Review of Lenovo Tab 3 8 inch tablet

I bought a Lenovo Tab 3 8 inch tablet last month for $80 to replace my broken Samsung tablet. This is a review of what I have learned about the Lenovo so far. The Lenovo was released in the spring of 2016, so it is  now a year old and they are coming out with a newer Tab 4 model.

I purchased the Samsung Galaxy 8 inch tablet 3 years ago for about $220. The Samsung is better made and faster than the Lenovo, but almost 3 times as expensive. The Samsung eventually would not turn on; I installed a replacement battery for $15 but it still would not work so I didn't want to spend any more money on it. I figured I couldn't go wrong with the cheap Lenovo.

The Lenovo is not a fast machine, but it is fine for reading email and browsing the web, which is what I mostly use it for. It is running a 1 GHz quad core 64 processor with 1 Gig of RAM. There can be a 2 or 3 second lag when starting or switching between applications. I don't believe you can run 2 applications concurrently on the Lenovo, like I could on the Samsung.  It comes with 16 Gig of RAM for storage and can accept up to a 64 Gig memory card.

The Lenovo runs Android 6 Marshmallow which came out in 2016.  There is very little documentation provided with the tablet, so I have been reading about Marshmallow's capabilities on line. One feature is that the external memory card can be configured as internal memory.  It is important to use a fast memory card if you want to configure it as internal memory.

The 8 inch screen is the perfect size for me. It is large enough that I can read text and small enough so it is easy to carry. The screen is bright and the 1280 x 800 resolution is adequate for the 8 inch screen.

I have been happy with the battery life so far. While I haven't tried to run it continuously for the advertised 8 hour battery life, I can use it for an hour each day and only have to charge it twice a week. My wife has an Amazon tablet and she has to charge it every day.

Sound is mono only on the Lenovo. There is a single speaker and the headphone jack is mono. So if you want to listen to music in stereo, this is not the tablet for you.

The Lenovo has a 5 meg rear camera and a 2 meg front facing camera. I am not very impressed with the 5 meg camera. I think it is more that the lens is cheap. My first digital camera was a 3 meg one which I bought 15 years ago. It took much better pictures than this tablet. The Lenovo is fine for snapshots if I don't have my cell phone around.

The Lenovo fits my needs and I am glad I purchased it. If you need a low cost tablet, the Lenovo Tab 3 may meet your needs.