Review: Samsung Galaxy Tab S2-Can you make something great even greater? by @JonnNubian

Last year when we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5, I quickly fell in love with it so much that I stopped using my now ancient Apple Ipad 2.

It was a great overall tablet in terms of weight, comfort , display and speed, then long came the Ipad Air and Samsung felt it must respond with something better in 2015

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 is currently the thinnest tablet on the market, but is it the best?

STYLE

The Tab S2 comes in two different sizes, a larger 9.7-inch tab and an 8-inch one. It has a plastic back but with  a metal frame , yet  it feels like a premium product, in fact its little more fancy than it predecessor.

The home button doubles as a finger print sensor like last years model, but the button and layout  reminds me of an Ipad Air, but when you hold it in your hand and look at the beautiful display, you know you have a Samsung tablet.

The overall orientation has been changed from 16:9 to 4:3 from a movie consumption tablet to an overall reading device.

PERFORMANCE

The tablet uses Samsung’s own Exynos 7 Octa processor, which has a clock speed of 1.9GHz and packs 3GB of RAM We were hoping this would have the same power as the current flagship phones the S6Edge and Note 5, but the tab S2 is similar to last years Note 4.

That’s not negative considering how powerful the phone is. However, in this climate you expect new devices to come with the latest and greatest, especially the processor.

SOFTWARE

Out of the box , the device is running Android — Lollipop 5.0.2 — which is a little old , after a few hours  we were pushed with version  5.1.1. It also has Samsung’s Touchwiz UI (of course)

The great thing about Samsung’s take on Android are useful functions like MultiWindow (Watch a YouTube video, while checking your Email) and SideSync, which gives you the ability to have your phones screen on your tablet. Both of these are not gimmicks, they are actually very useful when you are trying to get things done.

Samsung is also pushing QuickConnect which allows you to display the Galaxy Tab S2 screen on most new generation televisions. This is the reason there is no IR (Infrared Blaster) which was on last years model and compatible with about 90% of every television on the planet.

STORAGE

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that there is no expandable SD card slot on the Galaxy Tab S2.The good news is that there is no expandable SD card slot on the device.

Why? We live in the future and we longer burn data to CD Roms, ZIP Drives or huge portable harddrives. While Samsung may have forced Apple to produce a bigger phone, Apple has forced Samsung to do away with SD Card slot altogether. The device comes with 32GB of storage but for the price, I would have liked the option to upgrade.

BATTERY LIFE

If you’re going to produced the worlds thinnest tablet, there has to be some trade off – thinner device means smaller battery. In this case, you will get about 6 hours of heavy use, compared to 9 from last years model. If you are using the device casually, like reading books on the subway and checking email, you will get about a day and half between charges.

DISPLAY

The Super AMOLED display is compatible to  the Apple Ipad. One advantage is that the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 has different display modes that can be adjusted if you’re just reading a book or watching a movie.

CAMERA

Besides a wider aperture lens, the tablet’s 8-megapixel rear and 2.1-megapixel front cameras are  the same as last year’s Tab S. I have yet to take photos with a tablet, but if you feel the need to look awkward, the photos will suffice.

VERDICT

If you have last years model, there is no reason to upgrade. In fact, it’s more of a downgrade since you will missing the  SD Card slot, IR remote and more battery life. If you want something thinner and slightly better than an Ipad pick up the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S2.