Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite is official

After having been exposed by its online user manual, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite is now officially a part of the company’s tablet portfolio. The name speaks for itself; it’s a budget tablet with a 7-inch display, dual core processor, and 3600mAh battery.

I bet the question on your mind is why Samsung ever bothered to make this device, when last year’s Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 has more or less the same specifications—screen size and resolution, processor speed and number of cores, amount of RAM and internal storage, etc.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 Lite Specs

• Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
• 7-inch capacitive touchscreen (1024×600 WSVGA), ~170ppi
• 1.2GHz dual core Marvell PXA986 processor
• Vivante GC1000 GPU
• 1GB RAM
• 8GB internal storage
• microSD support up to 32GB
• 2-megapixel rear-facing camera
• No front camera
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• 3G, HSPA+
• Bluetooth 4.0
• GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
• Dimensions: 116.4 x 193.4 x 9.7mm
• Weight: 310g
• Li-Ion 3600mAh battery

As the lesser version, though, the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite downgrades its rear camera to just 2 megapixels of resolution, with no accompanying front camera. It may be called “lite,” but it’s actually a tad heavier. Battery capacity is also smaller, though Samsung claims the tablet can still last up to 8 hours of video playback before requiring a recharge.

Bundled Samsung software include Apps, Kies, TouchWiz, Hub and the company’s mobile communication service, ChatON. There are also Dropbox, Polaris Office, and Flipboard.

No pricing is available yet for the Galaxy Tab 3 Lite, although reports are suggesting somewhere between $100 to $150. On the other hand, Polish retailing site X-kom has opened pre-orders and put the WiFi-only version and 3G-enabled version at $165 and $260, respectively. We’ll probably learn more about the device when Samsung showcases it at next month’s Mobile World Congress in Spain.

[Source: Samsung, X-kom]