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
Battery Life
Both Galaxy Tab Ses feature somewhat small batteries, a downside to pursuing a very thin chassis. The 10.5-inch model gets a 30Wh battery compared to 32.4Wh in the iPad Air, while the 8.4-inch model only has an 18.6Wh battery compared to 23.8Wh for the iPad mini with Retina Display.
For our web browsing workload, the battery size and power requirements of displaying mostly white web pages on a high resolution AMOLED display result in substandard battery life. Both devices deliver around 8 hours on a single charge, which isn’t bad in a vacuum - it’s just a regression compared to the Galaxy Tab Pro and far behind the other competition.
The story changes dramatically however once we look at video playback battery life:
Our video playback test is perfect for an AMOLED display as the final Harry Potter movie ends up having a lot of dark scenes in it. With only a small percentage of the display showing white, display power is reduced substantially, resulting in the best video playback battery life of any tablet we’ve ever tested. Even the tiny 8.4-inch Galaxy Tab S can last over 15 hours on a single charge.
Charge time isn’t particularly fast on any of the devices, but the 10.5-inch model in particular takes a while to make it to a full charge. The 10.5 will reach a 90% charge in just under 4 hours, but to make it to 97% takes another hour and the last 3% takes another 42 minutes on top of that. Usable charge time is competitive, but if you’re obsessive about always charging to 100% the 10.5-inch model does take a while to get there.
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akdj - Monday, June 30, 2014 - link
"Contrast is the single-most important part of subjective (ie: what peoples eyes say) display quality - according to every study ever done on it - and AMOLED displays have infinite contrast. Not sure why it wasn't tested here, but the ludicrous contrast makes this screen many-times superior to the iPad screen, IMO."A) contrast is NOT the single most important, subjective performance standard. Brightness and saturation. IE, 'Torch Mode!' That's why every TV at best buy is cranked to vivid, 100% pic and high saturation levels. NOT blacks and shadows. It's important to me, but as you've answered your own question, it's impossible to measure 'infinite contrast'. As OLED displays don't 'turn on' a pixel on black scenes, it's 'truly infinite' and hence impossible to measure. Though I'd argue if it's such a subjective and deciding quality, why aren't we using OLED displays to 'produce, color, and finalize' a motion picture? While DisplayMate's results do indeed separate these tablets, the overall scores are a point apart. Not leagues. I own the Note 3 and iPad Air as well as the retina mini and 5s. They're all phenomenal displays and excellent systems. To argue ones better than the other is like arguing pancakes vs waffles. They're both light years ahead of my Magnavox 13 channel (manual) 13" black and white I had in high school with rabbit ears ...or my first 16 'color' display after a decade in monochrome. LoL, kids these days ;)
mhannigan - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
You obviously didn't understand correctly.spectrablue - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
think again...http://www.displaymate.com/OLED_Tablet_ShootOut_1....
"Based on our extensive Lab tests and measurements, the Galaxy Tab S is the Best Performing Tablet Display that we have ever tested, not surprisingly with performance that is almost identical to the OLED Galaxy S5 Smartphone that we recently tested and found to be the Best Performing Smartphone Display"..."Comparisons with the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX and Apple iPad Tablet Displays: In 2013 the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX Tablets became the top performing Tablet displays in our Display Technology Shoot-Out series, leapfrogging the competition with cutting edge displays using Quantum Dots and Low Temperature Poly Silicon. But with the ever continuing and impressive improvements in display technology the Samsung Galaxy Tab S has now taken the lead for the Best Tablet Displays. The Apple iPad Air, which came in second after the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9, now moves into third place for Flagship Tablet models, and the iPad mini with Retina Display, with a very disappointing 63 percent of the standard sRGB/Rec.709 Color Gamut and poor Color Accuracy moves further down the pack for the Mini Tablet models. "
M4stakilla - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Does it contain the usual Samsung "crapware" or is this already a more "standard" Android device, like a Nexus?Linked to the above, does it receive Android updates immediately when they are released by Google or does it still take years before they get updated? (and how long will they be updated after release?)
GC2:CS - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
How long ? About 18 months since release, eg until end of 2015.apandya27 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Updates will definitely be delayed. 5-6 months is usual for *new* devices. That goes up to 8+ months for older devices.sherlockwing - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
That video playback battery life!!!! If I am getting a new tablet(pretty happy with my Nexus 7 2013) the Tab S would certainly be my pick, Touchwiz be damned.nerd1 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Touchwiz gives you easy access to many settings, as well as the multi-app multitasking capability, and better camera UI than most. I wonder why everyone hates touchwiz so much.GC2:CS - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
Ok.... Anand did you noticed how much free memory these tabs got ?!?sherlockwing - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
If it didn't take up 4Gb of internal storage for 1000 functions that I don't need & ancient UI elements(gingerbread era) eyesores I'd have a little less problem with Touchwiz. The better Camera UI thing is now irrelevant with the free Google Camera app, and I get to many key settings much faster on AOSP than I do on Touchwiz.