Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus Review

It’s an old strategy to deliver bad news in a good news sandwich; that is, you say something nice, insert the negative statements, and finish up with more positives. That technique works quite well in hardware reviews as well, but in this case we’ll just get the few negatives out of the way quickly so we can properly position this otherwise excellent device.

First of all, we’re not in love with the $399.99 price tag. It’s just a lot of dough for a WiFi-only device, especially one with the smaller screen size that doesn’t offer quite the same gaming and video-watching experience as a bigger tablet.  Not to mention there are other 7-inch slates out there for less, including the very aggressively priced Kindle Fire.

Second, the touch experience can be spotty; we noticed a delay in responsiveness--which was occasionally frustrating when trying to time the white bird’s bomb drops in Angry Birds--and some times the interface was somewhat glitchy. You’d probably get used to the delay fairly quickly, but it could sometimes impact gaming on the device.

Finally, this tablet is limited on ports. Unless you work with the included proprietary power/USB cable or a microSD card, you can’t interface with any other devices. Given that the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is a WiFi-only device, that can be frustrating to deal with if you’re out and about, away from your computer or a WiFi hotspot. Of course, the lack of ports enabled Samsung to build a thin, svelte device that’s really nice to look at and hold, so that’s the other side of the coin.


Now that the negatives are out of the way, we can focus on the positive attributes of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. We’ve already discussed its excellent overall design, but it bears repeating that this tablet is a looker. It also has a nicely balanced weight to it, and it’s easy to manage with either one hand or two.

Lumping the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus in a general category with other 7-inch devices such as e-readers would be a mistake, like comparing a subcompact car with a sexy little sports car just because they weigh the same and have similar legroom. That’s nothing against e-readers, which are great devices for what they are, but the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus should be considered just a smaller version of the full-featured tablets we compared it to in our benchmark tests.

Indeed, performance-wise this tablet boxes outside of its weight class, consistently delivering strong scores in our benchmark tests. That Samsung Exynos chip is quite impressive, mostly leaving Tegra 2 chips in the rear view.

Further in that same vein, if you love the features of the iPad 2 or the Galaxy Tab 10.1 but are looking for a more compact option, the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is perfect. It’s small enough to handle with one hand and easier to stash in a pocket or purse, but it’s also (just) large enough to type on reasonably comfortably. Other than screen real estate, you’re not missing a beat when it comes to gaming or watching movies compared to larger tablets, either.

Finally, the Galaxy Tab’s extra software features, in particular the Peel Smart Remote, nicely complement the device’s excellent hardware to deliver an overall superb experience.

Even though 400 bucks is a lot of money to drop on a device that only connects to the Internet via WiFi, if any such tablet is worth the money, it’s the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.

 

Great looks Strong overall performance Well-designed and balanced Attractive software extras	Price Less-than-perfect touch performance Lack of ports