Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 - Lucky Seven

Overview & Design

When it comes to choices, Samsung definitely has that particular aspect well covered under their portfolio. With its Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at the frontlines, the Korean company wasn’t just content with one tablet in its line-up and soon launched a salvo of tablets of varying display sizes. To a certain extent, it can be confusing for consumers when they have to decide on either a 7-inch, 8.9-inch or 10.1-inch variant of Samsung’s tablets.

Of course if all things were constant other than form factor, we would pretty much agree that more choices allow users to obtain a tablet that fits their personal usage style. However that's not the case because each tablet is released at a different time frame and offers some differentiation. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 is another entry in their tablet lineup, but it does come with a strong selling point.

Measuring just 7.89mm thin for its side profile, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 gives many tablets a tough time in the race to flaunt some of the best physical specifications. The Tab 7.7 passes off as a very easy to handle tablet, thanks in part to its light weight of 335g and its slim dimensions. Reading on its 7.7-inch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio wasn’t a chore for our eyes or hands that held it over a prolonged period.

Once our fingers spent sufficient time with the 7.7-inch display, the smudges on the screen were insanely visible. In short, be prepared to invest in a screen protector, preferably a matte option, to keep those fingerprints in check.

Along the thin edges of the Galaxy Tab 7.7, you’ll spot the SIM and microSD card slots on the left profile. A small groove lets you dig your nails in to remove the protective cover and insert the aforementioned cards within the tablet. The process isn’t as smooth as we hoped, but it’s not particularly hard to pry the covers open. The power and volume buttons reside on the top right corner of the tablet. Thin as it may be, these physical buttons are raised sufficiently to locate with ease without any visual contact. 

Unfortunately, certain design concepts that we were not too keen on the earlier Galaxy Tabs are still present on the 7.7-inch version. The same 30-pin USB port is found at the bottom, used concurrently to charge and perform data transfers from your desktop or notebook to the Galaxy Tab 7.7. Proprietary connections are a chore since you can't use more universally used cables such as a microUSB connector and you're likely to be in a fix should you misplace the cable. So beware of this little nuisance.

Flanking the 30-pin port, is a pair of stereo speakers responsible for audio on the Galaxy Tab 7.7. Should you hold the tablet in a portrait orientation for movie watching, that the location of the speakers won't pose an issue. In reality, users are likely to adopt a landscape orientation to enjoy the 16:10 widescreen ratio to watch their movies. However, once you hold the Galaxy Tab 7.7 in the landscape orientation, either your right or left palm will block the speakers and muffle the audio.

Features

With not much difference from its Galaxy Tab siblings, the 7.7 variant didn’t throw us any curveballs, nor did it surprise us with the standard TouchWiz user interface (UI). This includes the tray of mini apps, which gives you immediate access to basic apps such as messaging, phone and email. The Galaxy Tab 7.7 does have a new trick up its sleeve; the app tray is now customizable, so you can choose to load it up with more apps, or keep it relatively clean with essential ones.

The quick launch button makes another appearance alongside the back, home and multi-task shortcuts. Similar to the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, you can customize the quick launch button to access various shortcuts, such as the applications menu, search or camera. The default, being a screen capture function, is a feature that’s most useful given that screen capture isn’t a native function and only available on Android 4.0.

Speaking of which, the multi-task menu is still incapable of ending apps with a swipe, which is another feature found on the Ice Cream Sandwich variant. Fortunately, you can rely on the Task Manager found within the mini apps to close active apps and loosen the RAM usage on the Galaxy Tab 7.7.

Benchmark Performance

What lies beneath the Galaxy Tab 7.7? There’s quite a lot, and we’ll touch on its processor first. Unlike the first Samsung Galaxy tablet that uses an NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, Samsung’s latest addition to its arsenal is powered by their very own Exynos chipset. Two cores, running at a clock speed of 1.4GHz will be the main driver for the Galaxy Tab 7.7’s overall processes, with 1GB of RAM to manage multiple apps in the background.

With a treasure trove of benchmark apps available on the Android market, we chose to go with Quadrant to see how the Galaxy Tab 7.7. fared against similar tablets. This narrows down the selection to tablets with similar form factors and hardware, such as the Huawei MediaPad, Sony Tablet P and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.

The recent Galaxy Tabs have shown a significantly high Quadrant score, trouncing both the Tablet P and MediaPad using the Tegra 2 and Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets respectively. But do numbers tell the full story?

Unfortunately, the synthetic benchmarks did not reflect the real world experience. As high as the scores are, the Galaxy Tab 7.7’s actual performance is below average. We could go on and on about the sluggish menu transition, and the time taken for its apps to load, not to mention the occasional forced closing of apps. Though if you do get the app running, we can’t complain about the smooth performance of graphics intensive apps such as Dungeon Defenders. Clearly, there's room for improvement in the overall user experience department.

Multimedia Performance

When it comes to multimedia performance, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 has one distinct advantage - its Super AMOLED display. AMOLED screens have typically performed well in terms of screen clarity, brightness and rich colors. True to our expectations, the AMOLED display made everything so much more readable. Brightness is definitely not an issue, and we had to bring it down to the bare minimum when we’re indoors. And we didn’t have any trouble reading the tablet under strong sunlight either. 

Given its 7.7-inch screen size and a display resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels, the screen comes off pretty sharp with a high pixel density of approximately 196ppi. True to that, high resolution images looked very detailed on the the 7.7-inch screen, not to mention the accurate and rich color reproduction on it.

What about its imaging performance? The Tab 7.7 is equipped with a 3.2MP camera sensor on its rear and we gave it a go in our standard indoor photo test subjects. Overall imaging performance didn't turn out great, but we have to give the camera due credit for keeping the noise levels low. While it is somewhat lacking in color richness and sharpness in the finer areas, the overall imaging quality is still decent for a camera on a tablet.

Battery Performance

Consider the following facts - the Galaxy Tab 7.7 uses AMOLED technology, touted to have better power consumption than traditional LCD displays. It comes in a more manageable 7.7-inch screen size, and battery mileage generally correlates to the display size and its screen resolution. In general, the higher it is, the more power it draws.

With that in mind, we ran the Galaxy Tab 7.7 with an intensive battery test, which involves a video resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels being looped on the unit. The test is performed under specific parameters, such as:

• Screen brightness and volume at 100%
  
   
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
  
   
• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

Comparing the results against those obtained earlier on from similar tablets, it’s apparent that the Galaxy Tab 7.7 has performed pretty well in its battery mileage. Couple that with a thin and lightweight design, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 also took the top spot in the portability index, which measures the battery mileage against the overall weight and volume of the tablet.

Outside of the intensive test, we’ve been running the Galaxy Tab 7.7 through a normal pace, to gauge how much a general user can get out of it. Running a series of movies, gaming and also some music on it, we were not too surprised that it stretched on for a day and a half. And that’s also counting the number of messages we’ve sent, either through SMS or WhatsApp, and a few calls. Yes, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 also comes with cellular features with an accompanying SIM card.

Conclusion

If you give us two words to describe the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, we would have to say: thin and light. There’s no doubt that if you need a tablet for easy reading, the Samsung tablet does that job perfectly well. And this is complemented by the high detail levels and rich colors form the Super AMOLED display and its screen resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. More importantly, you won’t have to charge the Galaxy Tab 7.7 often, given its high battery mileage.

Yet, it would be careless of us to not remind you of the shortcomings of this Samsung tablet. For one, the 30-pin proprietary USB connector can be a nuisance, for the fact that you’ll have to use a different cable other than the usual microUSB cable that's often used for many mobile devices to charge and connect to your desktop or notebook. The benchmarks might have reported strong numbers, but it is the user experience that really matters. And that is definitely lacking, with the sluggish experience we got out of the Galaxy Tab 7.7 at times.

In essence, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 is more suited for those who want a tablet that is easy to handle and not too much of a burden - provided that you can put up with its sluggish nature at times. Despite its long battery mileage, if you’re looking for a heavy duty tablet that excels on all accounts, it might be better to move along and look for an alternative. In fact, there are plenty of options, which you can look for in our tablet buying guide.

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.