Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra hands-On

 

Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra

hands-On

 

Samsung makes the best android premium tablets there are but unfortunately the company didn't release a new version of its premium galaxy tab s series of android tablets last year and the last time we saw a tab s was the tab s7 in 2020. and as usually the case with  android tablets we found samsung's tab s7 to be really impressive devices on the hardware side they were good-looking premiumly built devices that were held back by android's flaws without a complete software overhaul it's hard to think of what samsung can do to improve its galaxy tab s series of tablets but hey this year we've got a new galaxy tab

it is the tab s8 s8 plus and a new addition to the line the tab s8 ultra

 

Not only is the tab s8 ultra branding similar to that of the s series but it's also according to samsung the world's only 14.6 inch super amoled display on an android two in one i had a chance to play very briefly with the new galaxy tab s8 series and so far apart from the ultra model they seem very similar to the last generation this time around samsung focused on improving its cameras and the s pen experience on the s8 and s8 plus samsung's equipped the tab s8 and s8 plus with a 12 megapixel front camera and that's a good improvement from the 8 megapixel sensor from before and just like last year's s7 series the

s8 and s8 plus come in 11 inch lcd and 12.4 inch super amoled configurations they also both refresh at 120 hertz on the s8 ultra however you've got a 14.6 inch super amoled that also refreshes at

120 hertz which is impressive something that we haven't really seen at this size

 

On the android side of things above the ultras screens sit a pair of 12

megapixel sensors one for ultra wide angles and one of the regulars this

allows for things like auto framing features where when samsung detects that there is more than one face in the scene it'll zoom out to

accommodate and squeeze in more people into your video calls and during my hands on this worked well enough when you tap on the auto

framing button on the viewfinder and the app the system just switches over to the wider angle immediately and then it's hunting for faces i didn't get the chance to do this with a video calling app at our event so we'll have to see how well it works on things like duo teams zoom we're not sure if it's naturally integrated with third-party apps yet but we expect duo integration at least from the beginning all three tab s8s also have dual rear cameras with a 13 megapixel primary and 6 megapixel

wide option and they're all capable of shooting 4k video you know if you're the sort of monster that uses a tablet to shoot video the s8 ultra also has a three-way mic setup and will offer you three different types of noise cancellation profiles to choose from on your calls and samsung has incorporated sort of an ai that can detect human voices to prioritize them and minimize background noise now of course at my hands-on event it was difficult to test this out so this is something we'll really need to check out on a review unit out in the real world to know for

sure how well it works now because these are samsung devices after all we've come to expect great displays from the company and the s8 plus s8 ultra super amoled screens are as expected very very nice to look at the videos that i saw on the 14.6 inch amoled for the s8 ultra were lovely they had dark blacks beautiful contrast ratios and really

bright vivid colors of course i didn't spend as much time with the smaller s8s but from my quick glance they also appeared to be satisfying another thing that samsung does well is its s pen and

the tab s8 ultra according to the company represents the best writing

experience they've made the s pen works with the 120hz screen to have a very responsive experience and the company says it's added a predictive algorithm to just make it feel like the pen knows what you're about to write of course without a side-by-side comparison to older generations of the s pen it was hard to tell just how much better this

is but again based on my brief and limited hands-on experience i found

writing on the s8 ultra to be very smooth i didn't feel like it could

predict where i was going but i did enjoy scribbling what little words i

 

was able to on the tablet i was more impressed by what appears to be very much improved palm rejection at least on the app that i was using which is samsung's notes in the past when you're writing with an s pen on a tablet your palm obviously would leave marks all over the rest of the paper where your pen wasn't touching the screen this time around nothing happened when i laid my palm on the screen while riding so

really does seem like an improvement so far as with previous models the s-pen docks to the back of the tablet magnetically there's no on-board slot here but if you do buy the book cover there will be a little sort of housing built into that so that your s pen can nestle comfortably in to the case the book cover also provides a sort of kickstand for the s8 ultra though I didn't find it all that sturdy when I was using the tablet in my lap or using the whole setup with the kickstand on my lap anyway it was sturdy enough on a surface like a table i also enjoyed the spacious layout on the keyboard case that samsung had on display with the 14.6 inch tab s8 ultra the keyboard cover and the book cover are things you'll get for free if you pre-order the tab s8 or s8 ultra and if you don't they're gonna cost you extra you can pre-order these starting today February 9th and the tab as a ultra starts at eleven hundred dollars while the s8 plus and s8 start at 900 and 700 respectively for that price the configurations come with eight gigs of ram to start with and

all are powered by the same four nanometer processor that is also

running the s22 series you'll also find microsd card support here which is nice for the people who know that they're gonna need a lot of extra storage now I know this is just a very brief glimpse and light hands-on of the new tab s8 series with a particular focus on the tab s8 ultra but i'm already excited to get one out in the real world to start testing it there's still a lot of things i wasn't able to test for example

there's a feature that samsung says will allow you to take a photo that you shot on your galaxy s phone and then bring it up on your tab s8 and edit it really quickly just like you could on previous galaxy devices also for those of us pc users you're supposed to be able to use the tab s8

 

easily as a second screen with a few software tweaks samsung and

microsoft work together to make that easy to set up with just a few swipes it's features like that and android 12l which is currently in beta and might come out to the tab s8 series that could make android tablets in general better two-in-ones and specifically the tab s8 series being the best looking of them all might be a real contender here so for a full review to see if the tabas 8 series is really going to be worth your money .