Connect with us

Reviews

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite Review: An Affordable 8-Inch Tablet

Should you get the 8.7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite? For our review we tested the screen, its performance, battery life, and more.

Published on

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite is a new tablet that is super cheap starting at just 159 US Dollars. For that, we get an 8.7-inch screen, a MediaTek processor, and up-to-date Android 11. It’s one of few 8-inch Android tablets – so, is it a good one? That’s what you’ll learn in this Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite review.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite on* Amazon

Design & Built Quality

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite built quality

Considering its price, I think the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite is well built. We’re getting a mostly metal body with some plastic parts at the top and bottom. I like the design and it does look better than the competition from Amazon.

It’s 8mm thin, weighs 360g, and is narrow enough so that you can hold it in one hand. That’s what you usually want to be able to do with an 8-inch tablet.

Read: These Are The Best Samsung Tablets

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite USB C port

It has a standard headphone jack, a USB C 2.0 port, and a microSD card slot. There’s no fingerprint scanner but you can unlock it using the webcams facial recognition.

The 2-megapixel webcam is not great at all. In fact, especially the HD video out of that camera looks a bit blurry. It’s lacking fine detail. And the same goes for the 8-megapixel main camera. Photos look fine but the video looks over-sharpened.

I like that we get two speakers that offer a real stereo separation. Considering its price, I think the sound is fine. But, obviously, you’ll get much better bass and a more pleasing sound with most pricier tablets.

Display

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite display

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite has an 8.7-inch LCD with a resolution of 1340 x 800 pixels. It means that the pixel density is the same as on typical 8-inch tablets with a standard HD resolution. That’s not great and I wish Samsung would have used a FullHD screen. Because here, texts certainly don’t look as sharp as they could.

Usually, you’ll be holding a smaller tablet closer to your face than a 10-inch one. And that means the pixel density needs to be higher for the screen to look sharp. So, if you use your phone first and then switch to the A7 Lite, I think many will clearly notice a lack of sharpness. But well, that’s what you get in this price range.

Read: The Best 8-Inch Tablets Tested

All other aspects are not great but fine. Viewing angles and color reproduction is good and the brightness is okay. I was able to read with it while sitting in a café outside. That’s doable as long as you’re not sitting in direct sunlight but a bit brighter would have been better. Now, it’s not great in direct sunlight at all so it’s not a beach tablet or so.

It seems like Samsung didn’t cover the display in a coating to prevent fingerprints because I had to clean the screen all the time.

Another kind of downside is that the tablet has a Widevine Level of L3. That means that you can’t watch Netflix with HD resolution. It’s not too much of a bummer because the screen doesn’t have the highest resolution anyways.

By the way, the Galaxy Tab A7 Lite does not support the S Pen. So, this is not a great tablet for handwritten notes. You can use generic pens made for capacitive touchscreens but they are terrible and might be okay for little children. But not for handwriting.

Hardware & Performance

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite Geekbench 5

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite features a MediaTek Helio P22T processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage. Out of the box, 12.5GB are used by the system. You can get it with LTE as well.

Benchmark results are pretty week. It’s much slower than the bigger Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 in the Geekbench 5 benchmark. With that being said, its CPU performance is better than of the Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus which is a direct 8-inch competitor. However, the Amazon one, which is cheaper, has a noticeably better graphics performance. So, that one is the better gaming tablet.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite gpu

My gaming test shows that while you can play many games on the Galaxy Tab A7 Lite, you’ll have to select the lowest graphics on pretty much all demanding titles like PUBG Mobile. It doesn’t look amazing but with low settings, it does run fine. But you will have to live with occasional stutters but I think it’s playable.

I played a bit of F1 Mobile Racer and it’s playable as well. But again, it doesn’t look amazing and you’ll have to live with some minor stutters. Other games like Super Mario Kart run fantastic.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite Super Mario Kart

The operating system itself and common apps like Chrome, Gmail, YouTube, and Microsoft Office run well. When using tons of tabs or switching between apps fast, you sometimes will have to wait a bit until something is loaded. That’s to be expected in this price class because this clearly is an entry-level tablet. So, don’t expect a super snappy experience. But everything is usable and a bit of multitasking works too.

Software: Android 11 & OneUI

Samsung is shipping the Galaxy Tab A7 Lite running Android 11 and its OneUI in version 3.1. That means we’re getting up-to-date software out of the box and that’s fantastic. Usually, Samsung is much better with updates than most other Android brands. In the past, the Tab A series has usually gotten at least two big updates. So, I’m hoping it’ll be the same here.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite Android 11

With OneUI, standard Android gets customized a bit. The interface is not as heavy as it used to be. Some of the features can be very useful.

Read: These Are The Best Android Tablets

For instance, I like that you can open apps in a so-called pop-up view. That means it’s opened in a free-floating window which can be very handy if you’re using the tablet with a keyboard and mouse.

The Samsung Notes app is a fantastic note-taking app for Android. Yes, even without the S Pen and especially when you’re using other Samsung devices too.

Battery Life

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite battery

The battery life is average only. When streaming HD videos on YouTube with maximum brightness, the battery lasted 6.5 hours.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite Review: Final Words

Let’s get to the end of my Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite review. I mentioned quite a lot of downsides like its low-resolution screen, the weak graphics performance, bad cameras, and the not-supported S Pen. But actually, I think all of that is okay once you consider the price. It’s a very cheap tablet and of course, it’s to be expected that we don’t get the best features.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite Review

If you’re looking for an inexpensive 8-inch tablet, I think the Galaxy Tab A7 Lite is a good choice. It certainly can hold up to the competition especially due to its design and up-to-date software. So, if you want something small for surfing the web, reading some eBooks, maybe even playing some games, I think it’s a good choice.

But yes, this is certainly not a premium device. I wish Samsung would make an 8-inch tablet of the Galaxy Tab S series but they haven’t done so since the Tab S2. So, I’m not getting my hopes up.

Let’s get to the competition.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite design

If you want something cheaper, you should check out the Amazon Fire HD 8 and HD 8 Plus. Now, its plastic body doesn’t look and feel as good as the Samsung one, but the screen is similar, the graphics performance is better and the battery life is much longer. However, you’ll have to live with Amazon’s Android and not Google’s Android.

The only high-end 8-inch Android tablet is the Samsung Galaxy Tab Active 3. Its design looks super old but that’s because it’s a rugged tablet meant for tough environments. But the screen is great, it does support the S Pen, has a fantastic performance, and has tons of software features including Samsung DeX. It’s a fantastic tablet but a unique one so check out my review before you buy it.

Now, if you don’t care that much about the screen size, you should also check out the standard Samsung Galaxy Tab A7. Usually, it costs about the same as the A7 Lite but has a bigger 10.4-inch screen and a better performance. It’s not 8-inches though.

This post is also available in: Spanish


7
Galaxy Tab A7 Lite
Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite Review: The Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite is an entry-level tablet that can be a good choice if you're looking for an affordable 8-inch device. Its design, performance, and software are good for its price and I like that it's small enough to fit in one hand. With that being said, I wish the 8.7-inch screen would have a higher resolution and the battery life could be a bit better.
Positive
  • Good design
  • Decent performance
  • Android 11
  • Very affordable
Negative
  • Low-resolution screen
  • Bad cameras
Buy at* Amazon
Advertisement
10 Comments

10 Comments

  1. Murray Henley

    July 29, 2021 at 8:14 pm

    Something odd about this new tablet is the non-standard 1340 x 800 screen resolution. Usually, we get a 16:10 resolution (1280 x 800). So this tablet is more elongated than 16:10, but not quite 5:3 either, which would be
    1280 x 768, well-known numbers in the computer world.

    What was Samsung’s thinking in choosing this non-standard resolution? Are there benefits to a more elongated tablet?

  2. Joe Mah

    December 21, 2021 at 6:46 am

    I don’t own this tablet but I think the issue with the Widevine Level of this tablet is fixed by an update. From what I saw in some posts in Reddit and comments in some YouTube videos about the A7 Lite, it’s now at Widevine L1.

    • krzywy.nos

      October 3, 2022 at 12:00 pm

      I own it and after the update to Android 12 Netflix still shows that it has support only for Widevine Level of L3. However other streaming services are available in 1080p resolution, like Prime Video (with hardware support but only with “better” quality, choosing “best” quality returns with error) and Disney+. YouTube also allows choosing 1080p resolution for streaming.

  3. Jack

    February 12, 2022 at 4:57 am

    I’m planning to get another, smaller tablet and I think the Samsung Galaxy Tax A7 Lite is going to be perfect for me. So, your review is very helpful, thank you/dziękuję!

  4. philipzxcvbnm

    July 20, 2022 at 4:00 pm

    I own this tablet: it weighs 366 grammes – too heavy to hold in one hand for any length of time. By comparison, my Lenovo Tab M8 was 305 grammes and no problem.

  5. Pingback: Amazon Fire 7 2022 Review: Better Than The Lenovo Tab M7?

  6. Pingback: Nokia T10 Review: The Best Cheap 8-Inch Android Tablet? • MyNextTablet

  7. Pingback: The Best Samsung Tablets Tested | 2023 Edition • MyNextTablet

  8. Pingback: Galaxy Tab A7 Lite, Tab A8, and Tab S7 FE get One UI 5.1 Update

  9. Pingback: Better Than The Lenovo Tab M7? - Download APK Android Free and Save

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Trending