Galaxy tablet is no falling star
Good, but not a giant leap
Like its predecessor, the 9in Galaxy Tab S3 (see our review, Issue 501), the S4 has taken a year and a half to arrive. During that time, Apple launched the 10.5in ipad d Pro, and the S4 would appear to be Samsung’s response. At £599, it includes an S Pen stylus and comes with 64GB of storage. The ipad Pro plus with Apple’s Pencil stylus works out at £708. The problem for Samsung is that recent months have also brought the updated 9.7in ipad, which now works with the Pencil at a total cost of £408. So the S4 needs to prove it’s ‘pro’ label to justify its price.
First impressions are good. The glass back – in black or grey – gives the S4 a classy look that’s distinct from the aluminium ipads, though also a little thicker and heavier. The slightly taller AMOLED screen is HDR- ready, rivalling Apple’s DCI-P3 colour, and packs in even more pixels per inch. This puts the S4 in ipad Pro territory, beating the basic ipad’s just-very-good screen. Then again, Samsung hasn’t matched the ipad Pro’s brightness, nor the 120Hz refresh rate that makes its screen feel soo ‘real’. And we found both the front and back glass attractedcted fingerprints much quicker than Apple’s.
The front and back cameras are also nearer ipadad Pro standards, with the benefit of face recognition – the only way to unlock the tablet without a passcode, because there’s no fingerprint reader – andd Samsung’s Bixby Vision artificial intelligence. We found this was quite good at translating text, but its attempts to identify objects were hopeless. An envelope was ‘bed’, a smartphone ‘book’ and a tomato ‘orange’. Oh well. Four AKG speakers deliver pretty decent sound.
Inside, the Snapdragon 835 processor, as seen in last year’s top phones, has nowhere near the processing power or graphics capability of an ipad Pro, running slower than a basic ipad except when multi- core tasks give it the chance to pull slightly ahead.
So what’s ‘pro’ about this tablet? Unlike the 9.7in ipad, the S4 has an optional Keyboard Book Cover (£119), which is well made. But there are perfectly good non-apple ipad keyboards, such as Logitech’s Slim Folio (£90 from www.snipca.com/29418). The S Pen, with its tactile rubber nib, works very nicely, but no better than an ipad with Pencil, at £300 less. One unique feature is DEX, a mode that makes Android work more like a desktop operating system, with a momouse (preferably Blbluetooth) and monitor (via US USB Type-c adapter). It’s a nicnice idea, but if Samsung realreally thinks users want it, dedespite the limited number of Android apps that’ll take advaadvantage, it would have mamade sense to include a touctouchpad in the Keyboard Cocover.
Apple is expected to relerelease new ipads any time now, so if you’re undecided between IOS and Android, it would make sense to wait and see what’s on offer. For those wedded to Android, the S4 is certainly the new market leader, but we’d have expected more processing power or a lower price.
As a mobile device it has few advantages over the 9.7in ipad, while those wanting something to double for desktop use should note that Microsoft’s Surface Go starts at £380 (plus keyboard and/or stylus, see Issue 537) and runs full Windows. At the time of writing, ebay and Amazon Marketplace sellers were already discounting the S4 to around £475, which seems more realistic.
SPECIFICATIONS
Snapdragon 835 8-core processor • 64GB flash storage • 10.5in 2560x1600-pixel screen • 13-megapixel rear camera • 8-megapixel webcam
• USB Type-c port • Microsd card slot • 802.11ac Wi-fi • Bluetooth 5.0 • Android 8.1 • 249x164x7.1mm (HXWXD) • 482g • Two-year warranty www.snipca.com/29419 VERDICT This is an excellent tablet in many ways, but could have done more to set itself apart from cheaper options
★★★★ ★
ALTERNATIVE ipad with Pencil £408 The screen isn’t HDR and it lacks microsd expansion, but this is a great tablet for a lot less
Remains the best Android tablet, but chip and graphics can’t match Apple’s ipad