While Samsung’s Galaxy Tab series still enjoys some popularity, it’s a long way from when the first Galaxy Tab came out. Each year, the Galaxy Tab series had become increasingly mediocre when compared to offerings from other tablet makers. Well, the newly announced Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and 10.5 are set to change that, sporting not your ordinary LCD or LED panels, but Super AMOLED!
Super AMOLED displays are known for their eye-popping color saturation and high contrast ratios and have been Samsung‘s bread and butter on their flagship Galaxy S series for the past 5 iterations, as well as the Galaxy Note series for the last 3. However, the Korean electronics giant has only had one occasion where they used a Super AMOLED display on a tablet-sized device, which was the Galaxy Tab 7.7 in 2011. Now it appears that Samsung has finally been able to mass produce large high resolution Super AMOLED panels for mainstream devices like the new Galaxy Tab S series.
Simply put, the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and 10.5 arguably come with the best mass market display technology available today. Both models will have WQXGA (2560 x 1600) resolution, giving them pixel densities of 359ppi and 288ppi respectively. Combined with the qualities of Super AMOLED, and the screen could be the single reason the Galaxy Tab brand can potentially be elevated back to premium status, just as it was when the original Galaxy Tab came out.
Of course, Samsung isn’t holding back on the rest of the specs. The Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and 10.5 will come with either their home-baked Exynos 5 (5420) octa-core SoC or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800, which has a quad core CPU. They will also have 3GB of RAM and a choice between 16GB or 32GB storage. Naturally, as is typical of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab series, the Galaxy Tab S will come in either LTE or WiFi-only models.
On the software side of things, the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and 10.5 will run Android 4.4.2 KitKat with the new Magazine UX on top. There will also be a ton of useful and not so useful features. One particular favorite of mine is Ultra-Power Saving Mode and Private Mode. Parents will certainly love Kids Mode. Then there are a few more neat features that are fun to play around with but might not necessarily become second-nature to use, such as being able to make and receive calls on your phone using the tablet!
Both Samsung Galaxy Tab S will become available by July in select markets, with the 8.4 retailing for $400 while the 10.5 model will sell for $500. While there’s no news yet as to when it will reach the Philippines, we do know that it will be the Qualcomm versions with LTE that will be hitting retailer shelves.