What version of Android on this? Are these considered “Grade A” refurbished?
Thanks.
As a media player and reader, this thing looks amazing. Could be a fantastic second tablet!
It shipped with KitKat. Current is Marshmallow. It could be either depending on if it was updated or not.
And yes, these are Grade A Refurbished.
Samsung reportedly won’t update this tablet again. I have a Tab 7.7 with the same issue. As apps update, it’s being left in the dust.
Thank you TT.
I had this tablet for more than three years, purchased new from the mothership. Marshmallow is the last official update for it (assuming it will still take OTA updates, if not Samsung Smartswitch is your friend).
While I did very recently replace it with the Tab S3, it was completely serviceable even today for video, email, browsing, etc. I switched primarily because I can’t hold on to a piece of technology for more than 2 years without fidgeting.
A few comments of interest on this tab:
- Screen is amazing and is filled when viewing landscape HD content (vs. letterbars on the tab s3)
- Fingerprint scanner is a little finicky. Sometimes takes 2-3 swipes to get it just so.
- Using it as a vertical e-reader is a little awkward as it has the wider 6:9 proportions vs the 4:3 of the iPad or Tab S2/3. But the advantage of that is video viewing. So trade off?
- Tab is easily rooted using Odin to install TWRP and SuperSU. Just make sure you have marshmallow first as it needs the updated bootloader (it will brick otherwise).
- While there are a variety of updated user-developed ROMs available, I never moved away from stock as the fingerprint scanner is not supported on anything but native. Maybe not a big deal for some, but I found the scanner really useful (despite the retries stated above). FWIW the scanner on the S3 is money, so they’ve learned a lot since.
- You can put up to a 128GB SD card in for expanded storage (noted in specs)
- I dropped mine (with a slim stand case) on several occasions and it’s always been fine after.
- Web browsing, while perfectly serviceable with latest versions of Chrome, et al, is beginning to show it’s age. I actually thought I was getting slow wifi speed in my house for a while, but it was definitely the tab as the S3 is far quicker to fetch and render. We’re talking seconds here, but it IS an older model so don’t expect a racehorse. Just saying.
If anyone has other questions, I’m happy to help. It’s a good deal at this price.
I bought this and plan to run LineageOS on it, which has it listed as an officially supported device and is up to Android 7.1. It should make a good convertible with the Logitech keyboard cover.
Agreed. Note above that you will lose the fingerprint scanner, but that is not an issue for some/most.
I received the tablet yesterday and it took a few hours, but I have 7.1 installed on it (with Lineage) and everything seems to be working great. If others are interested in this (be aware that it will void your warranty), then one tip I have is to try Samsung’s Odin tool for installing TWRP instead of the community Heimdall tool - I couldn’t get the latter to recognize the tablet after switching the Windows driver to libusb as recommended. If you’ve already tried Heimdall and are stuck, try uninstalling the driver it installed and then power cycling + reconnecting the tablet.