We reported a while back that we knew that Samsung would be coming out with the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite, but were very disappointed in the specs – stating that unless it came in around $100, although very unlikely with Samsung, it would be a very entry-level tablet with a too high a price tag. Well, it looks like Samsung may not disappoint us after all, coming in around US$130. In fact, it looks to be one this year’s cheapest tablets after it went on sale in Poland, an odd place for a release. Even the user manual, shown below, is available for download on Samsung’s Polish site.
The price does come with some sacrifices, such as a 7-inch display resolution of only 1024 x 600 pixels, and when stretched over those 7-inches is only 170 PPI. Powering the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite is a dual-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz, a 1GB of RAM, and only 8GB of internal storage, but does have a microSD slot. It is also only running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean rather than 4.4 KitKat…and chances of it getting KitKat are probably fairly slim at this point.
When our CNet source asked Samsung if the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite would be making its way to the UK, Samsung sent them a reply, “Samsung does not comment on rumour or speculation.” This doesn’t quite make sense, since it is up for sale already, although there has been no official announcement from Samsung. If it does reach the shores of the UK, it will be up against some other reasonably priced 7-inch tablets, like the ASUS MemoPad HD 7 for US$212 with considerably better specifications, but then there is a $82 difference.
We doubt that this device will come to the U.S., or if it does, most likely in a Wi-Fi model only – even if it does come to the U.S., I doubt that it would do very well, as we are a little more demanding in our specs. Samsung did say that they wanted to be number one in tablets as well as smartphones, so pushing out low-end devices in Europe and Asia makes a lot of sense.
Please let us know on our Google+ Page if you would like to see these Lite tablets from Samsung sold in the U.S. as well – or do you think they would be too low-end for our market.