So we’ve just finished up out hands-on time with the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and we were seriously impressed by this light yet powerful Android tablet. With it’s amazing, and we mean amazing, 2560×1600 super AMOLED display, superfast processor and pencil thin design, we found it hard to put down.
Build Quality
The first thing you notice when you pick up the Tab S is just how light it is. Weighing in at just 465g, this thing is worryingly light. That doesn’t mean it feels cheap though, using the same dimpled leather effect like on many of their other Galaxy devices, the Tab S, has a high-quality feel to it if a little tiny bit on the plasticky side.
Hardware
There are stereo speakers located on the left and right of the side of the device when held in landscape mode and they offer loud, but unfortunately not that bassy, audio. There is an 8MP shooter on the back with an LED flash and a 2.1MP camera on front for full HD video. The camera took decent pictures with good colour reproduction and very good levels of detail.
The front facing camera had a clever little ‘real-time makeup’ option that would ‘photoshop your face’ when using the front camera to take a picture.
Display
The display on the Tab S is one of the best mobile display we have ever seen. Having such a large super AMOLED display really makes the difference and when watching videos or just viewing pictures, this screen is simply stunning with a crazy contrast ratio of 100.000:1. We hate to use cliches but this is one of those things that has to be seen to be believed.
Software
The Tab S has Android KitKat running under the hood, powered by a quad-core Qualcomm processor. You’ve got your usual array of multitasking options with the very hand split screen option. The Tab S also comes with a fingerprint scanner like the one found in the Galaxy S5. There is 3GB of RAM with 16GB of storage although this is depleted by the OS on top but you can expand the memory with the Micro SD card slot up to 128GB.
Battery
With the Super AMOLED screen using up less power than a conventional LCD display, the Tab S had an extremely impressive battery life with us getting a good day’s usage out of it. Like any mobile device though, the higher you have the brightness (which we had quite high a lot to enjoy the gorgeous screen) the quicker your battery drains so to get the best out of this tablet, and any mobile device, it’s best to keep the screen at an medium to low brightness.
Conclusion
We were excited to get our hands on one of the new Tab S’s and we definitely weren’t disappointed. We loved how light the tablet was, how amazing the colours and details were on the screen and just how much the tablet could handle when it came to labour-intensive tasks. So if you’re looking for a high-end android tablet, you would definitely be wise to check out what the Galaxy Tab S has to offer.
The Tab S we reviewed was the 10.5″ ‘Dazzling White’ 16GB model but there is also an 8.4″ model and a ‘Titanium Bronze’ colour option too. Both are available in all Irish electrical retailers and the Carphone Warehouse 8.4″ model is available from €399 and the 10.5″ model from €499.
