Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 review: The toddler

S Voice and Google Now

S Voice can be used to initiate or answer a call, dictate text, play music, open an app, change a setting, make a memo (including a voice one), add a reminder, schedule an event, set or snooze an alarm or timer, check the weather, do a search on the internet, take a photo, look for local listings (e.g. nearby restaurants) and even get an answer to a question - in other words it's an all you can eat voice assistant.

S Voice

The problem is S Voice is not nearly as fast or as accurate at recognizing your speech input as Google Now.

Speaking of which, Google Now integrates with your Google account and can access your daily routine, internet searches, email, etc. and give you information relevant to your interests and daily needs.

It provides traffic information to your work or home, knows those scores of sports teams you follow, has the weather forecast for your location and can even tell you who Kevin Spacey is (really, living under a rock or something?).

Google Now

Google Now also has its own separate widget on the homescreen as well and can show you information in the notification area.

Synthetic benchmarks

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 is pretty underpowered with a dual-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A9 processor, built by Vivante Corporation. The chipset is a GC1000 and has its own graphics processing unit. To complete the tally the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 comes with 1 GB of RAM.

In BenchmarkPi, which measures the calculative skills of the processing cores the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 scores an okay 416 which is a little faster than its predecessor the Galaxy Tab 3 7.0. Linpack gives multithreaded performance a gauge, here last year's Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 got the better score leaving the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 behind.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  324
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  351
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  416
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
  470
• Samsung Galaxy 3 7.0
  483
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 Plus
  488
• Galaxy Tab 2 7.0
  499
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
  520
• Huawei MediaPad
  703

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  324
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 Plus
  222
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  185
• Google Nexus 7
  124.3
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  105.2
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
  86.5
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  96
• Samsung Galaxy 3 7.0
  78
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
  76.8
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  72

AnTuTu 4, Quadrant and GeekBench 3 all give the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 a pretty low score and a bottom of the list place, although in Quadrant the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 managed to outdo the Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 by a small margin.

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4
  34016
• Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  33198
• Transformer Pad TF701T
  32991
• Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (Exynos)
  32796
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  31109
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  24716
• LG G Pad 8.3
  24440
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  24236
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  20216
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  19131
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  17159
• Google Nexus 10
  12695
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  9877
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  9070

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4
  2867
• Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition
  2743
• Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (Exynos)
  2706
• Transformer Pad TF701T
  2665
• LG G Pad 8.3
  1950
• HTC One Max
  1899
• HTC Butterfly
  1257
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  656

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  21618
• LG G Flex
  20521
• Sony Xperia Z1
  20388
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  20052
• LG G2
  19815
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  18177
• Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4
  16769
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• HTC One
  11746
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo
  11404
• LG Nexus 5
  8844
• Oppo N1
  8099
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  7153
• HTC One mini
  6048
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  3438

The Vivante GPU inside the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 was pretty hard to test as it was unable to run the Epic Citadel and NenaMark 2 benchmarks which left us with GFXBench's T-Rex benchmark, where the offscreen capabilities of the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 proved to result in a lowly 1.6 fps, luckily you'd be doing gaming not on 1920 x 1080 but in native 600 x 1024 so there's not much need to worry here.

GFXBench 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  7.0
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  4.0
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  1.6

Finally some browsing benchmarks. SunSpider is JavaScript-heavy, BrowserMark is HTML 5-focused while Vellamo gives both the stress test. Our contender managed pretty low scores in all three compared to its rivals and the general list of devices we've tested, all of which means the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 won't browse as fast as its pricier rivals nor as top tier smartphones but will do the job for the price.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Galaxy Tab 3 7.0
  1100
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  1233
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  1366
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  1568
• Google Nexus 7
  1703
• new Apple iPad
  1722
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  1891
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
  1953
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
  1992
• Galaxy Tab 2 7.0
  2253
• Huawei MediaPad
  2490

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2438
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  2228
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  2363
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0
  1612
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  1787
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2265
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2186
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2060
• Google Nexus 10
  1929
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  1633
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  1777
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0
  1440
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0
  1325
• Nexus 4
  1310

To sum up the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0 is no benchmarking champion and its aging Cortex-A9 chipset won't set the mark for fast computing but it does the job most of time. What we did notice is lag and pretty long loading times, especially with apps like Google Play and YouTube.

It's nothing drastic and deal-breaking but it stands to note that some of its rivals - like the Nexus 7 of 2012 are still pretty snappy in daily tasks, snappier than the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0.