People flip to massive Android tablets for streaming and even work, and Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab S8 household of tablets—with screens now as much as 14.1 inches—supply huge, detailed shows for each consuming and creating content material. While the big panels can really feel a bit awkward in pill mode, Samsung’s laptop-like pill appears to be like completely wonderful.
Samsung will supply three tablets: the brand new 14.1-inch Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, the 12.4-inch Tab S8+, and the 11-inch Tab S8, with costs starting from $699.99 for the S8 to greater than $1,099.99 for the brand new Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. Samsung beforehand launched solely a pair of Samsung Galaxy S7 gadgets, so the brand new “Ultra” measurement is actually new…and there’s even a phone-like digital camera notch on it, too.
Sales of tablets, like Chromebooks, surged through the peak of the pandemic in 2020, then dropped—analyst agency IDC reported that pill gross sales dropped 12 %, to 46 million tablets. (IDC is owned by PCWorld’s mother or father firm, IDG.) If it appears like there are few tablets apart from these from Samsung and Apple, and Amazon’s Fire, that’s considerably true, too. Worldwide, Apple dominates the pill market, with 38 % market share. Samsung is true behind, with 15.9 %, then Lenovo and Amazon with 10.0 % and 7.9 %, respectively, which helps clarify why Apple, Samsung, and Lenovo dominate retailer cabinets.
Adam Patrick Murray / IDG
Several years in the past, Android tablets carved out a discrete market—Android apps have been solely obtainable to Android telephones and tablets, and Windows apps solely ran on PCs. Now, the road is blurring: Android apps are en path to being natively supported in Windows PCs, and most of Microsoft’s cellular apps solely run on Android, not Windows Phone.
Over time, the Galaxy Tab collection has repeatedly improved. The new Tab S8 collection retains its strengths (lovely 120Hz AMOLED screens slightly below 4K decision, much better than what you’ll find on a typical Windows laptop computer, paired with phone-quality high-resolution cameras) however pushes additional into productiveness territory with break up screens that may now accommodate three snapped apps. There’s an up to date Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor inside versus the 865 used contained in the Tab S7, plus new Wi-Fi 6E help for improved connectivity. Samsung’s Windows-like DeX desktop has barely improved, too, and Samsung’s elective keyboard covers advance productiveness additional. Finally, each member of the Tab S8 technology additionally features a Samsung S Pen contained in the field, with decreased latency.
Specific enhancements embody the Galaxy Tab S8 (and S8+) digital camera: Compared to the Tab S7 (8Mpixel front-facing digital camera, 13Mpixel+5Mpixel ultrawide rear-facing digital camera), the S8 and S8+ now supply a 12Mpixel front-facing digital camera and a 13Mpixel+6Mpixel rear digital camera able to recording in 4K video high quality. There are Dolby Atmos-powered quad audio system, three mics, and noise cancellation, too. Everything else, from the load, display dimensions and determination, and wired I/O, stays unchanged from Samsung’s Seventh-gen Tab tablets. (Neither the S8 nor the S8+ supply a mannequin with 512GB of storage any extra, nevertheless.)
The Tab S8 collection can even fast-charge itself to 100 % in 90 minutes, a characteristic which is slowly coming to PCs. In a novel twist, the Tab S8 can be utilized to cost Samsung’s new S22 smartphones by connecting them with a USB-C cable, and Galaxy Bud earbuds can now roam between the 2 gadgets as properly, pairing as wanted.
All this hits among the PC’s weak factors: high-resolution, high-refresh price laptop computer PC screens are comparatively uncommon, and the user-facing cameras hardly ever go above 1Mpixel or 1080p resolutions. Samsung’s new Tabs are vital due to these options alone.
We had an opportunity to go hands-on with the brand new Galaxy Tab collection upfront of Samsung’s Unpacked presentation. An entire record of the obtainable specs for all three tablets is beneath.
IDG
Hands on with the Galaxy Tab S8
While the 11-inch Tab S8 can be utilized as a “personal” pill for content material consumption, it’s troublesome to see the S8+ and S8 Ultra as something however laptop computer replacements. They’re just too large. Even then 13-inch Surface Pro 8 is ungainly, and the 14.6-inch Tab S8 Ultra is only a huge sheet of glass. Pairing it with an excellent 13Mpixel rear digital camera appears a bit absurd, as holding a 14-inch pill in entrance of your face is much less about taking a photograph than it’s shading your self from the solar. It’s a bit bizarre to appreciate, then, that this huge 14.6-inch slab of glass is a 3rd of a pound lighter than the Surface — and it’s fabricated from Armor Aluminum, which guarantees to be rugged and extra scratch-resistant than the Galaxy S7, too.
Front cameras, although, do matter, particularly in a Zoom-centric world. It’s fascinating to notice that almost all laptops gives a 1Mpixel user-facing digital camera, whereas the Tab S8’s user-facing cameras are all 12Mpixels. And sure, the pictures and video they seize look nice. Why wouldn’t they, from an organization that sells telephones, typically on the energy of the telephones’ digital camera? According to Danielle Moten, Samsung’s senior supervisor of product administration, there are new software program controls to disable the digital camera for privateness’s sake—though, the {hardware} shutters that some laptops supply are nonetheless a superior answer.
What shortly turns into clear is that these new Tabs work greatest with a keyboard hooked up. Samsung supplies quite a lot of them. What it calls the Book Cover Keyboard, fabricated from “premium antimicrobial polyurethane,” connects to the Tab by way of a magnetic connection, providing a full-size keyboard and glass touchpad. I discovered it to be surprisingly good: snug and responsive. A separate, removable portion supplies a kickstand that appeared sturdy sufficient.
Samsung didn’t present pricing for its keyboards, nevertheless. However, clients who pre-order Galaxy Tab S8 and S8+ from Samsung.com can obtain a free Slim Book Cover Keyboard, Samsung stated.
Customers who pre-order Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra will obtain a free Backlit Book Cover Keyboard.
Interestingly, the Tab collection gives you two methods to work, powered by its One UI Tab 4 consumer interface. The first, the extra standard manner of launching Android apps, permits you to launch a single app throughout the breadth of the display, naturally. But now you can fill the display with three apps—one snapped in portrait mode on one facet of the display, and two smaller panorama home windows on the opposite portion. Interestingly, that is just about how I work, with one most important display and two smaller home windows throughout a second show. (I really use a 3rd show, too.) It’s a reasonably pure strategy to break up a number of apps throughout a number of home windows. Swiping with three fingers switches between app desktops, too.
Mark Hachman / IDG
I didn’t see as a lot enchancment in DeX, Samsung’s extra business-oriented workspace. DeX swaps spanned software home windows for extra Windows-like home windows that may be moved across the display, and it could possibly now be utilized in portrait mode, too. The up to date model gives extra transparency between the home windows. I’ll must attempt it out extra if and once we obtain overview models.
The inking expertise, although, actually impressed me. Measuring how properly a tool inks is a comparatively easy course of, asking three fundamental questions: Does the ink meet the pen’s nib, or is it offset? Is there noticeable latency? And is there jitter while you ink, producing a wavy line even when utilizing a straight edge? I didn’t discover a lot latency in any respect. When inking, nevertheless, the inked line wasn’t offset within the slightest. Even extra impressively, there was hardly any discernible jitter in any respect, even inking slowly on a diagonal—much better efficiency than I’ve seen on any pill from any producer.
Mark Hachman / IDG
I used to be unable to check among the Tab’s different options, reminiscent of video playback, how properly it connects to a PC as a second display, and the way properly the face recognition and fingerprint scanner work. (The fingerprint scanner is mounted within the show on the Tab S8 Ultra and S8+, and within the energy button on the S8.) We’ll have to save lots of these issues for a overview.
At $1,099 (and almost definitely $1,299 or $1,399 for the variations with elevated reminiscence and storage, plus presumably extra for the keyboard cowl), the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra definitely approaches laptop computer pricing territory. What I discovered stunning is that the proposition doesn’t appear that far-fetched.
Dominic Bayley / IDG
As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft information and chip know-how, amongst different beats. He has previously written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.