Thinner and faster

An iterative upgrade over the Tab S, the Tab S2 8.0 is good, but misses out on some opportunities to help it stand out.

byKoh Wanzi Mar 2016

Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0

Pictures Samsung

The Galaxy Tab S2 is Samsung’s newest flagship tablet for personal media consumption, but at a time where the growing legions of phablets and 2-in-1 hybrids are vying for the tablet’s niche, you can say it faces some stiff competition. Samsung’s play for your wallet is a design that’s thinner and lighter than ever.

Now, there are two sizes for the Tab S2 available: 9.7-inches and 8.0-inches. We’ll be reviewing the smaller of the two. At just 5.6mm thick, the Tab S2 8.0 shaves a whole millimetre of its predecessor, the 6.6mm-thick Galaxy Tab S. It is even thinner than Apple’s iPad Mini 4, which measures 6.1mm. The 8-inch slate also weighs just 272g, which means you can slip it into your bag and forget it’s even there.

Its svelte design isn’t without trade-offs though. Compared to the 4,900mAh battery on the 8.4-inch Galaxy Tab S, the Tab S2 features a smaller 4,000mAh juice pack. This means slightly poorer battery life, but still good against competition in its size range. The problem however, is the absence of any form of quick charging. We had to wait around four hours for it to fully recharge – an eternity when you’ve gotten used to fast-charging technology.

The strongest point of the Tab S2 is probably its display. Samsung’s Super AMOLED panel is still as good as they come; colors are vibrant, punchy and bright. The best part is that Samsung has ditched the awkward 16:10 aspect ratio on the Tab S in favor of a more practical 4:3 screen. That means slightly less pixels – 2,048 x 1,536 to be exact – but the Tab S2 now works much better with general productivity tasks.

Our review unit came with 32GB of internal storage, but those of you who are in the habit of storing your photo and video libraries on your tablet will appreciate the fact that the microSD slot supports up to 128GB of extra storage.

When it comes to the silicon powering the tablet, it’s a bit disappointing to see it using the same Samsung Exynos 5433 octa-core processor as 2014’s Galaxy Note 4 smartphone. While it is an upgrade over the Exynos 5420 in the Tab S, we would really have loved to see a more significant upgrade instead, such as the mighty Exynos 7420.