Samsung revealed the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Monday, the newest addition to its Galaxy Tab flagship series. This comes after its release of the Galaxy S4 smartphone which suggests that the Galaxy Tab 3 was most likely meant to be a companion device to the S4 and not so much of a brand new beefed up tablet.
There's not much difference between the two-year old Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus tablet and the newly announced Galaxy Tab 3. Comparing both devices, the specs are fairly identical with the same 7-inch screen with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. Both tablets feature the same 1.2 GHz dual-core processor with 1GB RAM.
For photo snapping, the Galaxy Tab 3 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus feature a 3MP camera on the back. For video chatting, the front facing camera on the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 was downgraded to 1.3 megapixels from the 2 megapixel front camera that the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus has. Megapixels aren't that big of a deal anyway and the difference is not by much.
Samsung decided to lower the built-in storage capacity of the Galaxy Tab 3 to just 8 GB but the storage expansion slot capacity was increased to 64 GB. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 plus came in two sizes, 16 GB and 32 GB with the option to expand up to 32 GB via the microSD storage slot.
Not much has changed with the Galaxy Tab series in two years. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 was the second successor tablet to the original 7-inch Galaxy Tab. Many consumers were expecting to see a vast improvement with the new Galaxy Tab 3, but even the built-in 4,000 mAh battery is identical to that of the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. As for the firmware on the tablets, the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is upgradable to Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2 from stock Android Honeycomb. The Galaxy Tab 3 comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.1 out of the box and is slightly lighter and slimmer than the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.
The new Galaxy Tab 3 sparked criticism from prospective consumers who were disappointed that Samsung didn't do a major overhaul with the release. Samsung has another set of tablets to focus on at the moment, the Galaxy Mega series. In the spirit of keeping the Galaxy Tab series alive, Samsung made the call to offer another affordable tablet to the market. There's no word on pricing yet, but it may be within the range of another later model Samsung tablet, the 8 GB Galaxy Tab 2, priced at $179.99.
