Hands-on: Samsung Galaxy Tab S

After the live-streaming event hosted by Samsung Philippines, the folks from the media got the chance to play around with the new tablets that the company recently launched. So we grabbed the opportunity to get up close and personal with these two new tablets, and share with you our initial thoughts about it.

Super-sized Galaxy S5

The Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and 8.4 bear a striking resemblance to the Samsung Galaxy S5 in terms of design. So much so that the tablets, particularly the 8.4-inch model because of its portrait orientation, appear a lot like an SGS5-on-steroids.

Both tablets are outfitted with the softly-dimpled back panel which was first seen on the company’s 5.1-inch flagship smartphone. It feels very nice to the touch and makes it easier to grasp the tablets even with one hand.

The front of the tablets is almost all-screen, leaving Samsung with only a small real estate to put in other external components like the Fingerprint-Scanner-equipped Home button which is sandwiched in between two soft buttons, front-facing camera and handful of sensors.

Other components such as the Power button, Volume rocker, as well as two slots for Micro-SD and Micro-SIM card are neatly placed around the sides of the tablets. The borders are painted in Silver Metallic which adds a touch of class to what would otherwise be a plain-looking tablet.

Around the back is where you’ll find the tablets’ 8MP camera which is smacked right in the middle of the top section of the posterior and is neighbored by an LED flash. The only other thing worth mentioning in this area is the pair of circular perforations which are used to attach accessories like the Book Cover and Simple Cover to the tablet.

Display done the right way

Now let’s move to what is considered to be the Galaxy Tab S’ crowning glory, the Display. Samsung decided to ditch the Super LCD screens that they’ve used on their recent tablets (Tab Pro, Note Pro and Tab 4) and outfitted both of their brainchildren with a Super AMOLED display, making it the first tablet under their roster to sport such display.

In addition to its S-AMOLED display which, among other things, is considered to be more energy-efficient than typical LCD screens, Samsung also bumped up the resolution to 2560×1600 which resulted into a very crisp and vibrant output that would undoubtedly rival that of the iPad Mini Retina and iPad Air.

And in order to fully utilize the tablets’ truly immersive screen, Samsung incorporated their proprietary screen technology called “Adaptive Display” which allows the Galaxy Tab S tablets to automatically adjust the display setting based on the “content being viewed, as well as the environment it’s being viewed in.”

Furthermore, the company has added three display modes namely Basic, Cinema and Photo. This gives users the ability to manually adjust the settings to match their current need.

Initial conclusion

Just when almost every company took a step back on tablets and focused more in their smartphones, Samsung continues their campaign to overthrow Apple in the top seed in the tablet market, and they’re doing it with a barrage of Android slates which comes in different sizes and hardware configurations.

Case of the statement is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and 8.4 which are the 10th and 11th tablet that the South Korean company released just this year. The two tablets came 5 month after the firm unveiled the Galaxy Tab PRO and Note PRO lineup and two months after the budget-centric Galaxy Tab 4 tablets made its official debut.

We’re not exactly sure if this kind of effort that Samsung is putting in on the tablet segment will eventually pay off and skyrocket them to the top spot, but the new Galaxy Tab S certainly has the right tools to slug it out with the iPad Mini 2 and the iPad Air.