Samsung Galaxy Tab S Review:

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.
We have the non-LTE version of the smaller
Tab S with us for review, and after having
spent some time with it, we have a pretty
good idea of where it fits in the universe.

Look and feel
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.

Specifications
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.