Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 review: The toddler

Latest Android 4.2.2 ticks inside

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 runs TouchWiz-skinned Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. The TouchWiz launcher is the same as what we saw in the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0.

You can see our usual user interface video here:

Keep in mind that because we are reviewing the Wi Fi-only version, options and settings related to calling will understandably be absent. Still, if you opt for the 3G Tab 3 Lite 7.0 versions, you'll also get the Phone app and you will be able to make calls and use cellular data.

The lockscreen features the widgets introduced with Android 4.2.

The water ripples have been replaced by a lens flare effect but you can switch back to the old one, or disable it altogether. If you like the ripple effect though, it's available in the Lockscreen settings.

The lockscreen has multiple panes, each containing one widget. The pages to the left contain different widgets - email, Google Now, Messaging, music player, Yahoo! Finance and News and you can download apps from the Play Store that add new widgets. There are no pages to the right from the default.

There are no app shortcuts at the bottom of the screen by default, but you can enable them and have up to five easily accessible shortcuts.

The greeting on the lockscreen can be changed - you can type something else, set a different font and color. You can also disable the personal message altogether and remove the time and date.

The lockscreen

There are alternative unlock routines as well - Face unlock, Face and voice unlock, Pattern or Password. There are voice-based wakeup commands that can just start S Voice or launch a preselected app.

Lockscreen voice commands

At the top of the notification area there are six (nine in landscape mode) toggles that can quickly enable and disable features. To get to the additional toggles you either swipe down with two fingers or hit the top rightmost button to reveal them. A press and hold on a toggle will take you to the corresponding setting. You can rearrange and disable toggles through the settings.

Notification area

Below the toggles is the display brightness slider. Sadly it lacks an Auto mode as there is no ambient light sensor on the Tab 3 Lite. You can disable this slider to have more room for notifications.

Certain notifications can be expanded with a finger and collapsed again. Sometimes they also have helpful buttons on them like "Call back" and "Send SMS" on a missed call notification.

The homescreen looks the same as on the Tab 3 8.0. Samsung has provided many of its own custom widgets like Samsung Hub, S Travel, etc. There's the a wraparound feature, which lets you scroll homescreens infinitely by always going from the last to the first one.

The homescreen

The Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 homescreen, naturally, auto-rotates, enabling landscape use of the entire interface.

Landscape lockscreen

You can pinch zoom to get into the overview mode of all homescreen panes. There can be up to 7 and you can easily add, remove and rearrange panes from here. One pane is marked as "home", that's the one you go to when you press the Home button - any of the available homescreen panes can be set as default quite easily.

Overview mode

The app drawer hasn't changed really since the early days of Nature UX. The app shortcuts are presented as a customizable grid, alphabetized grid or list and you can hide shortcuts (good for bloatware you can't uninstall), view only downloaded apps, uninstall apps and add folders.

As before, widgets are in a separate tab in the drawer.

App drawer • Widget drawer • Overview

Pinch to zoom in the app drawer works the same as on a homescreen, giving you an overview of all panes as thumbnails.

When you drag out shortcuts and widgets to the homescreen you get a list of small thumbnails of all the homescreen panes with the silhouettes of the widgets there so you can check how much space is available on each pane.

Small homescreen thumbnails

The App switcher interface is a list of thumbnails of all the recent apps, apps can be swiped to dismiss and there are three buttons at the bottom, Task manager, Google Now and Kill all apps.

App switcher • Task manager