Samsung has just announced (like, right now) the launch of the newest range of tablets, the Galaxy Tab S8, S8+ and S8 Ultra. If you, like us, keep one eye on your news feed and the other open and watching for leaks then this’ll hardly be a surprise what with the plethora of leaks we’ve seen.
We’ve been expecting the S8 range of tablets for quite some time now. Ever since the S7 range, the last flagship tab by the company, launched in August 2020. That quickly became the best Android tablet you could get, until now.
Introducing the Galaxy Tab S8, S8+ and S8 Ultra
As per the aforementioned plethora of leaks, it is now official that the largest of the three, the S8 Ultra, will feature a massive 14.6in Super AMOLED display. Also confirmed is the inclusion of a notch. It’s really not a big deal, though. On a display of this size, your bigger concern should be neck fatigue. The smaller S8 and S8+ will come with an 11in TFT LCD and 12.4in Super AMOLED display respectively. These will be notch-less.
As per usual, there will be a few variations featuring different specs that go to different parts of the world. At a recent media event where we got some hands-on time with the new tech, Samsung said the models coming to SA will feature Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipsets instead of the newly announced Samsung Exynos 2200. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.
The speccy specs
Complementing the new chip (whichever it may be) in the S8 and S8+ will be either 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage. The S8 Ultra can go up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage if you and your wallet are feeling extra. If that ain’t enough you can slot in a microSD card up to 1TB of extra space.
All three tabs will feature the same rear camera array, a 13MP main shooter and a 6MP ultra-wide. Around the front, they all also share the same 12MP ultra-wide selfie sensor but the S8 Ultra gets an additional 12MP wide sensor. So, not as wide as the ultra-wide, but wider than a non-wide?
Battery life will differ across the board. The S8 packs an 8,000mAh cell, the S8+ gets 10,090mAh and the S8 Ultra comes with an 11,200mAh battery. All three tablets will feature Samsung’s latest SuperFast charging 2.0 and up to 45W charging via USB Type-C. Just like the S20 range from years ago.
All tablets will be available in either a WiFi model or a cellular model with 5G, of course. The S8 and S8+ will come in Graphite, Silver and Pink Gold while the S8 Ultra only comes in the very serious-looking Graphite.
The tabs will come standard with the newly improved S Pen. Samsung has managed to reduce the latency of the S Pen down to just 2.8ns. This makes it almost impossible to tell that there’s any latency at all. Also standard will be a USB cable but you’ll have to source your own charging block. Samsung didn’t go fishing all that net out the ocean just so you could create extra e-waste (we’re guessing).
The Galaxy Tab S8 range will be available from 11 March 2022 and will go for R20,000 for the S8, R25,000 for the S8+ and R30,000 for the big S8 Ultra.