Samsung
Galaxy Tab S2
High-end Android tablets
are becoming few and far between, indicating to us that the tablet segment in
general has been seeing a slowdown. Most consumers seem to be more gravitated
to either picking up a low-cost laptop hybrid, or the many inexpensive tablets
that pack reasonable value for the money. On that note, it’s no surprise to us
that many companies have stopped production and development for high-end
tablets on the Android side. And then there’s Samsung! The
Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 has bright and vividly colorful screen. Its rail-thin
design is comfortable and ultracompact. It comes with 32GB of storage, a
microSD card expansion slot and fingerprint scanner. Battery life is long.
Unlike previous models, there's no IR blaster. Design:
The Galaxy Tab S2
feels nicer to hold in two hands than the Samsung
Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and
its sibling, the Galaxy Tab 8.4. In fact, it's now light enough to comfortably
clutch in one hand. Design
The Galaxy Tab S2 feels
nicer to hold in two hands than the Samsung
Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and
its sibling, the Galaxy Tab 8.4. In fact, it's now light enough to comfortably
clutch in one hand.
The Samsung Tab S2 is lighter in part because it's backed by a
soft-touch plastic cover instead of an aluminium shell. Metal edges outline the
tablet instead of a plastic frame this time.
The entire device may not be metal, but it does feel smooth.
It's better than the dimpled plastic of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S, yet remains
just as grippy.
Two small, springy buttons are embedded into the back of the Tab
S2, but they're meant for clipping a cover onto the tablet and aren't releases
to pop off the back. It's all sealed shut.
There is, however, a microSD card slot on the frame to
optionally boost the 32GB and 64GB configurations with an additional 128GB of
expandable storage.
Alongside this same rail are a solid-feeling power button and
volume rocker. Stereo speakers, a headphone jack and an off-center micro USB
port line the bottom of the tablet.
The Tab S2 has a physical, fingerprint-sensing home button in
front with the usual oval shape, and two capacitive buttons on either side.
These keys light up by default every time the display is touched.
The beams of light are a bit distracting when scrolling and
reading text near the bottom of the screen, and turning them off in settings
doesn't help orient your fingers in the dark. This wider tablet isn't like a
narrower phone, where you know the exact location of these keys.
The latest Galaxy Tab comes in three
colors: Black, White and Gold. Gone are the fancy names like Dazzling White and
Titanium Bronze, reflecting Samsung's minimalist design with this year's
ultra-thin tablet. Display:
A tablet is all about the display and we've
seen some unusual flip-flopping in resolutions over the past few years. With
the 2012 Nexus 10 (which is made by Samsung) plopping out a 2560 x 1600 pixel
display and the original Samsung Galaxy Tab S following suit, the Tab S2 now
steps down to 2048 x 1536 pixels (264ppi density). That's the same
resolution as we saw on the 2014 Nexus 9 tablet and it's the same
as the iPad Air 2, which is the exact same size at 9.7-inches
too. The shift from higher resolutions might be partly due to the shift in
aspect ratio from 16:9 (or 16:10) to 4:3, or it could simply be that the
returns for that resolution weren't hugely apparent. However, the Tab S2 is equipped with
an AMOLED display whereas most competitors offer LCD. Samsung is known for
AMOLED and has enjoyed great results on its Galaxy smartphones and Note tablets
with this technology. On the Tab S2, you're again rewarded with great contrast,
lots of punch in visuals, and deep, rich colours that are typical of such a
panel. You might notice that the richness makes some content look a little dark
so you have to bump up the brightness to get best out of movies and videos. We
found the colours a little overwrought in the opening scenes when watching
Mockingjay, for example, but the deep blacks and brilliant blues set up Gravity
nicely. On the flipside, some games are incredibly rich, making us wish we
could dial it down a little for a more natural view. AMOLED can also struggle to produce clean
and bright whites as a result, something that Samsung has worked hard to
improve on recent devices - but there's a hint of cool blue white here. The thing you will notice, however, is that on this size of display some
of Android's apps don't scale as well as they should. You'll find softness
becomes apparent in some games, for example, or some of the graphic elements in
apps don't look as sharp as they do on your smartphone, phablet or smaller
tablet. Take Real Racing 3 as an example: it looks blocky, so visually it's not
as pleasant as on smaller or even 16:9 tablets with less display height. If
that's a factor for you, the smaller 8-inch Tab S2 model might be the better
choice. The
display aspect also means the Tab S2 works a little better in portrait
orientation than 16:9 devices, making for a better reading experience, whether
that's on the included Flipboard-based Briefing newsreader, or when using
something like the Kindle app. On the flip side, you'll have a lot of empty
space top and bottom when watching movies in landscape - especially if they are
shot in the cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio.
Hardware
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 houses an
octa-core Exynos 5433 chipset, comprised of a 1.9GHz and 1.3GHz quad-core CPU.
It also has 32GB of internal storage and a microSD card expansion slot that's
expandable up to 128GB. The Samsung website lists a 64GB version, but only the
32GB model is available for purchase; Samsung hasn't released details on when
and if the 64GB one be available.
Other features include Bluetooth
4.1 with low-energy function (BLE) and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac MIMO -- which is
faster than regular Wi-Fi.
SOFTWARE
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 runs the
latest version of Android with the scaled-down version of TouchWiz. It's a
similar software experience to what we see on the Note 5 and latest Galaxy S6
devices.
There are not too many apps loaded
out of the box, but since this is an AT&T LTE model you get plenty of
bloatware from this US carrier. AT&T apps include myAT&T, AT&T
AllAccess, AT&T Locker, Device Help, AT&T FamilyMap, AT&T Ready2Go,
YP, WildTangent Games, and AT&T Messages. Given the recent DIRECTV deal,
you will also find a DIRECTV app installed on the Tab S2.
Samsung apps include Galaxy Apps,
Hancom Office Viewer, Memo, Samsung Milk Music, SideSync, and Smart Manager.
You will also find several Google apps, but these have been reduced by Google
so loading up your preferred Google apps is up to your own preferences in many
cases.
One of the reasons to pick up a
Samsung tablet is to be able to use a couple apps at the same time in a
side-by-side format. As you can see in a couple of screenshots in my gallery,
many apps look absolutely terrible in this format and neither app ends up being
useful.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2's brilliant screen, plentiful storage
capacity and slender build make it a great tablet for everyday use at home or
on the go. Price ;$347.99
No comments:
Post a Comment