Hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 is, at heart, a tablet and the designated successor to their Galaxy Tab S3 from last year but it is quite a different beast indeed from its predecessor as it benefits from initiatives that were pioneered on the Galaxy Note8 and refined on the Galaxy Note9 that aim to make it into a bona fide productivity platform.
To wit, the Galaxy Tab S4 is one of their first tablets to integrate their vaunted DeX mode, which allows for a PC-like desktop interface on the tablet itself. That’s not all it can do as it also has the ability to port out the visual feed to a display via a HDMI cable while allowing for different tasks to be done on the tablet and the display, all of them powered by the Tab S4 itself.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 Build Quality and Design
Externally, the Galaxy Tab S4 is slightly larger and heavier all around at 7.1mm thick and at 482g compared to its predecessor the Galaxy Tab S3 though it has much better hardware on offer under the hood, a larger, sharper display and a larger 7,300mAh capacity battery too for good measure. In practical terms, the Galaxy Tab S4 is about the size of a sheet of A4 paper and the thickness of a post-Internet age pulp magazine.
For your money, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 has a 10.5-inch, 2,560 x 1,600 pixel resolution Super AMOLED touchscreen with a 16:10 aspect ratio. This is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor paired up with 4GB RAM and 64GB of built-in storage augmented by a dedicated microSD card slot.
In keeping with its ambit as a productivity device, it comes with LTE Cat16 connectivity via a SIM card slot in the side of the phone which means you can wander away from the WiFi connection. And yes, as odd as it sounds, you can also make phone calls with the Galaxy Tab S4.
Externally, the Galaxy Tab S4 doesn’t wander all too far from the established form factor of a tablet though Samsung has reduced the bezels even further to less than a centimeter on each side of the Super AMOLED panel.
In keeping with their recent designs, it lacks any physical buttonry up front save for the front-facing 8-MP selfie camera up top along with an iris scanner riding shotgun. It also eliminates the fingerprint reader with verified logins primarily via the aforementioned iris scanner.
Emplaced at each corner of the tablet are grilles for the quartet of AKG-tuned speakers which also offer Dolby Atmos support for richer and more vivid virtual surround sound. The base of the slate, assuming you hold it up portrait style that is, hosts a USB Type C port for charging and docking duties and a 3.5mm audio jack.
The left side of the tablet, which is the base if you hold it landscape style has POGO connectors along with two subtle little plastic knobs and magnets to align it properly with their keyboard cover or their charging dock.
The top has a volume rocker and the power button but is otherwise bare along with the top side of the tablet (if you hold it portrait style) bar the aforementioned speaker grilles.
The entirety of the backplate is essentially a smooth, mirrored slab of glass with the Samsung logo along with a single 13-MP autofocus camera along with its associated flash unit all located in the upper quadrant. While it looks rather fetching, it is also prone to collecting fingerprints aplenty even with casual use though this usually won’t be a problem if you’re using it with a cover.
At launch in Malaysia, Samsung is bundling in a free book cover till October 31 2018 with every purchase. Also bundled with every Galaxy Tab S4 is a free SPen which is larger and chunkier than the ones seen on the Galaxy Note series phones. The SPen on the Tab S4 lacks the BLE connectivity and by extension its ability to work as a remote control like the SPen on the Note9 but it otherwise does everything including annotating, drawing, sketching and the like.
Unfortunately, there is no stylus well integrated into the Tab S4 so you’ll have to tote it around with some amount of care though their official book cover and keyboard cover both have a side-mounted plastic pen cap that you can slot the SPen into with a click.
Our review unit of the Galaxy Tab S4 came with their optional keyboard cover which has a set of POGO pins that align neatly with the tablet while offering a modicum of protection as well as a means to prop it up for viewing.
The keyboard cover itself has a nice matte texture which gives it added grip and the keyboard itself has pretty good travel and play at first blush.
First Impressions of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4
Firing it up took seconds and even with the Snapdragon 835 processor, which debuted last year, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 ran swiftly without slowing down even with multiple browser windows open and YouTube playing in the background.
Of particular note is that the keyboard cover itself is sturdy enough that you can actually prop the whole affair on your lap to get a bit of work done on the go or while in the usual daily commute. The addition of the S Pen means you’re able to annotate and write notes in a fashion that’s hard to imitate on a standard laptop short of getting a dedicated slate and stylus to go with it.
So far, we’ve taken it on a whirl around town as a primary productivity device and it has proved up to the task. What makes the Galaxy Tab S4 really interesting though is the fact that you can toggle DeX mode at will, even without a HDMI cable on hand, so that the DeX desktop becomes your primary interface over the usual app grid you see on Android. This offers a number of marked advantages, in particular the ability to multitask with multiple open apps in resizable windows.
The display and provided speakers also allow the Galaxy Tab S4 to be quite an entertainer too with the quad AKG-tuned speakers and vibrant Super AMOLED display.
There are some design quibbles of course like the inability of the keyboard dock to angle the display due to the limitations of how the POGO pins are aligned and the lack of a stylus well but we’ll put it through its paces and fill you in on the whole experience with our in-depth review later.
