Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and 10.1 Review
by Jarred Walton on March 22, 2014 9:30 PM ESTClosing Thoughts
Samsung is no stranger to the tablet market, and the latest refresh of the Galaxy Tab lineup shows their experience. The Galaxy Tab Pro 8.3 and Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 are both good tablets, and the displays in particular are going to be worth the price of entry for some users. As with laptops and smartphones, it’s not just about any one item pushing a tablet over the top, though the reverse isn’t true – if any area is severely lacking, that might be enough to kill interest in a particular device. Basically, it’s more of a gestalt approach: the sum is greater than the parts, and Samsung delivers the goods with the Galaxy Pro tablets.
Of the two, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise now that we think the Pro 8.4 is the best one to buy. The more compact form factor coupled with a lower price and better performance gets the trifecta to win out over the Pro 10.1. There are areas where the 10.1 clearly wins out (color quality and battery life, specifically), but is it worth $100 more to get those, along with a bulkier, heavier device? I don’t think so; feel free to disagree however, as they’re both good tablets.
Unfortunately, as good as they are they’re also rather expensive – as usual, quality has a price, and so do the WQXGA displays. Compared to other offerings, obviously the iPad Air and iPad Mini Retina are right in the same price range. Really, the question over which to get is going to come down to your OS and app ecosystem preferences; I’m happy with Android, so for the price I’d be inclined to go with Samsung’s Galaxy Pro tablets, but iOS fans will have plenty of reasons to stick with Apple.
Android alternatives include the Nexus 7, which delivers slightly less performance in most cases than the Pro 8.4 and it “only” has a WUXGA display, but it has one big selling point: it costs $170 less than the Pro 8.4, and you could even pick up two for the price of a single Pro 10.1 – or you could grab the 32GB model and still only pay $269. The Pro 8.4 looks and feels nicer in my opinion, but it’s really difficult to argue with that sort of price competition. If you want two more options, the Kindle Fire HDX 7” ($200) and Kindle Fire HDX 8.9” ($379) pack similar performance with their Snapdragon 800 SoCs and have a lot to offer, but the lack of Google Play Services is a pretty massive drawback in my book. I really can’t find any other direct competition in the Android market for the Samsung Pro 8.4 right now, so it's an easy recommendation.
For larger tablets, there are a couple more contenders worth considering. The ASUS TF701T 10.1” ($424 with WQXGA LCD and 32GB, with a Tegra 4 SoC) and the Toshiba Excite Pro 10.1” ($471 and also Tegra 4, WQXGA, and 32GB) are 10.1-inch offerings with similar core features (Tegra 4), with both pros and cons relative to the Tab Pro 10.1. Slightly lower pricing is one benefit, more storage by default is another perk, and the lack of TouchWiz UI may be another, depending on how you feel about that. Performance goes back and forth depending on the benchmark you want to look at, though I'd still give the edge to the Snapdragon 800 overall. Plenty of other budget tablets can be found, but they’ll all come with slower SoCs, lower quality displays, and generally worse build quality.
Bottom line then is that if you’re looking for a high quality Android tablet, Samsung’s latest offerings should be at the top of your list. There are a few quirks at times (like physical buttons), but nothing that I’d consider a deal breaker. If you have the money and you want one of the best Android tablets I’ve had a chance to use, the Galaxy Pro tablet series likely has what you’re looking for. We’re still seeing pretty major jumps in performance with each new generation of SoCs, so these won’t be the “new hotness” for long, but right now this is about as good as it gets. If you have the necessary funds, I can definitely recommend both of these tablets. We'll likely see additional competition in the coming months, but until we get the next generation SoCs I don't think you'll see anything clearly faster/better than the Galaxy Pro line. Now if they could just reduce the price a bit, it would be a much easier recommendation.
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Death666Angel - Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - link
True, Apple devices sell for more on the 2nd market. But considering that they also cost usually 600€ or more (I remember a time when non-contract iPhones were 800€), you also pay a lot more up front. I've paid 500€ for a Galaxy S2 because I imported it from the UK and got it as one of the first in Europe. I ended up selling it for 180€ 18 months later. An iPhone would have cost me about the same (320€, taking the upfront price and subtracting the resell price). But that is a rubbish deal either way. I'm not going to spend more than 350€ for a phone these days. Resell value or not. And I also know a lot of people who have rubbish iPhones (mostly 4 and 4s) that keep rebooting randomly, have bad battery life, weird issues. They can't resell those for more than 50€. And they are all out of warranty of course. So really, you are making an anecdotal argument, that will only be true for some people and for a lot of others it won't.ESC2000 - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
See my post below - just checked what the iPad 4 and the nexus 7 2013 would command on amazon and in both cases it was 65% of the MSRP. It makes sense that apple products from three years ago command more than android products from three years ago bc all apple products were better then but they aren't anymore so expect to see the resale values gap closing. There is still some downward pressure on the resale value of Android (and Windows) products bc there are more models and more devices period.Also anyone who would pay $350 for an iPhone 4 is just stupid, I'm sorry. I get platform dedication blah blah blah but when you could have a new nexus 5 for the same price it's time to let go of brand allegiance.
ESC2000 - Friday, March 28, 2014 - link
Btw I just went and checked amazon and either your price aren't representative or you're lying. Both devices on there are going for about $200 used (assuming the iPhone didn't have like 64 GB storage while the note had 16 or something). NEW iPhone 4s were going for $350. Nice try LOL. Here it is for everyone to see:http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-Note-SGH-i717...
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPhone-4S-16GB-White/d...
StrangerGuy - Saturday, March 22, 2014 - link
The only performance benchmark that only matters these days is the eMMC speed. Who cares about how much bazillion FPS in 3D when everything else stutters everywhere.UltraWide - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
So very true!jasonelmore - Monday, March 24, 2014 - link
and RAM. RAM dictates how long the device will be servicable and recieve updates. Apple's ipad line is gimped by their 1GB of RAM. They did it on purpose. 2 years from now, the device will start going slow because apple's 2014-2015 devices will all have 2GB or even 4GB of ram, which in turn, makes app developers use more of it. My ipad air's keyboard is stupidly slow to react to typing thanks to its horrible memory bandwidth on a almost 3 MP screen.akdj - Monday, March 24, 2014 - link
May wanna get it checked out. 7.1 made MASSIVE leaps forward with a 'brand new' rewrite of OS7. I've got three Airs and four iPad 4s. All are incredibly responsive, no crashing and fast as hell (we run an audio/video production company.ESC2000 - Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - link
Well then you are in the minority bc the three ipad air /retina ipad minis in my house regularly crash, a couple times a week, usually in safari. They also randomly reboot. I've teased my family about it bc my $230 nexus 7 (2013) is more reliable than their $400+ ipads. I've also sat them down next to each other and the screen and responsiveness of the nexus 7 matches the ipads despite being so much cheaper.I think the low amount of RAM in the ipads is contributing to the crashing. When I had an iPhone I was limited to eight tabs in safari which I assumed was bc it didn't have the internal memory to handle more. I've heard that the new ios update fixes the crashing and rebooting problem (which we know is real btw bc apple copped to it and claimed to be fixing it).
And the person who was claiming that all apple products have better resale value - that was true in the apple's edge is eroding. Three years ago apple products were objectively ahead of Android products so, fast fwd a few years to last year or this year when you're reselling them, and you see that apple products command a higher amount of money. But if you're talking about products released a year ago, Apple was no longer decisively the best phone or tablet manufacturer, so the gap has started to close. I just compared the price a used nexus 7 2013 and a used ipad 4 were going for on amazon and they were both going for around 65% of their original price.
Vigneshj - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
Will Samsung be releasing AMOLED display on tablet..? Watching movies/netflix can be a treat in AMOLED in large displays.StrangerGuy - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
Screw AMOLED? I'm far more concerned about the Pentile 2 subpixels per pixel shenanigans invading the LCD space here, from Samsung no less. I'm surprised the reviewer didn't even touch upon this.