Design
The Galaxy Tab S 8.4 comes in two different colours, but we were particularly taken with our white and champagne gold review model. This makes a pleasant change from the usual white and silver combination we tend to see on other tablets, and it certainly helps maintain a feeling of luxury. The gold might not be to everyone’s taste, but the Galaxy Tab S is also available in Titanium Bronze.
At just 6.6mm thick and weighing 294g, this is Samsung’s thinnest and lightest tablet yet, and it certainly feels svelte in the hand. It has a slightly dimpled, soft-touch polycarbonate back which makes it comfortable to hold and there’s reassuringly no flex in the casing. Still, if you'd rather not take any chances, there are a number of optional protective cases to go with the Galaxy Tab S 8.4, including a keyboard case, which attaches through studs that click directly into the back of the tablet.
Performance
Samsung has used its own octa-core Exynos 5 system-on-chip (SoC) processor to power the Galaxy Tab S 8.4, which was first seen on the 2014 model of Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1. It’s technically a quad-core ARM 1.9GHz Cortex-A15 paired with a quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex-A7 filling in when only a less power-hungry processor is needed. There's also an LTE model available which uses a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor running at 2.3GHz instead, but all models come equipped with a generous 3GB of RAM.
Android 5.0 Lollipop
The Galaxy Tab S 8.4 runs Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box, but you can now download a free OTA update to Android 5.0 Lollipop. Not that you'd know it, as Samsung's new design is more or less identical to the old KitKat interface. In keeping with Google's Material Design scheme, app icons now look a bit flatter, but that's more or less it. Of course, as with all Lollipop devices, you can now view your notifications from the lock screen and add multiple user accounts, but otherwise you'll barely notice the difference between the two interfaces.
Android Lollipop looks almost exactly the same as Samsung's KitKat interface on the Galaxy Tab S 8.4
Regardless of whether you decide to upgrade to Lollipop, Samsung has included a few of its own tweaks to the Android operating system. One of the more notable inclusions is Multi Window mode, which allows you to use two apps simultaneously. This is useful if you’re watching a film and want to open up the browser to look up an actor, for example, and each app is resizable. Kids Mode has also been included, allowing a safe ecosystem for children through parental controls and a custom child-friendly interface – meaning you should be able to safely hand the tablet to your little ones.
Camera
Around the back is an 8-megapixel camera complete with an LED flash to help with low-light photography which we don’t often see included on a tablet. Annoyingly, we found that the camera would refuse to use the flash if the battery was low in order to conserve battery, but strangely this was also the case if you then plugged the tablet in to charge, which was puzzling.
As far as tablet cameras go, we were actually quite pleased with how the Galaxy Tab S performed. The camera supports image stabilisation for both video and still images, which we found helped under tough low-light conditions and allowed for sharper images when slower shutter speeds were needed. There were also modes for HDR, Panorama, Burst Modes and Dual Camera, which allows you to use both cameras at the same time, which is a surprising fun feature we first saw on the Samsung Galaxy S4. Overall, the camera captured decently sharp images, with good saturation and low-light noise was kept under control.
| Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processor | Quad-core 1.9GHz Samsung Exynos 5 Octa (+quad-core 1.3GHz) |
| RAM | 3GB |
| Screen size | 8.4in |
| Screen resolution | 2,560x1,600 |
| Screen type | Super AMOLED |
| Front camera | 2.1 megapixels |
| Rear camera | 8 megapixels |
| Flash | Yes |
| GPS | Yes |
| Compass | Yes |
| Storage | 16/32GB |
| Memory card slot (supplied) | MicroSD |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11ac |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 4.0 |
| NFC | Yes |
| Wireless data | 4G (optional) |
| Size | 212.8x125.6x6.6mm |
| Weight | 294g |
| Features | |
| Operating system | Android 4.4 (KitKat) |
| Battery size | 4,900mAh |
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