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
Performance
The WiFi only variants of the Galaxy Tab S all feature Samsung’s own Exynos 5 Octa (5420). Internally we’re dealing with four ARM Cortex A15s and four ARM Cortex A7s in a big.LITTLE configuration, with a maximum of four cores of the same type being active at any given moment. The Cortex A7 cluster can run at up to 1.3GHz while the Cortex A15 cluster maxes out at 1.9GHz.
CPU performance is reasonable but definitely behind Apple’s Cyclone cores in A7 and even Intel’s value Bay Trail offerings that are cropping up in tablets like ASUS’ Memo Pad 7. The problem with the latter is that those devices end up being substantially cheaper what Samsung is asking for with the Galaxy Tab S.
GPU Performance
The bigger problem really seems to be GPU performance. The Exynos 5420 integrates ARM’s Mali-T628MP6 GPU, which just isn’t competitive with Apple’s PowerVR Series 6 implementations. The bigger problem is that the GPU doesn’t seem quite cut out to driving the high resolution display. UI frame rates are typically smooth but I definitely noticed some dropped frames. The device is by no means unusable, I’m just spoiled by how good everything is at the high end of mobile that even mild deviations are noticeable.
Internal NAND Storage Performance
Storage performance is pretty solid. Both read and write performance are good given what we’re seeing from most players today. I’d always like more but there’s not a ton to complain about here.
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name99 - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
If you don't like sunspider for whatever reason, look at one of the other values. No-one is forcing you to base your opinions on one number.But for many of us sun spider most accurately captures the snappiness of a browser in real use, which is something we care about. Kraken and Octane are too much biased towards JS performance and multithreaded JS. That's fine if that's what you're interested in, but it's silly to pretend that that's a better measure of how the device feels in normal use.
the_ether - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
lilo777's comment seems to be an important one. Perhaps a generalist tech site like Anandtech isn't the most knowledgeable about testing screens. How were the tests conducted? Perhaps the method that was used to display an image on the screen was sub-optimal. For example, an image normally has a profile associated with it and some programs will use that profile in order to determine the correct way of displaying that image - eg whether sRGB or Adobe RGB colour spaces are appropriate.There seems to be an important discrepancy here.
marytattoo - Sunday, June 29, 2014 - link
still wondering about the overall value and performance of the s 8.4 and the pro 8.4 ?????mhannigan - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
You are obviously uninformed. If you do not understand why an OLED display is a more pleasant experience, then it really cannot be explained to you.ddriver - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
It has better contrast, better white point, better grayscale accuracy, gamut and saturation accuracy are so close to the Air display you won't be able to tell without measuring equipment. I'd say it is a match to the Air display and significantly better than anything else. It's pretty great, considering Samsung don't have fanatical devotees to exploit and must sell much more balanced products at lower profit margins.Anders CT - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
The display in the samsung tablet has better contrast, a wider gamut, better resolution and a much faster response than the display in the ipad Air.Sasmung makes display panels for both ipads and Galaxy tablets, so it is only natural that Samsung would reserve the superior panel for their own tablets.
Lavkesh - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
That's assuming Apple is willing to compromise on their display's?ESC2000 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
Sorry to burst your bubble but Apple compromises on many things to preserve their profit margins... See eg skimpy RAM that means that webpage tabs always face to reload when you switch between them, causing info to be lost... Low RAM also caused the iPad Airs and minis with retina to crash and freeze frequently. The one I bought for my sister froze all the time - a $500 product at that! Similar issue with their highway robbery pricing for storage... $500 device with only 16 GB and no micro SD is an insult and a ripoff. (That goes for all brands but we are starting to see some change... More companies bundling 32 GB into the base model).Another example would be the (again insulting) ugly TN panel in the MacBook Air - $1000+ computer with a low rez TN display. Only Apple could get away with it.
akdj - Monday, June 30, 2014 - link
The display in the Sammy is nine months newer than the Air/Mini and 5s. Those products are coming down the pipe in the next quarter. How about we compare current to current versions enforced deciding? And with those results, it's pretty apparent Apple's 2013 design was pretty damn good and holding it's own almost a year later (keep in mind it's dominance at release in comparison to AMOLED tablets). Hold your reservations. The Air's display is beyond outstanding and if the Sammy is this good, neither is 'bad' nor will the majority be able to discern any difference at these resolutionsalthaz - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Contrast is the single-most important part of subjective (ie: what peoples eyes say) display quality - according to every study ever done on it - and AMOLED displays have infinite contrast. Not sure why it wasn't tested here, but the ludicrous contrast makes this screen many-times superior to the iPad screen, IMO.That said, there are plenty of folks that (for some reason) prefer LCD to AMOLED, so who am I to judge.