Samsung - Galaxy Tab A - 9.7" - 16GB - Smoky Titanium

I bought this tablet today at my local Best Buy. So far it has exceeded my expectations in every way. I was thinking about giving in and getting another iPad mini but the Samsung guys were extremely helpful so I ended up choosing the Tab A. I had some concerns about the mid-range specs but the demo model seemed to be working great so I decided to risk it. I have always wanted a Note tablet but could not justify the high price for a feature I was not sure I would use and I had no experience with. The S Pen version of the Tab A seemed like just the thing. So, yes, the screen is not the highest resolution at 1024x768. If you stick it next to something with a super pixel dense HD display you can certainly tell but for this resolution it actually looks really good. Text can be a bit pixilated on the 9.7” version but for my intended use, and I have an e-ink reader for straight reading, it is fine. I had a Tab 4 and while the resolution was essentially the same the Tab A looks smoother and less low resolution, almost like there is some kind of software based smoothing going on though I don’t think there is. Color is great. The speakers sound good. Performance has been completely smooth. I was expecting a few hiccups or for it to have noticeable slowdown while installing apps. When I brought it home I spent quite a while downloading apps and configuring it while trying things out at the same time and noticed no slowness. I streamed some videos and it was perfect. I have used it for less than a day but battery life seems excellent, during hours of playing around and setup is lost maybe 8%. You can even turn off the Magazine UX page that comes on most Samsung devices and that I really don’t use for care for. The S Pen is a delght to use and a great addition. I am loving taking notes by hand on the screen with S Note, which has a ton of options and features. It also came with all the Microsoft Office apps and One Note plus 100GB of cloud storage. On a final bonus for this tablet, since I moved away from iPads I did not realize how good a 3x4 aspect ratio really is on a tablet especially if you are viewing websites, reading emails, or drawing and note-taking. This size is great for productivity tasks and games. I just like this size and design overall compared to widescreen. If I have any other complaint besides the screen resolution it is there only being 16GB of internal storage. Tablets really need 32GB these days. I supplemented it with a 32GB SD card to hold movies and music and do appreciate having that option. I installed what I would consider my required apps and that alone took up about 4GB of the memory. Overall, I am very happy with the Tab A and would highly recommend it. It is one of the smoothest and most enjoyable to use tablets I have ever owned.

When I purchased this, hands down, Best Buy offered this item (only in Titanium color) for less cost than anywhere else. As for the item itself, the Galaxy Tab A 9.7 came pre-loaded with Android 6.0. It can also be anticipated to receive Android 7.x, too, as Nougat has proven to be easy on resources. While I have not burden the machine's storage of 16GB, nor have I installed an SD card as as of yet, the device proves to be quick and very capable of handling most everything that I've thrown at it. The 1.5GB of memory seems to be sufficient. While this standard HD display has only half the resolution of its more expensive brother, Tab S2, I found watching films to be very rich in color and very pleasing. The video quality easily surpassed my expectations. Worth noting, however, I found that the display's adaptive brightness must be turned off while watching videos, or the picture was nearly always too dark. With the adaptive brightness checkbox left empty, the display could be set to be very bright, even in daylight. This device does have stereo sound, and sound is to be expected from such a small device. For speaker placement, the left and right speakers are located along the bottom edge, as one holds it portrait (vertical) position, so while watching videos in the preferred landscape position, the left and right speakers will be projecting only to either the right or left. For me, this isn't a big deal, as sound quality shouldnt be expected to be much from such a small device. I did find the volume to be more than sufficient. I have yet to have tried out the Bluetooth and NFC for this device. While still a new item for me, battery life has been very good, lasting approximately 2 days, with moderate use, before needing good a charge. The size for me is perfect. There isn't too much bezel on the sides of screen, it's thin and easy to hold, and very lightweight. It does require a case, as the tablet is very slippery to the hands. For $179, I honestly cannot think of a better tablet for the money. Because of such, I returned the following day to Best Buy to make purchase for a second Galaxy Tab A 9.7.

I bought this Samsung specifically because it came with an integrated stylus. I do a lot of copy editing and use different editing programs (MetaMojiNote has been my latest fave for its simplicity), and had been struggling with using my iPad and a stylus that I bought separately at Best Buy. Even though my stylus was high-quality, the iPad just does NOT reject your palm well. I got frustrated and gave up--and bought this Samsung. In all honesty, I wanted a Surface Book Pro but simply couldn't afford it....but I haven't regretted this purchase at all. It was my first Samsung purchase ever--I otherwise own all Apple products. The device works very well overall, and I enjoy surfing the Internet on it. The pros: --The stylus has a home built into the device. No more wondering, "Where did I put that thing?" I LOVE using the stylus. It's light and is easy to write with. --The screen quality of the writing is excellent. No fuzziness. No glitchy delays between the time I write and the time it actually writes on the screen. Looks just like what I would scribble on a notepad. And more importantly, you can lay your palm across the screen as you write, and it doesn't cause a problem at all! AWESOME! --Aside from the stylus, the device comes with Microsoft Office loaded on it for free. A BIG plus! I love having Word on it already. --The price. It doesn't do everything a Surface Book can do, but it does what I need it to do, for hundreds cheaper. --You can expand your memory with a memory card. The cons: --I wish that when I opened a PDF, I could just start scribbling away on it and then save it to my documents as a new PDF. Unfortunately, I still have to send my PDF to a third-party app (again, MetaMojiNote), make my corrections, then save it back to the device's storage. It's a pain, and I don't quite understand why this hasn't been made easier--it's almost 2016, for Pete's sake. (I'm guessing you don't have that hassle on a Surface Book...) --Whenever you first use the stylus, it wants to take a picture of your screen. I don't know why it does this, and it's probably just user error on my part--but I haven't figured out how to stop it from doing this. Instead of the stylus just immediately writing on your screen, you have to click away from that snapshot it takes, then go up to a menu and select the pen. (Again, I'm guessing this is something I just haven't figured out how to change, but in the meantime, it's rather annoying.)

I recently signed up for Texture online magazine service which provides unlimited access to over 50... After a week of trying to read them on my Amazon Fire 7 (bought last spring to use for plane reading) my options were stop the sub. or get a larger tablet which supported the way the magazine pages appear online. I had planned to get the newer 10.1 model but after looking at the more rectangular shape (more suited to movies and I don't care about camera...); decided 9.7 more square model was more pleasing to my eye for reading and less expensive at Best Buy's $199. As soon as I started it; the system allowed me to upgrade to Marshmallow with no issues and I LOVE the screen colors which I did not know I was missing with the 7 until buying this tablet. I have not tried using an SD card yet but so far the past nine days; the battery life has been good to VG (if I leave it on airplane mode when not using but on). PS my store had no exact fitting cases in stock so I ordered Amazon's "ProCase" Samsung Galaxy Tab A 9.7 Case for $13.99. It fits like a glove and comes with a stylus pen you can use on the tablet. Cheers!

I don't really now where to start, I mean for the price you pay your getting what I would consider a better tablet than most. The build quality is good not great, it feels really lite but not cheap, the speakers sound great, that's right speakers it has 2. Does take a while to charge from zero but battery lasts my kids all day with heavy use like Netflix, gaming and YouTube. It can be used outside but you'll need to turn up the brightness and that will kill some battery life, at 30-50% you can get all day power but it seems to greatly deplete when turned higher than that. It hasn't disconnected from wifi since its been setup unlike our iPad which randomly disconnects itself. The micro usb is great to load up movies or tv shows for the kids and they connect it in the truck via Bluetooth and get the theater sound experience on the road for long trips, no delay in audio with the bluetooth 4.1 while connected to my Ford F-150 sync system or my wife's Mazda CX-5 both vehicles are 2016. Haven't tested in older vehicles. Connects well with home audio speakers as well. Kids and my self love it and haven't used the iPad since we bought it, only bad thing I can say about it is that it doesn't charge fast so if your ok with that and are not a hardcore user like editing and things like that it should do everything you need it to do just fine like streaming and gaming. I didn't really want to add the camera to my review because all tablet cameras are terrible but if you must know the camera is about on par as other tablets if not slightly worse than top model or more expensive tablet cameras.

I like my Note Series phones had the 2, 3 and now 4. But I dislike the Samsung Tablets. I really tried to like the Note 12.2 with Split Screen and Kit Kat 4.4 operating system. It isn't ready for prime time. I just happen to see the review on the 9.7 Tab A the morning I spotted it and the reviewer described the pros and cons. When I saw that the Galaxy came with Free MS Office for life full version a $130 value. (deduct that from the price) It has lollipop 5.01 OS and dual Screen and has a SD Card slot which you will most likely need. My 16GB IPAD AIR has been almost full and I don't have games, music, or many pictures. I keep restoring it to factory to reset to get more space. The Camera on the Tab A is good enough and the Speed of the tablet is good. No lags. The only issue I would say other than the soft button on the front don't light up and are hard to see on the smokey titanium and their is no Bluetooth keyboard case out for it and only 1 case by Samsung. That is why I gave it 4 and not 5 stars. They wanted this tablet out before WWDC it's obvious. The Screen is also bright and clear. Not as clear as the retina display on IPad but I can't see the difference side by side. Great Tablet for $289 at Walmart and Great Tablet at $349 with S Pen except the S Pen is dark and I can't see it on the couch or bed. I would of bought the white version If I had the chance. The Speakers are not stereo but are louder than the IPad AIr. I would recommend this tablet to anyone who enjoys WIdjets, Games, Changing themes and styles of your device, It's great for Productivity with Office and has lots of Cloud Storage and of course the New Play Store and Lollipop makes it all work together much more polished and I would say Apple should be slashing it's prices. Oh and did I mention how light the tab A is? about the same weight as the newest IPAD Air. Very thin and light.

This tablet will be just fine for the first-time tablet user or someone (looking at you Grandma/Grandpa) who only use it to occasionally browse the internet and check email. Anyone who, like myself, is used to the performance of a top-tier iPad Air or even a top-of-the-line Galaxy Tab will find this device to be heavy, clunky, and slow. This tablet has no fingerprint sensor which is a bit annoying, as is the lack of any kind of cellular connection. That said, we must face the reality that this is a price point device, not an investment. Indoors it has an absolutely gorgeous screen, and at 9.7" its size is generous for a sub $200 device. Outdoors, it becomes almost unreadable in any kind of sunlight and the screen stays smudged and filthy like no other device I've ever used. I also get a little frustrated at the over-sensitivity of the Android 'Soft Keys' on this tablet. Again, being used to an iPad with only one button, I am forever accidentally resting my thumb on one of the soft keys and making strange things happen. As far as the Android OS goes (or this one flavor of it) I find the Samsung TouchWiz UI to be easy to learn and configure (as a life-long Apple iOS user) and I feel that if the specs were better and it were a little more light on the lap, I would enjoy this tablet just as much as my iPad Air, and for about $500 less! To sum it up, it'll do what you need it to do, just don't need it to do too much too fast and you'll love it. For the price, it was perfect for me as I am just using it to learn the Android platform.

We weren't actually shopping for a tablet, but decided to walk through BB. The promotion to trade-in (an up) from the old tablet to the newest mid-level tab from Samsung was too good to pass up. It was good enough that my mom decided she didn't want to move from a 7" to an 8", but up to the 9.7". So with the promotion, spent $200 for her to get this new tab. Screen size is good. The case is streamlined, but tablet seemed a little heavier than I'd anticipated. Also wasn't happy they only had 2 colors. While 50% off was a nice incentive, with after-market cases for significantly less, it was a hard sell for the Samsung case in either black/granite or blue. The inclusion of the MS Office products was the defining point and convinced me to trade in another old tablet for a 9.7" TAB A for myself. We've only had this tablet for a short time, but so far, we've been enjoying it. Pros: Good size, especially for older users; MS Office for productivity Cons: A little heavy for reading with one hand, especially with Samsung case installed; color options for the accessories available are severely lacking.