Samsung Tab S: It’s all about weisure

Hyderabad: A tablet tends to be a jack-of-all-trades sort of device, designed to please customers who look for a ‘weisure’ companion — a machine that combines work and leisure.

In the case of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S which has just reached India, I have a suspicion that the designers are all movie addicts because consider this. The Super AMOLED display is the best I have ever encountered in a tablet and the resolution is twice as sharp as the best HD screen.

The default display mode is called “Adaptive” which adjusts the colours automatically — warmer for photos, more contrast when you are reading an e-book. In fact, I was able to read a printed page even while out in bright sunshine. But you can reset it for a Cinema mode which brings the full gamut of colours into play. There are two cameras — an 8-megapixel with flash and a 2-megapixel which can shoot  videos at full HD.  

The front facing 2MP camera plays a double role. You can make it work in Smart Pause — so that it looks at you as you watch a movie and if you move your head away, it pauses the video till it has your full attention again.

Also, not many tablets allow you to multi-task. The Galaxy Tab S lets you open two active windows at the same time — you can work with one, checking your email, and play with the other. Doing this is easy — just drag and drop a browser, say into your active window.

Parents can set up a Kids Mode so that they can safely hand over their tab to children to play games while surfing is disabled. Another feature that I have not seen on a tablet so far is the ability to synchronise it to one’s home or office desktop or laptop so that the tablet can work as a remote terminal.
While 3GB of RAM is adequate, I thought 16 GB of internal storage was on the low side — but you can add another 128 GB in the microSD slot. The tablet runs the latest 4.4 version of Android on a combo of two quad core processors.

Keeping in mind its soft spot for movie buffs, Samsung is bundling 100 free HD movies from MyPlex and a subscription to a 15,000-strong library of Marvel comics. Those, who like me watch movies on a tablet while in bed, will be no strangers to frozen shoulders after a few hours of holding it up. The Galaxy Tab S somewhat lessens the agony — it is among the thinnest tablets (around 6.6 mm) and at 467 grams for the 10.5-inch model (Rs 44,800) and 298 grams for the 8.5 inch model (Rs 32,700) it is also one of the lightest. However, I noticed prices on Internet retail sites were around Rs 5,000 cheaper than these prices.