The Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely is an enormous display Android pill that at the beginning look appears like a direct rival to the iPad Professional 12.9-inch. Throughout testing we discovered the pill gives nice efficiency and probably the greatest screens we’ve seen on an Android pill for media consumption and cloud gaming. However an absence of full fats artistic apps on Google’s official retailer hinder it’s attraction to energy customers and creatives. Individuals searching for a pill for artistic or power-user duties might be higher off investing in an iPad Professional or Floor Professional 8 in consequence.

Introduction

The Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely is Samsung’s newest flagship Android pill, sitting above the smaller and extra inexpensive Galaxy Tab S8 Plus and Galaxy Tab S8.

It’s a large slate designed for consumers with money to burn and creatives searching for an enormous display pill that may double as a laptop computer or cellular sketch station when paired with Samsung’s S Pen and the optionally available (and costly) keyboard dock.

As an avid net comedian creator in my spare time this made the system really feel severely engaging after I first bought my arms on it, with its powerhouse {hardware} and cleverly optimised Android 12 software program working surprisingly properly with the offered S Pen for primary notation.

After a strong week utilizing it as my important pill for work and play I’d completely advocate it to any purchaser with money to spare searching for one of the best massive display Android pill available on the market.

However, common battery life and an absence of first rate artistic software program, exterior of Krita, on Android coupled with a design that makes the optionally available keyboard a must have buy cease it being a shut up and take my cash possibility for extra informal customers.

Design and display

• The Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely is large, measuring 14-inches
• You’ll want a case if you wish to transport it safely
• The dearth of a kickstand makes the optionally available keyboard dock a will need to have accent

The Galaxy Tab S8 Ulta is massive. Taking it out of the field this was instantly obvious. Even when holding it subsequent to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and 13-inch Surface Pro 8, it appears and feels outright large. If you would like a conveyable pill, the Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely shouldn’t be for you. Take a look at the smaller iPad Air or the Extremely’s Galaxy Tab S8 sibling if that’s what you’re after.

Nonetheless, as soon as I bought used to the pill’s large 14-inch dimensions there was loads to love. The system is splendidly properly made, that includes a metallic again, with a magnetic cost dock for the included S Pen stylus on its again.

The large 14-inch display is housed between tiny bezels that measure in at simply shy of 1cm giving it a splendidly glossy and trendy look, particularly when in comparison with the Galaxy Tab S7 Plus I’d beforehand been utilizing as my each day driver Android pill.

The Extremely is surprisingly gentle, measuring in at simply 726g, which is an achievement contemplating how a lot wonderful {hardware} Samsung’s crammed into it. This made the pill properly snug to carry and sketch notes on regardless of its sizable dimensions.

Construct high quality is superb and with the rear providing no flex when pressed throughout my exams and the metallic and glass proving suitably rugged. I can personally attest to the system’s scratch resistance after one in every of my cats bought a bit overexcited when a fowl got here on display whereas I used to be watching a nature documentary.

However, with extended use I did expertise a couple of annoyances, the vast majority of which stem from the actual fact Samsung’s clearly designed the Extremely to work greatest when paired with the optionally available keyboard dock, which provides over $200/£200 to the pill’s already prohibitive upfront value.

For starters, the pill’s audio system are housed on its brief sides, making all of it too simple to dam them if you’re watching media. The entrance going through 12MP entrance digital camera’s notch housing can also be positioned on the highest lengthy facet of the pill. Typically, the characteristic isn’t horrible however on a couple of events, like after I was scribbling down a buying checklist or managing an Excel sheet holding the system in portrait, it did intrude and block some info.

The dearth of an hooked up kickstand, just like the Floor Professional 8’s and the rear going through S Pen magnetic dock additionally turned minor annoyances after my first couple of days with the system.

A tool this dimension is at all times going to be troublesome to face up with none help. All too usually after I tried to prop it up so I may watch Netflix throughout my morning exercise it will collapse. Attempting to digitally paint on the system with out the flexibility to set it at an artist’s easel angle diminishes its attraction for extra severe artistic work. Having to manually maintain the pill whereas portray in apps like Krita meant my hand would begin to cramp after an hour’s work and I couldn’t simply benefit from the software program’s shortcuts.

As a remaining indicator you really want the keyboard dock, the S Pen magnetic dock’s placement meant the stylus would recurrently detach itself after I carried the pill between rooms. The keyboard encompasses a cowl that holds the pen in place, once more displaying Samsung’s designed the pill in such a method that the optionally available keyboard is a necessary buy.

This can be a disgrace because the display and S Pen efficiency is in any other case wonderful. The Extremely encompasses a large 14.6-inch AMOLED display with practically all of the bells and whistles you’d count on from a flagship pill. Powering up the Extremely I discovered, like I did with the Galaxy S21 Plus and just about each Samsung display lately, colors look punchy and the AMOLED tech gives good pitch blacks.

The inky blacks and excessive brightness make watching HDR content material on streaming companies a splendidly immersive expertise. Placing the system face to face with the Galaxy Tab S7 Plus, the closest factor the Extremely has to a predecessor, I discovered content material on the brand new pill seemed punchier and had higher distinction.

After I wasn’t by accident blocking them the audio system carried out admirably, including to the immersion when streaming video content material. The audio system supply first rate readability and excessive sufficient max volumes to comfortably watch movies with out compromising the expertise. Additionally they managed to stay fully freed from distortion even after I cranked the quantity setting to its most setting.

All-in-all if you would like an enormous Android pill for media consumption you’ll battle to do higher than the Tab S8 Extremely.

The display’s dimensions and 120Hz refresh rate additionally make it nice for gaming, in the event you spend money on a stand cowl, or handle to prop it up. During the last week, I’ve recurrently discovered myself utilizing the Extremely to play video games in mattress. Connecting a Bluetooth Razer Kishi controller, the display’s good distinction and excessive refresh fee make it good for subscribers to GeForce Now, which helps 120Hz, 1440p streaming.

Refresh fee is a metric that informs what number of instances a display shows a picture every second. As a rule of thumb, a better fee makes the display really feel smoother to make use of and may supply aggressive benefits throughout response primarily based duties, like gaming.

I’d nonetheless not advocate avid gamers use it for aggressive on-line play, the place latency, significantly utilizing Bluetooth to attach the controller, can change into a difficulty, however the system carried out splendidly properly on single participant titles throughout testing.

Placing the Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely by our lab exams, the place we test color accuracy, max brightness, black degree and color gamut protection, the pill carried out properly however didn’t fairly match its important rival the iPad Professional in a couple of key areas which can be vital for creatives.

The OLED panel means the display can supply good blacks. It is because the panel doesn’t cost any pixels when producing blacks, the way in which LCD screens do. Apparently, doing a day-to-day peak max brightness studying, which sees me flip off all adaptive display settings after which measure the white degree utilizing a colourimeter with the setting slider set to its restrict, I solely detected a 358 nit studying. That is under the iPad Professional 12.9 we examined final yr, which managed a peak normal use degree of over 400.

To be clear, this isn’t the display’s precise max brightness, it’s simply the utmost you’ll be able to set it to manually. When enjoying HDR content material the display can get far brighter. Producers cease you cranking screens to this degree so that you don’t injury the panels, and your eyes. As a basic body of reference, I normally really feel 150 nits is the candy spot to comfortably use a display indoors.

I detected a 6650K coloration temperature, which is suitably near the 6500K superb for the display to not look fully oversaturated in its pure display setting.

The one slight concern is its color gamut protection. Color gamuts are measurements designed to assist gauge how precisely a picture is being rendered on display, in comparison with the way it will look when printed or proven in the actual world. In every a better share is best.

Throughout my exams the Tab S8 Extremely lined 97.8% of the sRGB gamut, which is utilized in most cases and reveals it to be greater than ok for day-to-day use. However it solely lined 72.1% of the sRGB and 74.7% of the DCI-P3 gamuts favoured by creatives. This places it roughly on a par with the Floor Professional 8, the place I detected related gamut protection figures, however behind the iPad Professional 12.9-inch. I’d ideally need any display designed for creatives to cowl not less than 80% of those gamuts.

Efficiency and software program

• The pill is among the quickest you’ll discover exterior of the iPad Professional
• Samsung’s carried out nice work optimizing Android to work with the S Pen
• However Android’s pill providing isn’t as developed as Apple’s iPadOS

The Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely is a powerhouse system that’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. The model I examined got here with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage Samsung can also be promoting a 16GB RAM, 512GB storage variant.

If you happen to’re an influence person or seeking to video edit on the system I’d strongly advocate going for the extra highly effective possibility because it’s all too simple to eat up 128GB of storage in the event you’re doing vector or video enhancing work. Throughout my exams, I managed to half fill the pill simply downloading a bunch of comics and TV collection forward of an extended practice trip. Fortunately it does embody a microSD card enter, so you’ll be able to rapidly and simply improve its storage capability if wanted.

With day-to-day use nonetheless, I’ve had no concern with the bottom mannequin’s efficiency. I’m but to discover a recreation the system can’t run with its graphical settings maxed on the Android Play Retailer and it’s blitzed by multi-tab Chrome searching with zero stutter. Turning my hand to artistic work I’ve been in a position to work on massive scale digital portray initiatives in Krita and photograph edit in Adobe Lightroom with zero efficiency points.

Like Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone, the UX comes with a facet going through shortcut menu designed for the S Pen. This allows you to do issues like create Home windows Sticky Notes-style reminders by immediately writing onto the display, choose textual content and icons with the pen and create customized shortcuts and gestures for it. This plus its stellar stress sensitivity made it really feel simply as snug to sketch with because the Floor Pen and Apple Pencil.

The one draw back stems from the actual fact, regardless of Samsung’s good work, Android 12’s artistic providing isn’t wherever close to pretty much as good as iPadOS’, not to mention Windows 11’s. There are apps out there and Samsung’s confirmed the superb iOS video enhancing app LumaFusion might be making its method over to the Tab S8 collection. However the apps’ UIs are all usually optimised for telephones somewhat than tablets.

The results of Google’s seeming lack of deal with Android tablets was that builders stopped caring about optimizing their wares for bigger screens. Exterior of the notable exception of Krita, most typical artistic companies, like Adobe Photoshop are stripped-down variations of their desktop equivalents designed for contact controls on telephones. The Extremely is ill-suited for precision artistic work due to this. This can be a disgrace as from what I’ve seen the system is highly effective sufficient to run most traditional artistic workloads.

Hopefully this may change when Google’s beta Android 12L software program, which is pill focussed, rolls out, however for now, creatives might be higher off with an iPad Professional or Floor Professional.

Operating the Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely by Trusted Opinions normal suite of benchmarks, the system’s scores mirrored my actual world findings. You’ll be able to see a breakdown of its benchmark scores and the way they examine to its important rivals within the desk under.

	Geekbench 5 single-core	Geekbench 5 multi-core	3DMark Wildlife	3DMark Wildlife Excessive
Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely	1244	3277	8855	2462
iPad Professional 12.9	1715	7281	18312

The one actual shock is the low GeekBench 5 multi-core rating. GeekBench 5 is a CPU focussed check that runs a collection of simulated processes to gauge a tool’s on a regular basis efficiency. In each its single and multi-core exams a better rating is best. The multi-core rating signifies the Tab S8 Extremely received’t run apps designed to make use of a number of cores in addition to its rivals, like video games and artistic suites. Given my expertise truly utilizing the system and working these processes I’m shocked the rating is so low on Geekbench. I’ll replace this overview after I’ve been in a position to determine why the rating is atypically low. Apple M1 chip has historically crushed Qualcomm’s flagship in graphical (gaming and artistic work) areas. So the upper 3DMark rating is not any shock.

Battery LIfe

• The Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely will survive an long-haul flight off a single cost
• However in the event you do a lot of streaming and gaming you’ll be able to kill the battery pretty quick

The Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely is powered by a large 11200mAh battery. That’s bigger than its important rival, the iPad Professional 12.9-inch, which is powered by a 10758 mAh cell. The elevated dimension is welcome because the bigger than common display and powerhouse elements are considerably extra demanding on the battery.

Throughout my exams I discovered, whereas I may comfortably get a full week’s informal use out of the S8 Extremely as a private pill. This entailed utilizing it for morning, lunchtime and night streaming and net searching whereas off work.

Nonetheless, the big display and excessive refresh fee imply sure duties can outright drain the battery. Gaming on GeForce Now with a Bluetooth controller linked I discovered the Tab S8 Extremely discharged a median of 30% per hour. This isn’t shocking given the display’s dimension but it surely places it behind smaller rivals, just like the S7 Plus which throughout my exams misplaced a extra modest 23% per hour whereas gaming.

Video playback is sweet sufficient for it to final most lengthy haul flights and practice journeys, however once more, the dimensions of the display means it received’t final so long as smaller tablets, primarily based on my exams. Streaming non-HDR video from Netflix the Tab S8 Extremely discharged a median of 12-14% of its cost. The iPad Professional 12.9 misplaced a extra modest 8% of its cost per hour working the identical check after we reviewed it final yr.

I didn’t get an opportunity to make use of the system as a laptop computer because the keyboard cowl was not out there after I reviewed the Tab S8 Extremely. However, utilizing it for work with a second show, keyboard and mouse linked through a USB hub and Samsung’s Home windows-style desktop view Dex activated, I discovered it may get by a day of normal workplace work.

Sitting at my desk with this setup and the pill propped up on the second monitor, the Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely managed to final a full 9-5pm day with a great 15-20% of its cost nonetheless intact. The determine may also be simply improved in the event you lock the refresh fee to 60Hz within the pill’s show settings, which let me add an additional 5-10% to that determine. However doing artistic work in Krita I discovered it may discharge as a lot as 20% of its battery with an hour’s use.

Cost instances are pretty quick for a tool this dimension, with the Galaxy Tab S8 Extremely supporting 45W charging. The pill doesn’t include a plug included, so that you’ll should spend money on one if you wish to benefit from these speeds. Fortunately I had a 45W plug handy throughout testing. Charging the pill from 0 % after three full battery cycles working it down from 100%.

Utilizing the 45W plug the pill went from 0-13% in quarter-hour and up once more to 29% in half an hour. In complete it took a median of 1 hour 35 minutes to go from 0-100% cost. These figures aren’t something to put in writing house about on this planet of smartphones, the place handsets usually help as excessive as 100W charging, like the brand new Xiaomi 12 Pro, however for a pill they’re good. The iPad Professional 12.9-inch solely helps 18W charging and took 2 hours and 42 minutes to completely cost throughout our exams, by comparability.

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