Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 Review
Camera and Battery Life
The Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 has a 3 megapixel rear-facing camera as well as a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera. Neither camera has a flash. You can adjust the white balance, brightness, and metering mode using the settings menu within the camera app. Shooting modes include Auto, Night, Sports, Panorama, Sound & shot, and Beauty Face. The Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 can also record video at 1280x720 resolution.
Holding the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 to take pictures felt a bit awkward due to the size of the tablet. In addition, the glossy screen is sometimes difficult to see under direct sunlight. The screen doesn’t have an automatic brightness setting, so before you open the camera app outdoors we recommend going into the Settings menu and increasing the display brightness to 100%.
With a 3 megapixel rear camera, the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 isn’t designed to compete with your standalone digital camera or the camera found in many of today’s high-end smartphones. Although you can capture some usable images using the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0’s camera, they’re not as crisp or sharp in color as we would have preferred. Here’s a look at a few sample pictures:
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Battery Life
You’ll find a 4450mAh embedded Lithium-Ion battery inside the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0. According to Samsung, this battery will provide up to 141 hours music play time, up to 10 hours video play time, or up to 12 hours internet use time.
In an attempt to quantitatively measure the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0's battery life in a controlled benchmark environment, we ran the AnTuTu Battery Test which is available from the Google Play Store. For this test, we set the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0's display to 50% brightness, which is still plenty bright and easy on the eyes. The Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 scored 710, which is excellent. As you can see in the chart above, Samsung devices have put up some impressive scores in the past, but the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 beats them all.
During our real-world testing, the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 had no problem making it through a few days while checking emails, surfing the web, taking pictures, leaving the screen on for 30+ minutes while the tablet sits idle, and playing a few games. We would expect an average user should have no problem making it through an entire day or two with moderate use as well. Of course, battery life will vary depending on how the tablet is used.
