Samsung Galaxy Tab S review
OUR VERDICT
Samsung has aimed high with the Tab S, and met its target: this pair of premium tablets are serious competition for Apple's iPad, thanks to a gorgeous screen, some serious horsepower and impressive battery life.
Update: Android 5.0 Lollipop has been making waves with the 'Material Design' UI overhaul. When will Lollipop make its way to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S? Find out here.
If you're on the fence between the Apple iPad Air and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S, we've built an in depth feature comparing every little detail just for you. Check that out right here.
Plus with price drops and new competitors we've updated our review to reflect the changes in the market.
The Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and 10.5 are Samsung's latest flagship slates, built to show off the very best of the company's hardware and software prowess.
They're designed as upgrades to the Tab Pros we saw earlier this year, with some spec bumps, a slightly evolved look and, of course, different screen sizes, just in case you were foolishly expecting Samsung to follow any kind of pattern as far as display dimensions are concerned.
Apart from the screen sizes there's very little difference between the Tab S models, so this review combines the two tablets into one. I'll talk primarily about the 8.4-inch model and include additional observations about the 10.5-inch version where necessary.
It's a brutal battle down at the budget end of the tablet market — one that Apple refuses to get involved in — but here we're very much at the premium end of the scale. The Galaxy Tab S devices have been built to go toe-to-toe with Apple's slates, a brave and perhaps foolhardy undertaking.
First impressions are good, though: these devices feel like they're made by a company that has perfected its art. Both models have a 2560 x 1600 pixel WQXGA Super AMOLED screen, which works out at 287 pixels-per-inch on the larger model and 360ppi on the smaller one.
The internals are identical, comprising 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, an 8MP rear camera and 2.1MP front-facing camera. The Samsung Exynos 5 Octa CPU inside these tablets combines 1.9 and 1.3GHz quad-core processors with the faster taking over from the slower when required at the expense of some battery life.
Those are some eye-popping specs, and still better than the iPad Air 2 which now packs 2GB rather than 1, or the 2013 Nexus 7 which offers a resolution of just 323ppi on its 7-inch screen. There's much more to a device than raw specs of course, but on paper at least Samsung has produced a true champion.
3G/4G versions of the tablets that can access mobile networks with a SIM card are also available, as are 32GB models.
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