[REVIEW] Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 – Huge Display, Great Software But Average Hardware

Demands for tablets has increased significantly ever since the pandemic started. This is mainly required by the students who are required for online classes. Options weren’t many especially reliable budget brands.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A8

Today we will be checking out Samsung’s best selling Galaxy Tab A-series tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8.

If you prefer to watch, I do have a FastView of it where you can watch it on YouTube.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Specification

  • UNISOC Tiger T618 Octa-core 2Ghz Processor
  • 10.5″ WUXGA TFT LCD Display (Corning Gorilla Glass)
  • 3GB of RAM
  • 32GB Onboard Storage (microSD Card Slot)
  • Quad-speaker (Dolby Atmos Surround)
  • 7,040 mAh Battery (15W Fast Charging)
  • OneUI 3.1 based Android 11
  • Price: RM 999 (Lazada | Shopee)

Design

Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Metal Back

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 is offered in two colour options; Gray and Pink Gold. It’s metal on the back with a small plastic cover on the top for antennas. The front display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass. Samsung didn’t specify which gen of Corning Gorilla Glass, it should have some protection against crack and scratches.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Quad Speakers

The power button and volume rocker buttons are located on the top left. Quad-speakers stereo surrounds with two on each side. The output is impressively loud and solid, it does get slightly distorted when I turned to 80% and above.

USB C does support peripherals input like keyboard, mouse and storage but not display out nor Samsung DeX. It gets a 3.5mm audio combo port for a reliable wired headphone for online classes.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Rear Camera

An 8-megapixels rear camera with autofocus and a 5-megapixels front camera which is decent for video calls and online classes.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 is pretty sleek in design with a slim profile at just 6.9mm thickness and 508 grams of weight.

Display

Sporting a 10.5-inch WUXGA TFT LCD display with symmetrical bezels. Not the narrowest but it’s comfortable to hold without worrying about touching the display while operating with both hands.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Display

Due to the shoddy panel of choice, the display is rather dull in colour reproduction and poor viewing angle. Anyhow, this is a budget tablet; it has a pretty bright display and decent 216ppi. It can stream Full HD videos without any issue.

Performance & OneUI 3.1

This may sound new to some of you, UNISOC processor is a popular chipset used on budget devices in China and India markets. Little to know, UNISOC is the 4th largest smartphone chipset vendor last year after MediaTek, Qualcomm, Apple and even ousted Samsung very own.

So how does it perform? Based on some synthetic benchmark test results, I would safely say it’s comparable or on par with last year midrange SoC like Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 and MediaTek Helio G80. The 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage are rather slow, but it’s can perform what tablet multitasking needs. This is thanks to the well-optimized Samsung OneUI 3.1 based on Android to run on a large display like tablets. As for the 32GB onboard storage, 30% were already occupied for systems. Luckily, apps are able to move to the microSD card to make space for the operating system.

Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Gaming

I can PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 9 at medium settings without any issue.

Battery

Packed with a 7,040 mAh battery which can easily last me 6 episodes of the “All Of Us Are Dead” series on Netflix before I called it a day. Good to know that the charger is included in the box but the snail 7.75W charger gonna take 6 hours plus to fully charge the tablet. Fortunately, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 supports Samsung 15W Adaptive Fast Charging and it took about 3 hours plus to fully charge a completely flat battery.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Review
  • Design
  • Display
  • Performance
  • UI
  • Battery
  • Value
3.8

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 is a premium and well-built tablet. I love the interface that feels like an actual Android tablet rather than a blown-up display smartphone. The only complaints are the poor display, average performance and limited accessories that could pair with it. A smart magnetic keyboard like found on the Galaxy Tab S-series, and that would be great!