Samsung has taken the wraps off a massive tablet called the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, and it just could be the best Android tablet to hit shop shelves this year. Of course, the Android tablet industry is not particularly competitive. Samsung has been the single company that has consistently served flagship-tier tablets to provide a viable alternative to the iPad.
The newly revealed Galaxy Tab S8 and Tab S8 Plus both pack top-tier specs in a sleek body decked up with a slew of bells and whistles. Aside from Android, Apple’s ‘Pro’ iPads have consistently raised the bar with each version. The current iPad Pro, for example, includes a desktop-grade M1 CPU, a mini-LED display with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, a dependable Face ID biometric system, and a LiDAR sensor for AR applications.
Samsung aspires to be the leader in 2022, which requires investing heavily in all areas. The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra is the product of this endeavor. This thin slab of glass and aluminum has a 14.6-inch screen, which is larger than Apple’s expensive 14-inch MacBook Pro and a plethora of thin-and-light Windows laptops.
The screen has a resolution of 2960 x 1848, which amounts to a pixel density of 240 PPI, slightly shy of the 264 PPI achieved by the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The Super AMOLED screen boasts a refresh rate of 120Hz and a notch at the top that houses dual front-facing cameras. It can play 8K videos at up to 60 frames per second and conceals a fingerprint scanner beneath for authentication. The tablet’s chassis is composed of Armor Aluminum, which is supposed to be 30% more scratch-resistant and 40% more durable than Samsung’s previous-generation flagship tablets.
Based on Android 12, One UI 4.0 has features like DeX support with screen mirroring, transparent app windows, and password-protected file sharing, among others. A 4nm processor, such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or Samsung’s Exynos 2200, along with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, will provide plenty of power. Importantly, Samsung’s developers preserved some room for a microSD card slot, which enables for an additional 1TB of storage.
That extra capacity is important since Samsung is marketing the tablet as a creative powerhouse that can function as a secondary monitor and run LumaFusion for editing 4K videos on the go. In order to entice digital artists, Samsung is now including its enhanced S Pen in the retail package. In contrast to Apple’s $349 Magic Keyboard case for the iPad Pro, Samsung’s website offers the illuminated keyboard folio case as a bonus when purchasing their large tablet.
The juice is supplied by an 11,200 mAh battery that enables 45W rapid charging and can also be used as a power bank to reverse charge a Galaxy S22 series phone. A 13-megapixel main camera and a 6-megapixel ultra-wide camera are included in the rear lens array.
The front camera combination, which comprises a 12-megapixel main snapper and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, is where the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra truly outperforms the iPad Pro. Samsung, like Apple, has implemented an auto-framing system that constantly keeps people in focus and pans the display when more players join a video conference. Audio is handled by a triple-mic array, while multimedia is handled by quad Dolby Atmos-tuned speakers. Wi-Fi 6E standard with 5G support should ensure that users have enough bandwidth for even the most demanding jobs.
Auto-Switch instantly swaps the connection of the earphones between the tablet and the Galaxy S22 series phones, and Samsung Health has also arrived on the tablet platform this year. Another significant benefit is that the tablet will receive four generations of Android upgrades and security patches for the next five years, which is unrivaled in the Android ecosystem.
Except for the lack of wireless charging and the 3.5mm headphone port, Samsung hasn’t really cut any corners with the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. While the price reflects this no-holds-barred approach, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra is the greatest choice for a no-compromise Android tablet this year.
