We have no idea what's going on inside Samsung, but for some reason the company seems to think we all want to buy new tablets every three months. That's how often it introduces new models, and frankly, it's becoming very difficult to keep track of all of them.
As it stands, there's the main Galaxy Tab line (with suffix numbers going up to 4 by generation and/or additional numbering to denote screen size). There are also the Galaxy Notes (not to be confused with the outsized smartphones of the same name), Note Pros and Tab Pros. That's not to mention a few Lite and Neo variants, amongst others. Some of them make calls, some are Wi-Fi only, some come with a stylus, and some seem to have no specific purpose for existing. In the midst of all this confusion, Samsung has dropped yet another series: the Galaxy Tab S.
The company clearly has quite a few models that sell well because of low prices - The Tab S line is meant to represent what's possible when cost isn't a consideration anymore. Two sizes are available - 8.4-inch and 10.1-inch - and it's no coincidence that these line up quite conveniently against Apple's two iPad models. The Tab S devices aren't like Samsung's other tablets - they're meant to be sleek, beautiful flagships, in line with the Galaxy S5 smartphone. They both use some of the best hardware and materials currently available, and as far as cost goes, let's just say that you aren't going to find them on a discount rack anytime soon.The first thing that struck us about our review unit was its colour - Samsung calls it Titanium Bronze, which is a bit of a contradiction, but it matches the golden Galaxy S5. The S5 aesthetic extends to the shiny dotted rear surface and the metallic accents around the earpiece and Home button. The rich colour of the sides and accents is a bit distracting - thankfully the rear is a more neutral shade. Samsung knows this look won't appeal to a lot of people, and thankfully the device is also available in white.
The Tab S is actually quite attractive. It's remarkably slim, and doesn't have the plasticky feel of Samsung's older tablets. The screen dominates the front panel but there's space for a earpiece and camera above it, and Samsung's usual button arrangement below it. The physical home button doubles as a fingerprint reader, just like the one on the S5.
The most notable component of the Tab S is its screen. It's a gorgeous 1600x2560-pixel Super AMOLED panel and it will grab your attention as soon as you turn the Tab S on. Colours are vivid and highly saturated, and the high resolution means everything is luxuriously crisp and smooth. This alone will be the reason a lot of people will pay top dollar for this product.
On the inside, there's a powerful octa-core Samsung Exynos 5420 with four ARM Cortex A15 cores running at 1.9GHz and four more Cortex A7 cores running at 1.3GHz. All eight cores can run simultaneously, or the Exynos can dynamically adjust how many are active at a time in order to maximise performance and power efficiency. There's 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.
All the wireless standards you could care about are supported: Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac (with MIMO), Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, GPS, GLONASS, and of course 3G. A version with LTE support is also available. There's an accelerometer, a fingerprint sensor, a gyro, an ambient light sensor and a proximity sensor. In short, every possible bit of technology that a tablet could have is in here.
Samsung's Android skin is pretty much identical to what we've already seen on the Galaxy Note Pro. The homescreens coexist with the Magazine UX, a tiled interface that shows news stories, app updates and social feeds. You can set up bookmarks, alarms, stock tickers and calendar events from here. There are two pages in the beginning, one with tiles for content updates and the other with app updates. You can resize and rearrange these as you like, but the app tiles only tie in to Samsung's own apps such as Hancom Office and S-Planner. There are 13 content categories and nine dedicated social media services that you can choose from.
One new touch is the permanently visible My Files icon in the bottom left corner of all homescreens. This takes you to samsung's file manager app, which is pretty neat. It's like having a Windows Explorer interface on your tablet. Files are shown in categories, and certain apps like Dropbox also let you browse through their contents from here. You can even connect to FTP servers and network locations such as your PC's shared folders. There's even a Timeline view which shows files you've opened or created in chronological order. A handy Storage Usage tool shows how much space on your device is currently occupied by each kind of file.
The fingerprint sensor works well, just like the one on the Galaxy S5. You can use it to set up multiple profiles for friends or family members, with personalised settings, apps and documents. There's even a restricted profile for times when you want to share your tablet with guests but don't want them to poke into your private life.
There aren't too many preloaded apps, but there is a huge Galaxy Essentials ad on the second homescreen which takes you to a list of Samsung apps that you can download yourself, if you want. These include the Gear and Gear Fit manager apps, a few kids' games, a video editor, a scrapbook, S-Note (which you'll have to use without an S-Pen), S Translator, and many more. There's Samsung Smart Switch, which helps you transfer content from an older Android or iOS device; Group Play, which create ad-hoc networks with other Android 4.4 devices to share files or set up a virtual surround-sound experience; a sound effects app called Samsung Level; S Console, a launcher app for Samsung's gaming peripherals; and Samsung eMeeting, an app that lets you share presentations to multiple devices' screens.
The Galaxy Gifts widget takes you to another list of downloadable apps - these are freebies that come as value-adds. Some are limited-time subscriptions while others are premium versions of free apps. You get 1TB of storage for three months from Bitcasa, 50GB for two years from Dropbox and 50GB for six months from Box, in-game credits for assorted games, three months of comics from the Marvel Unlimited app, six months of premium Pocket and Real Player Cloud, a year of Evernote Premium, six-month subscriptions to the Economist, NYT and WSJ, one free Kindle book per month, and more.
Samsung seems to have overcome its proclivity to preinstall thousands of apps, but it's nice to know that you can choose from all these offers. There are of course still quite a few, and much like the ones on the Galaxy Note Pro, they seem geared for business users. There's Remote PC, Cisco WebEx, Bloomberg Businessweek+, Hancom Office Viewer, and the NYTimes app. There's also SideSync 3, which lets users mirror your Android device's screen on a PC, control it with your mouse and keyboard, and back up data. The Peel Smart Remote app lets you control your TV, set-top box and other AV components.
The camera app feels much like the one on the Galaxy S5. There are load of options including a timer, face detection, stabilisation, burst, voice control, white balance and EV adjustment. Of course there are also plenty of modes and effects - HDR, panorama, dual camera, beauty face and "Shot & more" which takes a whole burst of shots and then offers you the best one, or lets you create a dramatic collage or a panning shot.
Overall, it's a strong and coherent showing by Samsung, and makes the Tab S feel packed with extravagant features without going completely over-the-top.
