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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theduckofdeath - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
The freebies are downloadable. Not pre-installed.Lavkesh - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
It is not hard to see. My Galaxy S3 with a supposedly quad core cpu crawls most of the times, the phone hangs and crashes all the time and application uninstall at times takes minutes. It is for the same reason that Motorola took a jibe at Samsung when launching Moto E saying that doing basic tasks, it is faster than Samsung's Galaxy S4!There is no denying that their hardware is good, but their software just isn't good enough.
basroil - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
That video playback life is a best case scenario because they don't have a dedicated testing video... the web browsing one is more realistic for most people (mostly white), and it's frankly pathetic.marytattoo - Sunday, June 29, 2014 - link
still, cheaper to get the tab 8.4 pro. almost all of the same stuff and cheaper. i love mine. and no where have i seen a comparison between the s 8.4 and the pro 8.4.basroil - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Can Samsung legally call those screens 2560x1600? At best the chroma resolution is a quarter, maybe less depending on the screen controller. With the same train of thought, Microsoft's ClearType produces beyond 4K of resolution on their SP3...GC2:CS - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Yeah those subpixel origami makes a lot of mess but samsung is a marketing company and as they are unable to make an RGB AMOLED of ~300 ppi they have to "cheat" in some way. So they shouldn't call these 2560 by 1600 but they can and they do.Penti - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
S-stripe is full-res RGB and not pentile. Only a few Samsung AMOLED-panels have been using uniform subpixels.basroil - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
Normal S-Stripe displays from Samsung are indeed full resolution (RGB of 1:1:1), but if you look at the image of the new S-Stripe, you can see that it clearly has some sort of odd offset resulting in black space between every two-blue group. The count is the same 1:1:1, but are there actually 2560x1600 of those dots or only two thirds and the rest just imaginary subpixels?The 8.4 inch version though is 100% pentile and only has 1:2:1 and subpixel doubling (meaning the actual resolution is not much more than 720p). That's not to say that the pentile display will look bad, rather that calling it a fixed resolution above 1280x800 is a marketing gimmick and not a fact.
theduckofdeath - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
I'm honestly starting to wonder if you at all did read the review, or if you went directly to the comments section for the trolling, GG2:CS.dwade123 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
No one buys tablets for specs. Where's the software? Oh right. It uses Android.