Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 review

Standing still means moving back in the 7-inch tablet race

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0
Samsung's fallen off the 7-inch pace

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As seems to be the case with a perplexing number of third party tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 adopts the stock Android browser as its default web surfing tool of choice.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 review

There's not a great deal wrong with this browser - it's both intuitive and stable, and you can pull your Google Chrome desktop bookmark across. It's just that it's also virtually redundant when Google Chrome itself is available for Android. In fact, Google Chrome is pre-installed here, but Samsung has buried it in the app menu.

One of the first things you should do is reverse this state of affairs and promote Chrome to your web browser of choice. Not only do you get seamless bookmark and search syncing between the desktop and Android versions, it's also quicker and more refined.

Still, as we've already mentioned, the stock Android browser is perfectly adequate. You can open multiple tabs by touching the plus icon at the top of the screen, and there's a familiar unified text field for putting in searches and specific URLs alike. There's also a decent bookmarks facility.

Indeed, your web browsing experience won't be limited by Google's second-choice web browser, even if you do choose to ignore Chrome. It's far more likely to be restricted by the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0's poor display.

It's already quite small as it is, but add in that below-par resolution and you have a seriously underwhelming web browsing experience. In fact, we'd hazard a guess that your smartphone probably offers a better web browsing experience, assuming you have a half-decent example with a 720p or Retina display.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 review

Text remains murky and blurry at any level of zoom other than up close. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 runs mobile web sites brilliantly - both in terms of performance and appearance - but this being a tablet, you're more likely to get the full website experience, and that's lacking here.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 review

Not only do full websites look ugly on this tablet, they also load up quite slowly on the default web browser. Opening up a TechRadar story took around six seconds before it was readable, and as many as 20 seconds before the story was fully loaded.

Chrome improves that significantly (or at least hides its loading process better), and also formats the story better for the Galaxy Tab 3's display.

Unlike other recent tablet releases, then, you'll probably not want to spend too much time browsing the web on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 - Chrome or no Chrome.

One related issue we noticed was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0's Wi-Fi performance. While it connects just fine, we noticed that it struggled for range. When using the device in an adjacent room to the one containing the Wi-Fi hub, we struggled to get more than two bars our of five.