Samsung Galaxy Tab S Review (10.5 & 8.4-inch)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 24, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Galaxy Tab S
Battery Life
Both Galaxy Tab Ses feature somewhat small batteries, a downside to pursuing a very thin chassis. The 10.5-inch model gets a 30Wh battery compared to 32.4Wh in the iPad Air, while the 8.4-inch model only has an 18.6Wh battery compared to 23.8Wh for the iPad mini with Retina Display.
For our web browsing workload, the battery size and power requirements of displaying mostly white web pages on a high resolution AMOLED display result in substandard battery life. Both devices deliver around 8 hours on a single charge, which isn’t bad in a vacuum - it’s just a regression compared to the Galaxy Tab Pro and far behind the other competition.
The story changes dramatically however once we look at video playback battery life:
Our video playback test is perfect for an AMOLED display as the final Harry Potter movie ends up having a lot of dark scenes in it. With only a small percentage of the display showing white, display power is reduced substantially, resulting in the best video playback battery life of any tablet we’ve ever tested. Even the tiny 8.4-inch Galaxy Tab S can last over 15 hours on a single charge.
Charge time isn’t particularly fast on any of the devices, but the 10.5-inch model in particular takes a while to make it to a full charge. The 10.5 will reach a 90% charge in just under 4 hours, but to make it to 97% takes another hour and the last 3% takes another 42 minutes on top of that. Usable charge time is competitive, but if you’re obsessive about always charging to 100% the 10.5-inch model does take a while to get there.
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theduckofdeath - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Read his other comments, are you'll find out how he's able to come to that quick conclusion from a YouTube clip... :)GC2:CS - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
I also think that one video is too little to draw a conclusion, but it's far more useful than any set of numbers can ever be to describe a display. I don't care how used camera and my crappy TN LCD display could screw the video because you are wrong as the perceived characteristics of botch evaluated displays is changed in the same way. I see that the iPad has an picture and the tab S has the same picture that looks differently, and I also know that the iPad Air makes very accurate colors and the tab S is making apparently different colors, which logically implies that it's not as nice colored as the iPad. Yah an quick conclusion, but can you tell me where I made a mistake, or make your own different conclusion from that video ?ESC2000 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
The sky is orange. I'm holding this orange next to it and it doesn't match so it's not orange.That is the exact same logic you are following but it illustrates the flaw in it.
hung2900 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
I think you really have a problem with your reading skill. The Tab S 10.1 definitely won in white accuracy (quite significant), grayscale accuracy (far), GMB accuracy (quite). iPad Air won with Gamut accuracy (quite to medium) and saturation (quite much).At least a basic person can see that Tab S 10.1 won 3/5 points of the comparison. While with users, the grayscale is much more important that everyone should have a same perspective, while the minor saturation is only subjective from person to person.
Not forgot to say the biggest advantage is the infinite contrast (which triumps when you read/see everything indoor) and better outdoor visibility with automatic brightness (supposed to be, as GS5 vs iPhone 5s) brings better image outdoor.
So what is your point?
hung2900 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Forgot to say: If you or anybody have ever used the old Tab 7.7, you can see the contrast advantage is MUCH more notable. That's the reason why many people and Tab 7.7 ex-users have waited for these tablets for so long.GC2:CS - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
The point is that everybody expected this new thing to just kind of crush everything, not slightly outstrip an retina display from 2012.theduckofdeath - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
And it is crushing everything else. As hung2900 says, contrast is what has the biggest impression on any normal user, and this tablet is literally killing everything else on that point.the_ether - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Wow, that's a bit rude.So,
a) who's to say that each test has the same weighting? Perhaps colour reproduction is more important than say, greyscale accuracy, especially to say, an artist;
b) I already stated that contrast was another factor not tested that should be considered, so repeating that point was moot.
So the point is that it is not an obviously better screen than the iPad Air.
mhannigan - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Yes, it is.ESC2000 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
Don't take it so personally. So what if your iPad doesn't have the nicest screen of all tablets? The truth is there are many parts of an iPad that are bested by other tablets but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying yours.