Samsung Galaxy Tab S8-serie Review

In brief

The gigantic Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra is equipped with a 14.6 “OLED screen with a refresh rate of 120Hz. The color reproduction and brightness are above average. The powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 makes this tablet a speed demon. The software runs smoothly and the tablet can run heavy apps and games without any problems.We wouldn’t call the tablet a laptop replacement, even if the keyboard cover is used in combination with DeX, but it comes very close.

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Samsung is one of the few manufacturers that is still really big on Android tablets. The company regularly releases devices that have to compete with the iPads. It’s an uphill battle, because Apple’s tablets have been at the top of sales lists for years. That doesn’t stop Samsung from continuing to try. Because there was little wrong with the previous batch of tablets, the Galaxy S7 and S7 +, Samsung does not seem to have changed much in the S8 series this year. The screens and camera setups are largely the same, the S Pen is included again and support for the same keyboard cover is still present.

Drie tablets

This year Samsung has not two, but three copies released. The Galaxy Tab S8 and the Tab S8+ are very similar to their predecessors: the Tab S7 and the Tab S7+. The series has been expanded this year with the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, an extra-large tablet that has just a little more functions than the rest. With a price of 689, 877 and 1053 euros respectively, the tablets are about as solidly priced as the average laptop. Looking at the specs, you could say that these devices could even compete with laptops in terms of size. The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, in particular, looks like it’s a separate laptop screen.

Whether these tablets can actually provide you with a desktop experience, of course, depends on the software. Samsung devices have long been supplied with DeX, the Android user interface that transforms the operating system into a true desktop. While not all Android apps can scale to the desktop computer, it can help you out if you need to do desktop work but don’t have a desktop or laptop handy.

Samsung has been competing against the iPads of this world for years. Apple is a difficult competitor, because the brand has even equipped its cheaper tablets with a powerful chip and the ecosystem is well developed. Unfortunately, that is less with Android, although Samsung has been trying to catch up with DeX for years. This interface gives Android a desktop appearance and the ability to have multiple Android apps open side by side. Although things are getting better and more and more Android apps can be scaled to the desktop level, it still happens that some apps do not scale. Has Samsung managed to release a range of tablets that will bring your productivity close to the level of the iPad Pro in some, albeit limited, measure? You can read it in this review, in which we occasionally compare Samsung’s tablets with the iPad Pro from 2021 and the iPad Air from 2022.

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