I purchased this as an upgrade from my Motorola Xoom 2 10" tablet. I decided on this tablet after recently purchasing the Galaxy S5 phone. Both the S5 and Tab S share the Lollipop Android operating system and I was happy with it (mostly) on the phone, so .... The Xoom 2 is (STILL) an awesome, bulletproof tablet and I would have stayed with Motorola but they no longer make tablets.
Specs are available everywhere so I won't go into them except for what I really like - or don't.
Pros:
Gorilla Glass face - just like the Xoom 2 and extremely durable.
Dual quad-core processors and 3GB of memory - neither Google nor any of the app developers are EVER going to learn to program efficiently so progressively more bloated resource sucking apps and operating systems is just a fact of life. This is BTW the ONLY reason I retired my Xoom 2. :(
Super Amoled Display - amazing, absolutely amazing. I do digital photo processing so I'm used to quality display hardware. This is pretty impressive for a tablet or phone.
Power save/ultra power save - actually works (somewhat of a surprise). The Tab S has two CPUs - one is 1.9Ghz and the other is 1.3Ghz. Both modes switch down to only the 1.3Ghz CPU - which makes a significant difference in power consumption. A side note: the 1.3Ghz CPU is still pretty robust. There's almost no difference in performance for me between normal power and power saving modes.
Battery life span - pretty decent for a tablet with this much horsepower and screen.
Recharge time - is really good compared to my Xoom 2. Not as fast as the S6 phone, but just as fast as the S5.
microSD card - which the S5 and Tab S still have a slot for. Both the 64GB Samsung and Lexar ultra cards I use worked great.
Cons:
The built in, 'hard', buttons - hate them. I like the Xoom 2 'buttons' that were displayed by the OS in the bottom right of screen and followed the orientation of the tablet. So, what if I'm left handed and want it in portrait mode? Or what if some retarded developer decides the 'top' of my tablet is the opposite of the way I want to hold it? This is a big fail for Samsung IMHO. The positioning of the 'buttons' also makes it awkward and irritating to use in portrait orientation.
Bloat-ware - which Samsung is notorious for on their devices. I agree with many reviewers - very nice device overall, almost ruined by the ton of useless crap installed at the factory. Some of it is removable by the user, some can be 'disabled', but some you're just stuck with.
5Ghz wireless - busted. In all fairness, this is an Android problem I believe and not Samsung. Lollipop 5.0 has issues in this area. It'll work for some people and not for others and it might work one time and not another. Interestingly it worked perfectly after upgrading from 4.x.x until I rebooted the Tab S. If you really want/need 5Ghz DON'T upgrade to Lollipop until they get this fixed. 5Ghz Hot Spot worked flawlessly on 4.x.x.
SSL/TLS security in Lollipop - used to created encrypted connections between the host and client, such as HTTPS, secure SMTP and IMAP. I won't get into the stupidity involved here. Be aware if you are connecting to older mail servers using secure SMTP and/or IMAP that protocols have been removed from the Android operating system - the factory email client WILL NOT work. There are tons of posts from people trying to figure out why they no longer can connect to their mail ("Cannot connect to server") - this is why. There is really only one solution if you're connecting to really old mail servers - don't upgrade to Lollipop. 4.x.x doesn't have this issue. If you're connecting to moderately old mail servers, the K9 mail app will work as it uses its own libraries apparently, and not the OS libraries. Something to note: if you're using a web browser to access old 'out of band' equipment (like HP RILOs), old broad band routers, etc. via HTTPS, removal of 'insecure' protocols will make the devices inaccessible.
Android's increasingly obscure system menus - Episode V. Lollipop. Again, not entirely a Samsung issue. If there is ANY way to make it more difficult to find something, it seems Google and Samsung will do it and excel. Can't wait for Episode VI. :(
16GB internal storage AND Lollipop 'save/move to microSD' changes - so its great that it'll accept big microSD cards especially since the 32GB Tab S is insanely expensive. EXCEPT - changes in Lollipop restrict moving a lot of data from internal storage to the microSD card making it almost useless unless you just want a place to put your music, videos and photos. IMHO, nothing but a way to make you pay an inflated price for extra internal memory you otherwise wouldn't need. Hmmmm. Can anyone say S6? On a fresh device with the half a dozen apps I use regularly + Navigon w/ three states, no music, video or pictures, I was down to about 3GB of internal storage. After moving every app I could to the microSD, it was up to just slightly less than 5GB of free storage. Storage aside, this change also affects how apps can store data on the microSD - such as, they can't, or only some, and what happens to that data if the app is uninstalled - in the case of one of my apps, you loose all your saved data if the app is uninstalled. Note: A very large chunk of the internal memory is sucked up by Samsung's bloat-ware.
TouchWiz launcher - I figured this out before I read all the complaints on the forums. Resource sucking pig. There are better written, faster and more useful launchers on Play Store and that is a good thing because this one is pretty sad.
End of the day, the physical device is very, very nice. The Lollipop operating system, however, is largely more of a pain in the rear end than its worth. Battery life and performance are MODERATELY better under Lollipop but those are the ONLY two upsides to this OS. I would strongly recommend sticking with 4.x.x unless there were pressing reasons to upgrade.
For those much more technical, one positive of the Tab S: since this is such a popular device, there's a lot of documentation on 'rooting' the device and the process is simple and relatively painless. While I REALLY had hoped not to have to go through this on another tablet, it turned out to be the only way to get rid of all of Samsung's and Google's bloat-ware and free up internal storage.
It took about three weeks of rebuilding, reloading, restoring, uninstalling, installing, a generous amount of rubber chicken waving and a lot of cursing, but what I ended up with as a clean, very fast, very nice tablet that I enjoy using. Which is what Samsung SHOULD have released in the first place. I really WANTED to give this tablet five stars, but there is NO WAY I should have had to go through this much time and effort to finally get a useable product. I gave this four stars because the hardware really is VERY, VERY nice and well worth four stars and went quite a way in making up for - at best - the questionable OS and software.
| Standing screen display size | 10.5 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 2560 x 1600 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1600x2560 Pixels |
| Processor | 1.9 GHz exynos_5_octa_5800 |
| RAM | 3 GB SDRAM |
| Hard Drive | 16 GB |
| Graphics Coprocessor | 1 |
| Wireless Type | 802.11bgn |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 8 Hours |
