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
Final Words
The Galaxy Tab S is easily the most compelling tablet family Samsung has ever released. The devices are incredibly thin, very light and boast displays that can be easily configured to be among the most accurate in the industry. In the Android tablet space it’s often a stretch charging $399 or $499, even for a flagship, given how good the Nexus line ends up being. With the Tab S, I think Samsung has something that’s worthy of a price premium over the more cost effective Android tablets.
The Galaxy Tab S, regardless of size, is easy to hold and has a screen that’s great to look at. These are two of the most important things to get right when building a tablet and the Tab S delivers on both.
The features around the edges are nice additions. The integrated fingerprint scanner works better on the tablet than it does on the phone, and is a decent time saver if you’ve got a long passcode. Having 2-stream 802.11ac support is nice as well, although the implementation isn’t as good as it is on the Galaxy S5. If you do have a Galaxy S5, having the ability to answer calls directly from your tablet is a neat feature.
The devices aren't perfect however. The Exynos 5420 SoC in both tablets is no longer class leading. CPU performance is reasonable but the GPU does seem to have issues keeping up with the high resolution display. If anything, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 would probably have been a better fit for the tablets across the board. I suspect Exynos 5420 won out due to pricing, but as a result we end up with a tablet that has the dimensions and display of a flagship and an SoC that is simply good enough.
Battery life is either going to be amazing or below par depending on your usage model. If you spend a lot of time looking at web pages, you’ll find the high resolution AMOLED display to be a power liability. If however you mainly use your tablet to watch TV and movies, there’s literally no better option on the market today when it comes to battery life. Even the tiny 8.4-inch Galaxy Tab S managed to best all of the other tablets we’ve tested in video playback battery life, delivering over 15 hours on a single charge. Start browsing the web however and you’re looking at roughly half of that. It’s an interesting tradeoff for sure.
Overall the Galaxy Tab S feels like a solid reboot for Samsung’s tablet ambitions. The trick from here on out will be to continue to iterate the design without losing focus. A successor with a better SoC might be a good start. Perhaps Snapdragon 808/810 might be a good option next year, or an 805 based solution by the end of this year depending on how aggressive of a schedule Samsung sticks to for tablet releases going forward.
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akdj - Monday, June 30, 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."A) contrast is NOT the single most important, subjective performance standard. Brightness and saturation. IE, 'Torch Mode!' That's why every TV at best buy is cranked to vivid, 100% pic and high saturation levels. NOT blacks and shadows. It's important to me, but as you've answered your own question, it's impossible to measure 'infinite contrast'. As OLED displays don't 'turn on' a pixel on black scenes, it's 'truly infinite' and hence impossible to measure. Though I'd argue if it's such a subjective and deciding quality, why aren't we using OLED displays to 'produce, color, and finalize' a motion picture? While DisplayMate's results do indeed separate these tablets, the overall scores are a point apart. Not leagues. I own the Note 3 and iPad Air as well as the retina mini and 5s. They're all phenomenal displays and excellent systems. To argue ones better than the other is like arguing pancakes vs waffles. They're both light years ahead of my Magnavox 13 channel (manual) 13" black and white I had in high school with rabbit ears ...or my first 16 'color' display after a decade in monochrome. LoL, kids these days ;)
mhannigan - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
You obviously didn't understand correctly.spectrablue - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
think again...http://www.displaymate.com/OLED_Tablet_ShootOut_1....
"Based on our extensive Lab tests and measurements, the Galaxy Tab S is the Best Performing Tablet Display that we have ever tested, not surprisingly with performance that is almost identical to the OLED Galaxy S5 Smartphone that we recently tested and found to be the Best Performing Smartphone Display"..."Comparisons with the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX and Apple iPad Tablet Displays: In 2013 the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX Tablets became the top performing Tablet displays in our Display Technology Shoot-Out series, leapfrogging the competition with cutting edge displays using Quantum Dots and Low Temperature Poly Silicon. But with the ever continuing and impressive improvements in display technology the Samsung Galaxy Tab S has now taken the lead for the Best Tablet Displays. The Apple iPad Air, which came in second after the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9, now moves into third place for Flagship Tablet models, and the iPad mini with Retina Display, with a very disappointing 63 percent of the standard sRGB/Rec.709 Color Gamut and poor Color Accuracy moves further down the pack for the Mini Tablet models. "
M4stakilla - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Does it contain the usual Samsung "crapware" or is this already a more "standard" Android device, like a Nexus?Linked to the above, does it receive Android updates immediately when they are released by Google or does it still take years before they get updated? (and how long will they be updated after release?)
GC2:CS - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
How long ? About 18 months since release, eg until end of 2015.apandya27 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Updates will definitely be delayed. 5-6 months is usual for *new* devices. That goes up to 8+ months for older devices.sherlockwing - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
That video playback battery life!!!! If I am getting a new tablet(pretty happy with my Nexus 7 2013) the Tab S would certainly be my pick, Touchwiz be damned.nerd1 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Touchwiz gives you easy access to many settings, as well as the multi-app multitasking capability, and better camera UI than most. I wonder why everyone hates touchwiz so much.GC2:CS - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Ok.... Anand did you noticed how much free memory these tabs got ?!?sherlockwing - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
If it didn't take up 4Gb of internal storage for 1000 functions that I don't need & ancient UI elements(gingerbread era) eyesores I'd have a little less problem with Touchwiz. The better Camera UI thing is now irrelevant with the free Google Camera app, and I get to many key settings much faster on AOSP than I do on Touchwiz.