Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 Review | Is It Worth The Price you Pay?

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While the market for a tablet is getting smaller, Samsung released its Galaxy Tab S4 on August 24. While the Tab has an eye-catchy design, there are a couple of issue with the tablet stopping it from being the best Tab so far. Another Tab in the competition is the new iPad Pro which also has a similar price tag.

Will the Galaxy Tab S4 win over the iPad Pro? Let’s find out in the complete in-depth review down below.

What’s Best?

Starting off with the design, Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 is one of the most stunning looking tablets in the market. It is super sleek and has a phenomenal looking Glass back design with the rear camera almost flushed with the back. It comes with an integrated Samsung Dex feature which does not require an external dock to connect. The S-Pen is free and included right inside the box. Tab S4 runs on latest Android 8.1 Oreo which will be upgraded to Android P sooner or later. It also supports Fast charging which is required for such a huge battery capacity. It comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack which is excellent. Also, the Super AMOLED display is totally amazing for multimedia consumption.

What’s Not So Good?

One of the biggest disappointment of the Galaxy Tab S4 is the high price tag. Although in their defense they are including the S-pen right inside the box. Also, if you buy the Tab before a certain time, you will also get the Keyboard cum cover absolutely free. The Tab S4 starts at around $650 for the WiFi model while the LTE version is priced even higher. Another let down is the outdated hardware. While the Tab S4 performs well in terms of performance, having the latest hardware at such price tag would have been a great deal. There is no fingerprint scanner on the tablet. With 7300 mAh battery, it might look like that the battery life is gonna be great but in real life usage it isn’t. We will talk about it later in the review.

Stuff Inside The Box

Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 comes in the usual black colored box with Tab S4 written in the big blue font on the front. The box itself looks premium which is important when you spend such an amount on a product. At the back, you can find the key specifications about the device. Opening up the package, you will find the following stuff inside

• Tab S4
• S-Pen
• User Manual
• Warranty Card
• Extra Tips for the S-Pen
• Fast Charger
• USB Type-C 3.1 Reversible Cable

Unlike the Galaxy Note 9 , there is no earphones inside the box so you might have to spend some extra couple of bucks if you don’t have a spare lying around. Also, there is no screen protector inside the box and finding one for the tablet is gonna be difficult. Having a fast charger inside the box is a plus unlike the other companies like Apple which asks the users to buy the fast charger separately.

Overall, the packaging and the unboxing experience feels as premium as the Tablet itself. Moving on let’s take a closer look at the design and build quality.  

Eye-Catchy Design and Build

Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 feels premium enough to justify its price tag. The super sleek design combined with the Glass and Metal build is sturdy. Since it is a big device, using it with one hand it pretty impossible unless you have a big hand, I mean really really big hands. Since the back is made out of glass, it is very slippery so you have to be extra cautious while using it on the go. Also, it surely looks awesome from the back due to the glass but it attracts fingerprint smudges like crazy.

While the Galaxy tab S4 is big, it isn’t too thick. Although it might feel a bit heavy but what else can you expect from such a big tablet? To be precise, Tab S4 is 7.1 mm thick and weighs around 482 grams which means it is 1.1 mm thicker and weighs 53 grams more than its predecessor. In its defense, the Galaxy S4 Tab has a bigger display and battery. There are only two color options, Black and White unlike the Note 9 which has four.

Taking a look at the front, there is a large 16:10 display on the front along with the Iris scanner, front camera, and an earpiece. Unlike the Tab S3, there is no home button (doubles as a fingerprint scanner) on the front. Sim tray, Power button, and the volume rocker are present on the right while on the left there is a connector for the Samsung’s external keyboard cover. There are four speakers on the tab, two are on the top of the device and the other two are at the bottom along with the Type-C charging port and a headphone jack. There is a single primary camera on the back of the device along with Samsung branding.

Overall, the build quality is pretty solid and the Galaxy Tab S4 is one of the most premium looking tablet in the market right now.   

Stunning Display

Samsung is always known for their stunning Super AMOLED display. The punchy and little-oversaturated colors with deep blacks can steal the show anywhere anytime. Also, since there are to capacitive keys under the display for navigation, the bezel is slightly smaller than the predecessor.

The Galaxy Tab S4 comes with a massive 10.5 inch 16:10 Super AMOLED display which is 0.7 inches bigger than the Tab S3. However, the display isn’t as great as you can find on the Galaxy S9 or the new Note 9. Don’t get me wrong, it is a nice display but due to the big size, it has less pixel density overall which means you can notice some pixelation while reading texts. It has a resolution of 1600 x 2560 and a pixel density of 287 pixels per inch.  

Honestly, Tab S4 has a solid display for multimedia consumption or gaming. The display is HDR enabled which means better contrast and colors. The viewing angles are good and the sunlight visibility is are great which means you will be able to use it outside on a sunny day. Since the display has an aspect ratio of 16:10, widescreen content looks much better on this display compared to the new iPad Pro.

While the bezels are small which makes the tab look great, the inconsistent palm rejection often reads some incorrect touch input while holding the tablet in hands. However, this issue can be easily solved via software update. Overall, the display looks really great with punchy colors which make watching movies and gaming super fun.

Performance and Memory

The hardware on the Galaxy Tab S4 is not something you would expect from an expensive tablet in 2018. It is powered by the last year flagship chip which makes the tab feel slightly outdated. For $600, I would have loved the latest Snapdragon 845 processor but it is what it is. However, the performance isn’t anything to worry about since it can handle almost anything easily.

Under the hood, there is the 64 Bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset, an Octa-core processor which can reach the maximum clock speed of 2.5 GHz. If the Tab S4 was released in 2017, the hardware could have fallen under the flagship category. Powering the Graphic demands, there is the Adreno 540 which can reach a max clock speed of ~710 MHz.

Performance is smooth and it can easily run heavy games like Asphalt 9 or Pubg, however, you can notice some frame drops which is due to the slightly outdated hardware. Watching movies, reading books or using social media applications have no issues with the performance. Hence, for someone who loves to spend their time watching movies or playing games, this tablet is a great option.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 comes in two storage variants

• 64GB model
• 256GB model

Although, the storage is expandable using a MicroSD card up to 400 GB. While there are two storage variants, the 4GB RAM remains the same on either variant. While $GB is enough for a basic tablet using but once you switch to the Dex mode, the need of higher RAM can be immediately felt.

Well, the hardware is reasonably good, the performance is smooth with minor lag but for $600, I would have loved to see Snapdragon 845 and at least 6GB of RAM.

Same Old Software with New Tricks

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 comes with latest Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. It has the Samsung Experience skin on top of it which feels smooth while there are some occasional frame drops. The Experience UI is no doubt a heavy skin and comes with preloaded bloatware. While some are useful, the others you probably will never touch. For example, the Samsung email app which comes preloaded and cannot be uninstalled.

“So tell me which one will you use? Gmail or the Samsung email app?”

Well, if you have used a Samsung smartphone or owns one, you might be familiar with the Experience UI. Although, for new users, it will take some time for getting used to.

The Galaxy Tab S4 comes with the Samsung Dex software feature which doesn’t require any additional piece of hardware to work. You can turn the feature ON just with a single touch on the icon and the whole UI changes to PC like environment. However, the software is still Android and you can use all the Android apps in this environment. Connecting the external Keyboard case with the tablet given the feeling of using a small laptop. While the idea of Samsung Dex without the need for external hardware is great, the execution of the idea isn’t.

Some of the apps don’t support the Dex environment like when you try opening Google docs in Chrome, it won’t work. Also, the keyboard has no touchpad which means you have to either connect an external mouse to use the touchscreen for navigation purpose.

To be honest, the Samsung Dex on a tablet makes a lot more sense than on a smartphone. However, Samsung has to put some extra efforts to make the Dex mode better.

Regarding the updates, the Galaxy Tab S4 will definitely receive Android Pie update which might also fix the Samsung Dex mode but the official date for the update is unknown as of now.

Respectable Camera

The camera on the Tablet we never good enough even on the high-end ones. Well, a similar case can be seen on the Galaxy Tab S4 too. The cameras are pretty average and there is no dual-camera setup or variable aperture on the primary camera. There is a 13 Megapixel primary camera with f/1.9 aperture and an 8 Megapixel camera on the front. It has the usual Samsung camera app with features like HDR, Panorama etc, however, there is no Manual of portrait mode.

Well, the image quality of the primary sensor is pretty average. I mean you are better off with your smartphone for capturing images. Even holding such a big tablet to capture an image feels really odd. The daylight shots look OKAY with average dynamic range and decent color. Although the quality drops considerably when you switch to dark environments. Honestly, the low light performance is simply poor. The images have enough noise and also there is no Optical Image Stabilization which means that the camera shutter has to remain open for a longer time, leading to blurry shaky images. Also, the primary camera is capable of recording 4K videos but the quality is just average.

The 8 Megapixel selfie camera is however important since in the Dex mode it doubles as a webcam. But still, the image quality is pretty much average which pretty bad low light performance. Video recording can be done at 1080p resolution from the front camera but the quality is just “Meh”. Overall, the Galaxy Tab S4 is a nice tablet but it isn’t meant for photography at all.  

Average Battery Life

Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 comes with 7300 mAh non-removable lithium-polymer battery which is a significant upgrade over the last years 6000 mAh battery on the Tab S3. However, the battery life is still pretty much average. With medium to heavy usage, you can easily get around 7 hours of screen on time which seems great. Although, when you compare the SOT with the battery capacity, it seems pretty average. However, in its defense, there is a bigger display which consumes more battery juice.

You might be wondering how long will it take to charge such a massive battery? Well, just a couple of hours. Yeah, since the Tab S4 comes with fast charging adapter right inside the box. Approximately it takes around 3 and a half hour to reach from 0 to 100 %. There is no wireless charging support on the tab.

The Galaxy Tab S4 is a great device to take away on a short vacation, however, you will also be packing the fast charger in your bag.   

Connectivity and Features

Talking about the connectivity, the Galaxy Tab S4 comes in two variants. One with only WiFi support and the other with LTE connectivity. The LTE model is a little expensive and only support 1 Nano Sim. Other connectivity features on the tab include WiFi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth v5.0 A2DP, A-GPS with GLONASS, BDS, and GALILEO. There are only a few sensors on the tab which are

• Iris scanner
• Accelerometer
• Gyroscope
• Proximity
• Compass

Unlike the Tab S3, there is no fingerprint scanner on the device. You have to rely on the Iris scanner for unlocking the device. While the Iris scanner works perfectly on Samsung smartphones, on the tablet S4 it is slightly inconsistent which makes unlocking the device annoying. However, when it works, it unlocks the tab real quick.

Talking about the audio, there are four speakers on the Galaxy Tab S4 powered by AKG. The two speakers can be found on the top while the other two are at the bottom. While on papers Tab S4 appears to have to best audio quality but in reality, the speakers sound flat. Audio quality could have been better as the hardware is there still the speakers lack the quality. Although, the device maintains the 3.5mm audio jack streak which means you can either connect your wireless headphones, external speakers.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 comes with an S-Pen right in the box which is actually great as with iPad Pro you have to pay extra $100 for the Pen. While the S-Pen preserves all its functionality like off-screen memo, hovering over a word to translate etc. It lacks the Bluetooth connectivity feature of the S-Pen with Note 9. So, you cannot use the S-Pen as a remote to capture selfies or use the button on the S-Pen to perform different functions in apps. Although, the S-Pen is still good and feels like a regular pen unlike the S-Pen with the Note series and supports over 4000+ pressure points.  

Verdict

Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 has a stupendous design. Everything from the slim bezels to the amazing glass back looks and feel phenomenal. However, the real problems start from inside the device. For starters, the Tab S4 is using the previous year flagship chipset. Also, there is no fingerprint scanner, the Samsung Dex mode isn’t optimized yet, having 4GB RAM feels pretty low in 2018, the speakers sound flat and it has a pretty average camera and battery life. Although, not everything is bad about this tablet. Some things which work perfectly is the stunning OLED display which is HDR enabled for better multimedia consumption. It has an audio jack and the Tab runs on the latest Android Oreo operating system which will be upgraded to Android Pie. There is a fast charger right in the box along with the S-Pen. Yeah, you don’t have to pay for the S-Pen. While it doesn’t support Bluetooth connectivity, it works precisely and feels like an ordinary pen.

While the Tab S4 is a nice option there are some compromises even at such a high price tag. However, if you think that these issues don’t cause you trouble than the Galaxy Tab S4 will be the perfect choice for you.

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