Samsung Announces Galaxy Tab S7 & S7+: S865+ & 120Hz Tablets
by Andrei Frumusanu on August 5, 2020 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Samsung
- Tablets
- Galaxy Tab S7
- Galaxy Tab S7+
Today alongside the Note20 series smartphones, Samsung is also releasing a pair of new high-end tablets in the form of the new Tab S7 and Tab S7+. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen some good Android tablets as the market is seemingly small and struggling versus the more common-place Appls iPads – but today’s S7 series is really raising the bar in terms of hardware capabilities, bringing some significant updates to the table for what probably are the best Android tablets on the market right now.
What makes the new Galaxy Tab S7 tablets shine is their brand-new Snapdragon 865+ processors alongside high-resolution 120Hz screens, big batteries, quad-speaker setups and a new design that it’s incredibly thin.
Samsung Tab S7 Series | |||
Galaxy Tab S7 | Galaxy Tab S7+ | ||
SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ 1x Cortex-A77 @ 3.1GHz 3x Cortex-A77 @ 2.42GHz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.80GHz Adreno 640 @ ?MHz |
||
Display | 11-inch LTPS LCD 2560 x 1600 (16:10) 120Hz |
12.4-inch OLED 2800 x 1752 (16:10) 120Hz |
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Dimensions | 253.8 x 163.3 x 6.3mm 498-502g |
285.0 x 185.0 x 5.7mm 575g |
|
RAM | 6 / 8 GB LPDDR5 | ||
NAND Storage |
128 / 256GB + microSD |
||
Battery | 8000mAh (30.96Wh) typ. | 10090mAh (39.04Wh) typ. | |
45 Super-fast Charging (18W included charger) |
|||
Front Camera | 8MP | ||
Primary Rear Camera | 13MP wide-angle | ||
Secondary Rear Camera |
5MP ultra-wide-angle | ||
4G / 5G Modem |
|||
Snapdragon 5G - Snapdragon Modem X55 (Discrete) (LTE Category 24/22) DL = 2500 Mbps - 7x20MHz CA, 1024-QAM UL = 316 Mbps 3x20MHz CA, 256-QAM (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave*) DL = 7000 Mbps UL = 3000 Mbps *Depending on region and model |
|||
SIM Size | NanoSIM + eSIM | ||
Wireless | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax 2x2 MU-MIMO, BT 5.0 LE, NFC, GPS/Glonass/Galileo/BDS |
||
Connectivity | USB Type-C no 3.5mm headset |
||
Special Features | Side capacitive fingerprint sensor | Under-screen fingerprint sensor | |
Quad-Speakers with Dolby Atmos | |||
Launch OS | Android 10 with Samsung OneUI 2.0 | ||
Launch Prices | 6+128GB (Wi-Fi): $ n/a / 699€ / £619 8+256GB: (Wi-Fi): $ n/a / 779€ / £ n/a 6+128GB (LTE): $ n/a / 799€ / £719 8+256GB: (LTE): $ n/a / 879€ / £ n/a |
6+128GB (Wi-Fi): $ n/a / 899€ / £799 8+256GB: (Wi-Fi): $ n/a / 979€ / £ n/a 6+128GB (5G): $ n/a / 1099€ / £999 8+256GB: (5G): $ n/a / 1179€ / £ n/a |
Starting off with the SoC, it features the new high-performance binned Snapdragon 865+ SoC from Qualcomm, with Samsung here using the full 3.1GHz peak frequency on the prime CPU core. It’s a nice performance boost and should make the new Tab S7’s the fastest Android tablets on the market right now.
Samsung is configuring both the Tab S7 and Tab S7+ with either 6GB of LPDDR5 with 128GB of storage, or 8GB of RAM with 256GB. There is a microSD slot for expandable storage.
The star of the show today is the Tab S7+ which features a 12.4” OLED display with a 2800 x 1752 resolution as well as a 120Hz refresh rate that’s enables at the full native resolution of the panel. In essence this checkmarks all the possible features a display can have and should be by far the best tablet experience in the market in this regard.
The regular Tab S7 features a similar resolution screen at 2560 x 1600, but at a smaller 11” form-factor and this time around it’s an LCD display. It maintains a 120Hz refresh rate so that will still allow it an extremely smooth content experience.
The backs of the new tablets are relatively ordinary, except for a prolonged design element that extends from the cameras. This is the charging surface for the new S-Pen which can be held by the accessory Book Cover or Book Cover Keyboard in this position.
The cameras of the tablets are quite nondescript, with Samsung only revealing 8MP for the front camera, a 13MP main camera, and a 5MP ultra-wide angle. We’re not expecting any great quality out of either of these.
Size-wise, as the Tab S7+ is a bigger device, it also has a bigger footprint and weight, about 12% larger in each dimension and a little heavier at 575g. The S7+ features a 10090mAh battery while the S7 features a 8000mAh unit.
Besides the high-quality displays of the new tablets, the one other design element of the new devices is their thickness which comes in at only 6.3mm for the Tab S7 and a mere 5.7mm for the Tab S7+, making the latter the thinnest tablet of this class ever made.
Alongside the side frames we find four speaker grills which house the quad-speaker setup of the tablets, with audio being tuned by AKG and also supporting Dolby Atmos.
The Tab S7 and S7+ will come in either Wi-Fi, LTE (S7 only) and 5G variants (market dependent). Availability of the different models with different configurations as well as RAM and NAND capacity will be highly dependent on local region. In mainland Europe, the Tab S7 starts at 699€ for the Wi-Fi model, and 799€ for the LTE model. The Tab S7+ starts at 899€ for the Wi-Fi variant, and 1099€ for the 5G variant. An upgrade to the 8+256GB variants costs an extra 79€ on top of that.
Availability starts August 24th.
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abufrejoval - Tuesday, August 11, 2020 - link
I got an S5e early this year to replace my Nexus 10 (Samsung OEM), that was just getting a little too slow with what web sites are throwing at browsers these days.Main use was just browsing during meals, because keyboard are much more trouble to clean afterwards. Screen and performance was generally ok, even if it wasn't quite as snappy as my phone (835 at that point).
When the S6 like came out with a pen, I longed to see what my daughter could do with it, who will spend hours "painting" with a mouse on her PC but also with her finger on her phone.
But I couldn't quite imagine going back from the wonderful OLED sceen of the S5e just for a pen... So I got the S6 instead, which had both and could be had from Hungary at around €600 with LTE, really just a small increment over the S5e, which I could still return for a refund.
My daughter wasn't convinced but I was: It's way snappier than the S5e and in the mean-time the phone is on the same SoC, too, both 855.
I had to wait a long time to get a proper tablet at a price that wasn't punitive and I am very happy with the value. While I haven't travelled nearly as much in recent months thanks to Corona, it has still been very nice to have around for an evening in the hotel when I did. I got a cheap bluetooth keyboard and cover that does just fine in case I want to write some mails, even carry a small bluetooth mouse with it, so it can do corporate mail office stuff apart from surfing and video.
I've tried the DEX mode, it's rather good once you enable developer mode and do away with the silly restrictions, and I have tried various Ethernet adapters, even 2.5Gbit I think, which worked just fine. DEX ist limited to around 3k, not the full 4k of my main screen, which is a little sad, as that also powers the tablet. It's getting pretty close to being a full thin client in addition to being a tablet and low-power computer.
Lack of Windows hasn't bothered me, Windows on ARM is too much of an iJail clone to interest me, I'd rather like to see support for Linux desktop apps with Wayland and a Linux userland of choice in a chroot() or better container. I've used Linux Deploy to run a full Linux userland on other Androids and it's much more attractive as a typical developer/admin desktop than Windows. And then there is always RDP when a Windows desktop is a must.
I am glad it can be rooted, that will most likely extend its life-time significantly and give me at least part of the contral I require from every very personal computing device I own.
Samsung introductory prices always seem rather inflated to me, too, so I'd suggest y'all keep looking for the price drop, which is sure to come before the next generation rolls out.
One thing that irritated me very much initially is that upright scrolling gave me vertigo: As you scroll up, everything on the screen tilts a bit with the left side lagging behind the right; opposite effect as you scroll down. I went back to my Nexus 10 to check and observed the very same thing. All three devices, which offer vastly different CPU and GPU power actually exhibited that behavior.
Once I thought it through, it became evident that there is nothing to be done about it, except to design a tablet with dual display controllers, one for each orientation. Smooth scrolling that follows the frame buffer layout is easy enough to do, but smooth scrolling where you have to fully transpose every pixel requires one or two orders of magnitude more data to move and that's visible even with the latest and greatest silicon.
That is a little sad, because I actually like using the upright mode on PDFs and browsing, but knowing that it can't really be fixed, made it easier to bear. With an 8" variant I might prefer an upright base design, the way it's done for phones.
Archer_Legend - Wednesday, August 12, 2020 - link
It is a tablet, you may need to charge it while using for example to take lessons and then you have your wonderful 3.5mm headphones and... how the hell do you use them?I hate the fact that they removed the headphone jack, i passed onto wireless buds on my s10 plus but i still want the jack to be there wheter it is for gaming or I amn far away from home and i urgently need some cheap buds to plug in, or even to use my over the ear headphones to listen to mucis.
They removed the jack with the excuse of space, which is proven to be wrong, and here they cannot use that excuse.
Never going to buy something without a headphone jack, especially at those prices, they higher the price the more versatility the device should givve you. The removal of the jack is unacceptable altogether
imaheadcase - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
Then you are going to be in a huge disappointment because its pretty much going away forever in the coming years. Why the hell would you care anyways, every study has shown that the difference in sound quality is nill for users when comparing to headphone jacks. Its wireless, its simple to use.Seriously grow up.
Andrewsacar - Thursday, November 12, 2020 - link
Really nice tablet. It's great How technic is increasing and developing. I would buy galaxy tab s7 I need for watching movies do some work staff and gaming especially. Geometry dash game Will perform great on it.