Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 review: is it really good value for money?
The Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 is an exciting mid-range tablet that will be hugely popular. Starting at US$229, it features a 10-inch Full HD display, metal body and octa-core processor. -core. It is also among the first tablets to ship with Android 9.0 Pie. Is it really good? That is what you will find out in this Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 review.
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 T510 on*
Amazon
A quick note on the different versions of the Galaxy Tab A: This video is for the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 with product numbers T510 and T515. It is the predecessor of the Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2016. In 2018, Samsung has also released a Galaxy Tab A 10.5. I have reviewed them all but this is the most recent one.
Design and manufacturing quality
Compared to its predecessor, the design has changed a lot. We no longer have physical buttons under the screen and the bezels are a little thinner. And while previous generations were plastic, we finally get a mostly metal body .Because of this, it feels premium.However, it continues to have a plastic bar at the top for the antennas.
At 7.5mm, it is significantly thicker than premium tablets, but it is also much cheaper. It weighs 460g and it is quite light. You can get it in black, silver and gold.
When holding the tablet in portrait mode we get a power button, volume controls and a microSD card slot on the right side. In the latter you can insert cards up to 400 GB and if you want, you can move apps to the microSD in the settings.
The left side is empty and on the top is a standard headphone jack. It is charged using a USB C 2.0 port located at the bottom. You can connect accessories such as external SSDs or USB C hubs if you want.
It's a little disappointing that we don't have a fingerprint scanner.
Speakers and cameras
Next to the USB C port Samsung has placed two stereo speakers. Unfortunately we only have two and they are placed on the same side. This means you won't get any kind of stereo separation when watching movies .Samsung advertises great Dolby Atmos surround sound for big movies.But hey, that's just marketing.Anyway, if you consider how cheap this tablet is, the sound quality is good.
Incidentally, somewhat more expensive competitors like the
Huawei MediaPad M5 Lite 10
, Lenovo Tab P10 and Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.5 have four speakers each.
Main Camera Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019
Front camera Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019
Considering this is a tablet, the 5-megapixel front camera and 8-megapixel rear camera take pretty decent photos. Of course, even middle-class smartphones have better cameras. But still, videos and photos look decent and better than what I'm used to in this price range.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 has a 10.1 inch screen with an aspect ratio of 16:10.It has a Full HD resolution with 1920 x 1200 pixels.I always say that a Full HD resolution is high enough on 10 inches. And that's the case here too. Of course, premium devices have higher pixel density. But still, texts and images look sharp enough.
Although Samsung doesn't mention an IPS screen, it seems to have one. Viewing angles are wide and stable. I also like that the screen is fully laminated. Other aspects like contrast and color reproduction are good. It is quite bright and I would say it is usable outdoors. However, it is not as bright as an iPad Pro.
At the moment, Samsung does not yet offer a version that supports an S Pen stylus. With some of its predecessors, S Pen versions came out later. And there is a new 8-inch Galaxy Tab A with S Pen. But not yet 10 inches.
Hardware and performance
Let's take a look at the internal hardware and performance. The Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 is equipped with an octa-core Exynos 7904 processor. It consists of two 1.8 GHz cores and six 1.6 GHz cores. , we get 2GB RAM and 32GB storage with the base model. In some countries you can also get it with 3GB RAM and 64GB or 128GB storage. 4G LTE is also a option.
My review unit is the cheapest with 2GB of RAM. It's the only one available in Germany at the moment.
As you can see in my Geekbench and AnTuTu comparison, it performs very well in the benchmarks. Especially considering how cheap it is. In both benchmarks, it is significantly better than the Huawei MediaPad M5 Lite 10,
Lenovo Tab P10
, and Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.5. These three are less than a year old and originally cost about $300. Currently, they cost about the same in many countries.
That being said, you can see that premium tablets like the
Huawei MediaPad M5 10
and Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 continue to be much faster.
These good benchmark results are reflected in real life. Android Pie itself and apps like Chrome and YouTube work great. Demanding apps like Adobe Lightroom also work, but in this case you'll notice a difference compared to devices premium.
In my game test, it performs very well. For example, you can play PUBG Mobile on balanced graphics settings very smoothly. And you can even set the graphics to HD. HD settings, you'll notice more stutter in between. Not always, but sometimes. Not all of its direct competitors can play it at HD settings at all.
The tablet achieves similar results in other games. If you set the graphics to high in Into The Dead 2, I'd say it's playable. But it gets smoother on medium settings. That's how it is with a lot of games. Shadowgun Legends works great on medium settings and you can also play it on high and ultra graphics. But then you will see minor stutter in action scenes.
Warhammer 40000 Freeblade runs fantastically on the highest settings.
By the way, you can't play Fortnite at all. It's not supported.
Is 2 GB of RAM sufficient?
Let's talk about the 2 GB of RAM: that's a low amount of memory for 2019 but still standard in this price category. And there is no Android tablet with more than 4 GB of RAM at the moment. Well, with unique apps, you don't need a lot of memory and Android has good memory management built in.
You'll notice that 2GB of RAM if you're switching between apps or using them at the same time. Because we don't have a lot of memory, apps close faster in the background. For example, if you're playing a or two demanding games and then switch to the browser, previously loaded tabs may need to be reloaded. It always depends on the apps and games you use. If you care about fast multitasking, 2 GB of RAM might be too much little. But I think that's fine for the most part.
Android 9.0 Pie and a UI
The Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 works
Android 9.0 Pie
out of the box. In fact, this is the first tablet to come with this version of Android. And Samsung has been very good with updates in the past. Much better than all of its competitors. For example, the Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2016 shipped with Android 6. It has been updated to Android 7 and Android 8. And who knows, it might soon get Android Pie.
I don't know of any other brand that releases at least two major updates for their mid-range tablets. Of course, we often have to wait a bit. But at least Samsung releases updates. 2019 model. But again, based on the past, it should be updated for several years.
As usual, we're not getting vanilla Android here. Instead, it's quite customized with Samsung's One UI. That's the new name for their interface. Samsung Experience user, not much has changed. The design is much personalized and even the settings are different from vanilla Android.
I like One UI. It looks modern and works well. It's much better than the early versions of TouchWiz which always seemed cluttered. And we still have a lot of pre-installed apps. Notes, a file manager, the Galaxy Store, and even their own browser. We also get Microsoft's Office Mobile and OneDrive, plus Google apps like Chrome, Gmail, and YouTube.
Read:
These are the best Android tablets
There's no shortage of typical Android 9 Pie features. For example, in the settings you can access a new menu called Digital Wellbeing. With this you can see how much time you spend with which apps. You can also hide the navigation bar and navigate Android with gestures instead. And you can also enable a kids mode.
We still get a split-screen view. With this feature you can open two apps next to each other. Samsung didn't include its Dex desktop mode though. and a mouse if desired.
At first I couldn't watch Netflix in HD. Samsung fixed this with an update. Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 now has Widevine Level 1. You can watch Netflix and Amazon Video in HD. If you used Netflix before the update, you may need to reinstall it before you can watch it in HD. That's what I had to do.
Battery life
Samsung ships the Galaxy Tab A T510 with a 6150mAh capacity battery. However, the battery life is not outstanding but decent. In my battery test, it got 10 hours battery life and 30 minutes. For this I always loop the same HD video with medium brightness.
In real life, the battery life is a bit better than my artificial test shows. It doesn't waste much power in standby, which is great. You'll probably have to recharge it every two or three days if you just use it to watch movies or surf the web a bit at night. But if you play PUBG Mobile constantly, the battery will be drained in a few hours.
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 review: final verdict
This is my review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019. Overall, I really like this tablet. What you get is a solid metal body, a nice full HD screen, and most importantly considering its price, the performance are very good. I also like that we're getting Android 9.0 Pie and it should be getting updates for longer than any of the competition.
Unfortunately the speakers are on one side only. And while the battery life is decent, it could be better. It would be nice to get 3GB of RAM for all versions to make it more scalable. But hey, these 2 GB of the basic model are still usable.
You have seen that I noticed some disadvantages of the Galaxy Tab A 10.1. However, considering that the prices start at only 229 US dollars, these are almost irrelevant. For this price, I think it's a very good tablet. I usually complain that Samsung's suggested prices are way too expensive. This is the first time I think the price is right.
As usual, let's take a look at some possible alternatives.
I have to mention the
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.5
which was released in the summer of 2018. Although it originally cost a lot more, you can often get it for a similar price now. are weaker. However, it has 3 GB of RAM out of the box. Although it has a plastic body, it also has four speakers. Obviously the Tab A 10.1 software is newer. With this one, it depends on which features you prefer.
A much better alternative is the
Samsung Galaxy Tab S4
.It's the fastest Android tablet you can get right now, and it has a Super AMOLED display.We also have quad speakers, an iris scanner, and the S Pen is included at no extra cost .But it costs more than twice the price of the Tab A. Another more expensive and better alternative is the
Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e
.I haven't seen it yet though.
9
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 T510
By Andrzej Tokarsky
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 T510 review:
The Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.1 2019 is a very good tablet with excellent value for money. Considering its low cost, you get a good screen, solid build quality and a powerful processor. It runs Android 9 Pie and should receive updates for at least two years. Unfortunately, the base model only has 2GB of RAM. However, that's still good enough for most.
Positive
Solid metal body
Nice screen
Powerful processor
Android 9.0 Pie
Good cameras
Decent speakers
Negative
Base model with 2 GB of RAM
One-sided speakers
No fingerprint reader
Will buy*
Amazon