Samsung doesn’t have the best reputation with tablets. In fact, Android as a whole doesn’t have the best reputation with tablets. It seemed at first that Samsung’s tablet strategy was to produce truckloads of dirt cheap tablets that tried to grab people who were just getting their first experience with tablets.
Not to be confused with the cheaper Galaxy Tab 4 10.1, the Galaxy Tab S 10.5, however, is Samsung’s first real attempt at taking on the iPad Air 2. It’s been out on the market since mid-2014, but considering that people don’t buy a new tablet every year, the question of how the Tab S 10.5 holds up is still worth asking.
So how does it stand up to the competition? Let’s find out.
Hardware
The first thing you’ll notice about the Galaxy Tab S is how light and thin it is. Despite how large the display is on the 10.1 version, the feel of this device really is impressive. In fact, the Galaxy Tab S is only bested by the iPad Air 2, which is just barely lighter and thinner. The difference is hardly noticeable though side-by-side though. Considering how big of a deal Apple made about the size of its new tablet that came out well after the Tab S, that’s pretty impressive.
The Galaxy Tab S has a plastic back, but it might be one of the better ones you’ve felt. Rather than being slimy and fingerprint-prone like the older, cheaper Galaxy Tab devices, the Tab S has the same faux-leather back that was featured on the most recent Galaxy S5 smartphone. It’s no replacement for the aluminum found on the iPad Air 2, but it gets the job done.
Unfortunately, “getting the job” is just not what you want when you are dropping $499 on a tablet. Even at $100 cheaper than the Air 2, it just doesn’t achieve that same premium feel that Apple’s tablets have. This is a common theme with the Tab S, which attempts to shoot for the “like an iPad, but $100 cheaper” market.
The good news is that the display on the Tab S doesn’t feel at all like a compromise. With a gorgeous 2560×1600-pixel Super AMOLED display, the pixel density is even higher than on the iPad Air 2. The high contrast of AMOLED makes the deep blacks and bright colors of the display perfect for watching videos and movies—and because the screen is so big at 10.5-inches, you won’t have to hold it up at your face when binge-watching Netflix in bed.
One major gripe I have with Tab S (and all other Samsung devices that use this design), are the touch-activated soft buttons. Unlike the soft buttons in stock Android which move shift with the screen when it flips from landscape to portrait, the soft buttons on the Tab S stay where they are, making portrait mode a huge pain. Even after weeks of using the Tab S, I found myself accidentally tapping the Back or App Switcher buttons with my thumb just when trying to find a place to hold the device. Samsung seriously needs to either get rid of these buttons forever and switch to on-screen soft buttons or just make these actual hard buttons. It just makes the device feel outdated next to other Android or Apple tablets.
Overall, the Galaxy Tab S is a nice jump forward for Samsung’s hardware and design. It matches what it’s done with its smartphones and impressively translates that into an incredibly thin and light tablet design. The compromises it makes in materials and design is unfortunate, but expected at the lower price point.
