Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 (2020)

Good tablet but a bit pricey – I purchased this tablet 6 weeks ago to replace another one (not a Samsung) which was no longer charging after 4 years (and unfortunately the battery couldn't be replaced). This model compares well with previous tablets I have owned and with the addition of an SD card, is more than sufficient for my needs, which consist mainly of answering emails,… Read more

searching the web, reading audio books, playing music and watching the odd tv show. The Samsung Smart Switch app enabled the smooth transfer of apps and data from my (non-Samsung) phone to the tablet without any hiccups, although it was a rather slow process. I was also able to connect it seamlessly to my laptop to transfer photos. Overall the tablet works fine, although the double-tap option to wake the tablet is sometimes rather slow and occasionally doesn't work and requires the use of the on-off switch and auto-rotate can also be somewhat slow at times. I also found that you cannot automatically arrange all your apps in alphabetical order. You either have to do this manually (very tedious!) or use an app such as Nova Launcher to do this automatically. There doesn't appear to be any lag in accessing the SD card and I have found no problems playing music from the card. For a tablet, the sound quality is good, but not spectacular, but with the aid of earbuds or playing music through a soundbar, the quality is excellent and tracks play without problems. Screen quality is also very clear and a decent size battery (over 7000mAh) means you can almost use the tablet all day without recharging. The camera quality is O/k but nothing to boast about, but I guess you generally don't buy a tablet for the camera quality! Overall a good tablet - just hope the battery doesn't fail as with my previous tablet, but I guess time will tell.

It's a "Curate's Egg" (mostly good) – The current model Samsung Tab A7 (SM-T505) replaces/augments a 3 year old iPad. It could use a faster processor (the lag before responding can be irritating) but has an extremely clear (high resolution) screen, charges in half the time of the iPad, has a much longer battery life per charge than the iPad, is fairly light to hold, comes with the… Read more

latest version of Android (11) and was reasonably priced via a Telstra package deal.

It would be a 5 stars from me except …

The screen, while extremely clear, is highly reflective thus making it virtually impossible to use outdoors.

A second problem is more generic. The A7 follows current trends in having the touch screen running almost to the edge of the tablet. This is fine for a phone which can be held in the palm of the hand with no overlap onto the screen, but not for a tablet which requires the holder’s fingers to overlap into the touch area - and trigger unintended consequences. Specifically, Android drops into summary view mode (the current app drops back into an icon), or the current app triggers the next/previous page, or loads an ad, or whatever option is being displayed along the edge of the app. I use it heavily as an eReader and I keep inadvertently triggering next/previous page.

A "maybe" problem is that I'm using both the Samsung and the iPad in the outback, so very-through-extremely poor mobile connectivity. Anecdotally the iPad seems to be able to handle extremely poor signals better than the Samsung.

I originally bought the Samsung branded case but this is brilliantly (physically) engineered so as to just add a ultra-thin protective layer – so the (User Interface design) problem of triggering unintended actions remains with the tablet in its case.

To get around this I’ve bought a (cheap) generic protective case which adds around 15mm of dead space around the screen, sufficient to hold it without intruding into the touch sensitive space.