset that includes a 1.2 GHz quad core processor and PowerVR SGX 544 GPU. The processor and graphics chip combination gives the Lenovo P780 enough muscle to tackle most daily tasks with ease along with some HD games as well. The device performs well and fluid thanks to Android Jelly Bean operating system and Lenovo's custom user interface.

The phone has 1 GB RAM and 4 GB of internal storage or ROM of which users only get to use the 2.7 GB memory, which is decent and anyway you can expand its memory by another 32 GB using a micro SD card.

The Lenovo P780 smartphone comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.2. Along with that Lenovo has done a number of customisations on the user interface on this device that are very functional as well. Overall the software optimisation for the device is great and complements the device in every way. Along with that the User interface comes with a number of themes with separate icon packs.

The user interface is very easy to get around on the device plus at any point of time it does not put any additional load on the device's hardware and the memory consumption of the device stays well below 400 MB in most conditions. Along with that most utilities one would need for smooth usage of the device including a task manager, file explorer are already available on the device.

Performance and usage

Lenovo P780, during the course of the review, underwent a lot of application testing and stressing but the device never hung or froze. But in the odd case of device being frozen or unresponsive, users should not panic because of the non-removable battery - you can take out the battery to reset it. Also, there is a reset button that has been provided under the slave SIM slot.

On performance front, the Lenovo P780 scored 13,575 in Antutu benchmark. This in simpler words puts it at the toes of the older HTC One X in terms of performance while Quadrant benchmarking utility ranks the Lenovo P780 above the HTC One X. To further stress test the hardware we tested the device using Vellamo from Qulacomm in which the device neared Samsung Galaxy Note with 413 points in Metal or hardware test while scoring 1443 point in the HTML 5 test on which most web application work these days. Overall the device offers ample performance but the internal memory of 4 GB is a big turn off as we weren't able to install HD games on it as only 2.4 GB is available.

The onscreen keypad which by default is Google's updated keyboard with Swipe to type functionality is nice and offers great utility. Although people with fat fingers might have slight discomfort while using this phone but this problem can also be overcome with swipe functionality.

We had no issued with the call performance of the phone. The calls are received and made without any issue. The earpiece and loudspeaker volume is abundant and the microphone offers clear sounds to the receiver. The Lenovo P780 smartphone features dual SIM but it has Single ISM active which means if one SIM is busy the other SIM also gets a busy tone.

It has a second microphone for noise cancellation. The second microphone at the device's back identifies noises and cancels them to offer better sound for the receiver of the call.

Camera and Multimedia

The Lenovo P780 comes with a very useful 8 megapixel camera with an LED flash for additional illumination. The camera although is non BSI (back Side Illumination) sensor based it still manages low light shots pretty well. The image quality of the camera is good in both the outdoor and indoor modes and the light provided by the flash light is sufficient enough for bearing objects. The colours are captured nicely with details but indoor pictures capture some noise which is a turn off.

This smartphone can capture Full HD (1080p) videos at 30 frames per second and the videos are good and smooth at all times. The handset also features a HD front facing camera that is good for video calling and can record 720p resolution videos as well.

Lenovo P780 features support for all generic video formats and anyway since it is an Android smartphone, you can install applications from Google Play store to extend its multimedia capabilities.

Battery backup

Battery life is among one of the major advantaged of the Lenovo P780. With nominal gaming, audio video use and web browsing over both 3G and WiFi the device usually lasts above and beyond for 2 days between full recharges.

Further, it has a battery saving utility called the 'Energy Smart'. The application promotes battery savings plus it gets intelligent CPU control as well, which put unused CPU cores to sleep when they are not required.

But one thing that Lenovo has creatively added to the device is the capability to charge other devices as well. Yes that's right you can use the cell phone's USB port to charge other devices. Technically Lenovo has managed to do this by adding extra power to the USB port, which also means that it can be used to run USB powered devices as well if need be.

Conclusion

At Rs 18,799, the Lenovo P780 brings in a good battery backup which is one of most crucial things today for a smartphone. Along with that it has speedy hardware and a superb build quality complete with a metallic back panel that has been very innovatively used as a heat radiator as well. But the smallish internal storage for a mid-range device is one of its major turn offs.

The smartphone has a sweet camera and a great display. And overall the dual SIM functionality comes in real handy. So it's for those who seek a decent smartphone that has it all and surely the Lenovo P780 has got it all.

Lenovo P780 Specifications
Network	3G with Video calling
Operating System	Android Jelly Bean 4.2
Dimensions	143 x 73 x 9.95 mm, Weight 176 g
Display	5 Inch
Input Method	Touchscreen capacitive
Processor	1.2Ghz Quad core
Memory	1GB RAM, 4GB Internal, 32GB Expandable
Connectivity	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, WiFi Hotspot
Multimedia	Multi format audio video player
Camera	8MP rear, 720p front
GPS	Yes
Additional features	OTG Cable, Battery charging feature
Battery	4000 mAh
Warranty	1 year
Price	Rs 18,799