New Galaxy Tab S tablet - first impressions

[davidedric]

I have recently been given (birthday!) the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5, which is Samsung’s new top line tablet, with an AMOLED display of 2560 x 1600.

I use my tablet a lot for showing photos, which is why I’m posting here, and mostly that’s going to be down to a discussion of the display. I’ll start with a few comments on the tablet, though

· Slim (6.6mm, thinner than an iPad Air) and light. 3Gb RAM, and 16Gb internal storage.

· MicroUSB connector for charging and accessing e.g. USB sticks. MicroSD socket for additional storage. I have the WiFi only version (3G/WiFi not yet released).

· It’s fast, very fast. I don’t fully understand the spec of the multi core processor (and separate GPU) but it’s response for browsing and changing apps is excellent.

· It runs Android 4.4.n (KitKat). This has some interesting consequences, because it seems to promote the “optimised apps” to have features that subsequently added apps do not:

• Any two of the optimised apps can be run in “split screen” mode, so you can run two active applications at once. These include all the common Google apps such as Chrome and Maps)
• Only the optimised apps can write to the external sd card (I believe this can be hacked, but I haven’t tried it). So if you have a favourite file manager, for example, it’s rather crippled.

The key part is the screen. At 2560 x 1600 (that’s over 240ppi) the resolution is pretty staggering.
It’s certainly bright, with very saturated colours – which is where things get interesting. There are three screen modes, which can be switched between using Settings:

• Basic mode. So far as I can understand, this operates with a gamut very close to sRGB
• Photo mode. Again, so far as I can understand, this pretty much covers AdobeRGB
• Cinema mode – which is very over saturated so far as displaying photos are concerned, but looks pretty impressive with video (from the little I’ve seen).

Of course the gamut of the screen leaves open how images are actually mapped, but tests seem to show that they do map accurately if an AdobeRGB image is displayed on the Photo mode screen. Here is a link, if you are interested, though I haven’t studied in in detail.
http://www.displaymate.com/OLED_Tabl...Color_Accuracy

Since I normally export my photos (from Lightroom) in sRGB that seems to be the sensible one to pick. As far as I can tell, the images are similar to how they appear on my calibrated monitor, but I haven’t done any detailed tests. I haven’t yet tried exporting in AdobeRGB and displaying in Photo mode.

Viewed in the Photo mode they look a bit more saturated to me (I can’t see why this should be – oughtn’t they just to map to the appropriate part of the wider gamut), but still acceptable.

Viewed in the Cinema mode, they looked horrible!

Some of the optimised apps have an “Adaptive mode”, which means that the “appropriate” mode is selected. For example, the Gallery App selects Photo mode. On the other hand, Chrome adopts Basic mode, so if I am viewing embedded images in CiC they will appear in Basic mode. These can always be overwritten in Settings, but of course that will apply to the whole tablet, and not just to the particular app.

I have a deal more of playing around to do before I quite get the hang of this.

However, overall I am delighted with the tablet. It makes my previous one, which was only a couple of years old, look dull and slow.

Dave

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the review Dave. My wife is in the market for a tablet and this one seems to be at the top of her list.

Nice to know how well it workst.

[IzzieK]

Happy birthday, Dave...

[HaseebM]

Happy Birthday to you.

[Black Pearl]

Sounds nice - when Adobe pull their finger out and release an Android version of Lightroom Mobile you will have the perfect tool. The iOS version is fantastic as it's its interaction with the desktop software - have fun and happy birthday.

[davidedric]

Sounds nice - when Adobe pull their finger out and release an Android version of Lightroom Mobile you will have the perfect tool.

That's when I'll take out the CC subscription