A clean slate

A tablet and stylus co mbo that aims to satisfy all your ne ds, from ente rtainment to sketching and writing notes

The newest addition to Samsung’s high-end tablet line-up sports a specification that’s very close to Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad Pro. At first you might be taken aback by the Tab S3’s price tag, which looks like a worse deal than the Californian company’s nearest equivalent, but actually Samsung’s deal is a little better value: it bundles a redesigned version of its S Pen with the tablet, making this a more tempting proposition as a device on which to take handwritten notes and sketch out ideas using a pressureand tilt-sensitive stylus.

Let’s get physical

Give or take a few millimetres, the S3’s dimensions are very close to those of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro. It weighs a little less than Apple’s tablet, but it’s lighter by no more than a maximum of 10 grams, depending on whether you go for the Wi-Fi or 4G model.

Samsung clearly puts some thought into the portability of accessories, not just its main devices, and one thing for which it deserves praise is the USB travel charger for the UK. Our country’s three-pin plug design is a perennial thorn in our side where portability is concerned, yet the prongs of Samsung’s charger flatten down into a more pleasing overall shape.

Back to the S3 itself, though: a bonus of its design is that its body is made of glass. Picking it up while cold is a less chilling experience than touching the metal back of an iPad, for example. More unappealing, though, is the tablet’s 6mm thinness, which can become uncomfortable if you grasp it around the tablet’s left or right edge for a long period of time. As with many other tablets, if you’ll often hold the S3 in that way, we suggest buying a case to bulk it up just a little.

Samsung’s placement of the wake/sleep and volume buttons, which share the same edge, isn’t ideal if you’re switching from an iPad or another tablet on which they are split between two sides; we found it rather too easy to press the former button by accident when wanting to adjust the volume, though as with anything, you learn the layout over time.

Sound and Vision

On that note, Samsung’s marketing of the S3 makes a lot of noise about its four-speaker sound system – as it should on a device that you’re likely to use for video, music, or both. The speakers are arranged around the four corners of the device, enabling the Tab S3 to deliver convincing stereo sound regardless of whether you hold the tablet in portrait or landscape orientation. It’s a configuration that significantly benefits entertainment, suiting action movies and certain types of game very well.

The speakers can go plenty loud, too, but it’s not all good news: their overall quality is merely adequate. Where we’ve used an iPad Pro,