The Samsung S8
What is the general consensus on Samsung galaxy tab 8series?especially 8+ and ultra. The dex when attached to the keyboard seems to be a game changer when it comes to tablet multi tasking. Much better implemented than stage manager.
is the app ecosystem so poorly developed on android tablets that iOS still has that superiority? Samsung offers comparable hardware with a reasonable support at a much lesser price point.
I was sure my next tablet would be a ipad m2 series pro. Now I’m really confused
The Samsung Tab S8 is a great tablet. I was in a similar position. I think it comes down to a couple or a few different points. Do you have a lot of apple devices like an iPhone and a Mac? Do you favor performance and graphics? Do you want a more polished interface with better designed apps? If the answer is yes to those questions then an iPad is probably a better choice, probably.
The Samsung will not sync with your mac or iPhone so you won't be able to answer calls or respond to messages or facetime with the S8.
In my personal opinion stage manager and Dex are compromises and might as well use a laptop if you really need that functionality. Neither are ideal but probably a slight edge to Dex even though it can be buggy.
Apps are fine on Android but they are still better on iPad. Depends what you do and how you use the device. Want to use Procreate then you need an iPad. Want to use most basic and popular apps Android is fine.
Now to the hardware. iPad is 4x3 aspect ratio. Samsung S8 is 16x10. If you use your tablet in portrait mode a lot then iPad has an edge. If you watch a lot of video content then S8 has the edge.
Do you ever use a pen or Apple pencil? Samsung includes spen which has very good latency. Again is content creation with a pen is a big concern then you probably need procreate. Otherwise Spen is very nice and included.
Performance and graphics are much, much better with M1 and M2 will only widen the gap. The Samsung uses the Snapdragon 8 gen 1. To give a perspective on benchmarks geekbench 5 the M1 is 1723 single core and Snapdragon 8 gen 1 is around 1200. Multicore the M1 is around 7200 and 8 Gen 1 is 3200. The graphics in wildlife extreme are double for M1 vs 8 gen 1. So the chips are very different and the Snapdragon falls way short of M1 and again M2 will only widen the gap.
All that to say iPad is ridiculously fast while the S8 is not slow. The S8 feels fast and Samsung does a good job for One UI/Android but in 3 years it's performance will slow vs the iPad which is overkill now and probably won't slow down any time soon.
Samsung give 4 years OS updates and a total of 5 years security patches while iOS goes longer.
Screen is brighter on the Pro and uses IPS vs Samsung which uses a TFT display. Both are very good. Both offer 120hz refresh.
Both Pro and S8 have quad speakers and both sound great with a little more bass on iPad.
Cost is obviously much better on S8 and if you plan on keeping it for a while resale value won't matter and Samsung has great trade in deals.
The only issue I complain about with the S8 is a lack of any kind of anti-reflective coating on the screen which makes it much more reflective than the iPad.
The S8 has a stronger build quality to me.
To me it comes down to apps, interoperability of my devices and performance. For my use case Apple is better but if I had an Android phone that would not be the case. Performance is better on the iPad specially with graphics intensive games but the S8 is no slouch and performs very well in its own right.
They are very well matched. However I know that the Snapdragon 8 gen 2 will be a much better chip than what is in the S8 and if Samsung releases a S9 next year and updates the chip that is the model I would jump on. I think it would be more future proof than this current model.
All that being said I really like the S8 a lot. Samsung does a great job with one UI. However they include so much bloatware and a lot of apps you can't uninstall or disable. The UI is good but not as good as iOS in some ways and better in others.
If you can get the S8 discounted and maybe a trade in too then the price gap between the new iPad Pro and it would be so huge it would be pretty hard not to recommend. Just know if you have all Apple devices you will have reduced functionality.
It is a really hard choice to make. I was deciding between the Air 5 and S8 and I am still not sure. I have an air on order but should be getting a promotional discount and Samsung already has the S8 discounted to $599. I could possibly get the S8 for half the cost of the air retail. It has better speakers, screen, but then M1, better colors, iPad is lighter and easier to hold and on and on.
Good luck!
