Galaxy Tab S2 review: A worthy counterpart for your smartphone
The Galaxy Tab S2 is one of the best Android tablets, though it’s only an incremental improvement over its predecessor. It offers solid performance, a stunning display, and comes in two very thin, very comfortable-to-hold sizes. As far as premium Android tablets go, Samsung still reigns supreme.
I was in love with last year’s 8.4-inch Galaxy Tab S. It was a stylish tablet and, with its snap-on folio case, it quickly became my daily gadget companion. I’d typically tether it to whatever smartphone I was using at the time to answer emails and get a little writing done on the train ride in to work. I also used it to play through the entirety of Peggle Blast.
Now I’ve switched up to the 8-inch Tab S2, though there’s a bigger, iPad-like 9.7-inch version too. It’s great for reading a magazine on Next Issue or playing Pokemon Shuffle—my new obsession. It’s so much lighter than its counterparts, too. The Wi-Fi-only versions of the 8.4-inch and 10.5-inch Tab S weigh 0.648 pounds and 1.025 pounds, while the 8-inch and 9.7-inch Tab S2 weigh 0.584 pounds and 0.858 pounds, respectively. The Tab S was light, but a bit dense. With the Tab S2, I’m constantly checking to see if it’s still in my bag.
To keep it lightweight, Samsung built the Tab S2 out of plastic and aluminum. The tablets aren’t as fancy-looking as the latest crop of Galaxy smartphones, but the plastic construction of the Tab S2 ensures it’s a bit more drop-resistant than its smartphone counterparts—which I know a thing or two about, because I’ve dropped both review units a few times in the last two weeks. Oops.
The Galaxy Tab S2’s Super AMOLED display is just as bright and vibrant as the rest of the Samsung device family. It’s set at a 2048x1536 screen resolution, which nets 320 pixels-per-inch (ppi) on the 8-inch Tab S2, and 264 on the 9.7-inch variant. I especially like the display at its lowest brightness setting, which is dim enough that reading an ebook before bed won’t stimulate my eyes so much that I can’t fall sleep.
Samsung switched to a 4:3 aspect ratio for this year’s Tab S2 duo. It makes watching Beverly Hills, 90210 a pleasure because it actually uses up the entire screen, though you’ll have to be careful not to cover those bottom speakers or what you’re watching will sound muffled. I’m also not too keen on the fact that the USB port and headphone jack are both along the bottom edge; when you have them both plugged in, it's hard to hold the tablet in portrait orientation without the cords getting in the way.
Both the 8-inch and 9.7-inch Galaxy Tab S2 come with an octa-core 1.9GHz Exynos 5433 processor and 3GB of RAM. It’s a slight specification bump from last year’s Tab S, though it’s unnoticeable. The Tab S2 is a casual-use device; it’s not particularly aimed at professionals or digital artists, though it can handle arduous tasks. You also won’t have to worry about it lagging and freezing up while launching apps.
I’ve read several Galaxy Tab S2 reviews that mentioned the device’s less-than-stellar battery life, but I’ve had a different experience. Both tablets got through a day’s worth of mixed usage, including playing games, streaming video, and reading ebooks at the brightest display setting, though by the end of the night they needed to be plugged in. Both tablets also offer the Galaxy S6’s fast charging capabilities, so you’ll be able to charge it up enough in an hour to last through a flight from New York to San Francisco.
There are still people out there who shoot photos with their tablets. I’m not happy about this, but I’ve learned to accept that this is a thing that happens in the world. And anyway, it’s not like tablet makers are discouraging this behavior. Samsung certainly isn’t.
Samsung improved the 8-megapixel rear-facing camera sensor on the Tab S2 by enlarging the aperture so that it takes better photos in low light situations. This will prove helpful if you’re using your tablet to snap a quick and candid photo here and there. The front-facing camera is only 2.1-megapixels, however. I would have rather the Tab S2 come equipped with the same wide-angle, 5-megapixel sensor featured in the latest crop of Galaxy smartphones, since selfies are more likely to happen when you’re casually hanging out on the couch with your tablet already in hand.
Both versions of the Galaxy Tab S2 run Android 5.0.2 right out of the box, though there’s an Android 5.1.1 update waiting once you set up the device. You’ll have to contend with a suite of Microsoft apps that you can’t delete, but at least there’s an expansion slot for more space.
Samsung also bundled in applications like SideSync, which lets you swap files and things between your device and your Mac or PC, and Quick Connect, which only works with compatible Samsung televisions. There are also a slew of Galaxy Gifts available to you once you sign up for a Samsung account, including six months of The Economist and several Hearthstone freebies.
I ran a few benchmarks on the 9.7-inch Tab S2 to see if the Android update made a difference in software performance, and it doesn’t. But for what it’s worth, I spent a year using the Galaxy Tab S and I still consider it one of the best tablet devices Samsung’s ever made. It hasn’t slowed down since I set it up with my account. I hope to say the same about the Tab S2 a year from now.
It felt weird writing this review nearly a week after Apple announced the larger, professional-grade iPad Pro. Typically, when Samsung announces a new tablet device—or any device, really—there’s a bunch of commotion about whether it will have the same impact on the Android world that Apple’s devices do. But that’s not the case here.
The Galaxy Tab S2 is extremely laissez faire—it doesn’t take itself as seriously as last year’s Tab S, which Samsung constantly compared to the iPad in its marketing. It’s for Android users who want something a little more premium than Google’s Nexus offerings, but don’t particularly care about whether or not it runs stock Android.
If you’re looking for a tablet companion of your own and you want to stick to Android, either size of the Galaxy Tab S2 will work. I personally prefer the smaller size because of its portability—I typically travel with just my purse on me. However, if you’d rather not pay the full price for an Android tablet but are still looking for something that’s stylish and powerful, there’s plenty of original Tab S tablets on sale that are still worth bringing home.