Pros:__________
- Super slim and super light. You can blindfold yourself and you wouldn’t know if you were holding an iPad pro or this tablet. No plastic, just metal, and glass.
- Round corners, no sharp edges, making it more as an IPad Pro feel. Overall, high-quality look and feel are defiantly showing.
- 10.5” AMOLED screen is a 2560x1600 resolution that shows where your money is going to. You can’t really explain it unless you see it.
- Took it outside on a clear sunny day and the image quality is still superb in direct sunlight. The Ambient light sensors do their job in adapting to a sunny day to a dark room.
- The deep blacks are excellent, and I love that you can tweak the saturation and white balance. You’ll be surprised that many Android tablets will not allow you to do that.
- Touch response shows not glitches, delay, or hiccups.
- The speakers are the best so far that I’ve heard from a Samsung tablet in a long. I would have to compare it to the 2018 IPad Pro. Extremely loud, great base, and an overall shock on how good they are as you can see the vibration coming out of the tablet (might be a Con but you’re never going to put it up that loud.)
- Any day performance will 100% work. Web browsing, movies, etc. A quick and snappy performance
- Was really impress of the wireless performance and in range. I never got below 100Mbps at my location (2 story house, one wireless router- no extensions).
- Surprisingly I found the desktop mode very productive. Running multiple apps in windows it made multitasking very effective. I’m not a fan of multitasking on a tablet but if you Bluetooth a keyboard and a mouse, you have a pretty decent laptop. This feature I believe is called the DeX mode.
- Playing Netflix for one hour I lost around 7% of battery life. It was playing at 1080p and on 80% brightness.
- Overall battery life is really good. I got two days, close to 11 hours of web, tablet gaming (medium power consumption) and Netflix. This is a pretty good steal given that some higher tablets need to be charged by the end of the day.
- A wise decision that they made the power button and the Fingerprint reader the same. Yes, the scan is fast, no complaints.
- Type-C USB 3.1 Gen1. This means it’s fast charging.
- Found no difficulty in holding the tablet as my hand position never covered the speaker grills.
- The Bixby assistant feature is just like a Suri. Had it in a loud/crowded room and Bixby picked up my voice. The field microphone will make this tablet become a google home in theory. I think this feature will be great if your hand are full.
- A minimalist design that follows the saying “less is more.”
Cons and Oks:__________
- It’s thin. I love this but without a case, this tablet will bend. I wouldn’t even trust it in my backpack without a case. You will be on high alert if you sit on it so you need a case of some sort.
- No HDR support which makes no sense since the display supports HDR.
- No headphone jack. This is not a phone, it’s a tablet and the best sound quality comes from wired headphones.
- This is an issue when you start doing “major” multitasking. The result is that the tablet slows down. You should always need maybe 2GB of free space but sadly the additional 4GB will not cut for deep multitasking (Get the upgraded RAM, if possible, if you’re playing to use multitasking beyond the average person). This will apply to those who want to make this tablet their main form of a laptop, which I'm strongly against this idea.
- No S-Pen support. This doesn’t make sense.
- Face unlocking is still in the testing phase in my eyes. You can use it, but the finger scan is still the way.
- Yes, there is bloatware. You can never get away from it.
- The camera is nothing to brag about. I don’t even use it as any phone within the past two years can provide similar quality.
- Android software overall has limited apps that support a tablet design. I hope this changes in the future but expect a lot of apps opening up as if it was a phone app, but just expanded. You will get some pretty big black borders.
- 0-100 I got a 2.30-time frame.
- Pretty cool that the back camera doesn’t stick out that much.
- I playing ultra-high games (60fps) will make the tablet shutdown. I played Legends on ultra-high and this issued occurred. Put the graphics on medium and it was fine. Just an FYI.
- Wish that added more screen as there is still a considerable amount more needless black border. It’s still an improvement from last year.
- I was told that Samsung will offer a $130. Kinda high in price for a keyboard case.
Bottom Line:__________
Samsung took a book out of Apple and followed the design method “less is better.” It’s slim, light, and beautiful in image quality. The battery life is great and for the price, it beats paying an arm and a leg for an Apple tablet. I will say that of all the tablets out there, this one considers the closest of a laptop replacement (But not there yet). Apple’s 2018 IPad comes close, but some unique software options to make this a unique experience. Some hiccups are on this product but the pros out powers the cons here.
Overall: First impressions, a premium experience without the ridiculous price tag. Still not a laptop replacement but an excellent tablet.
Hope I was a help to you.
Love,
Honest Reviewer
For many years I had android phones and iPad tablets. It was time for me to just stick with one ecosystem, and when I saw the S5e, I figured I would give android tablets another shot.
The first thing I noticed is the size: While having the same screen size as my iPad Pro 10.5, the Galaxy Tab is noticeably shorter, narrower, thinner, and lighter. It uses a wider aspect ratio on the screen (which has pros and cons), but for most movies and TV shows, than means the image you see on the Galaxy Tab will be larger than what you would see on the same size iPad due to it's more square-ish screen. (See my photo for size comparison -- the video is also about .6" larger diagonally on the Galaxy Tab.)
I spent a lot of time setting up the tablet just how I wanted, which for now kind of replicates an iPad. I chose the option to remove the app drawer and stuck with having folders of apps on my home screen. I then spent some time with the various apps I'm used to running on iOS along with apps that I normally ran on my phone. I have to say I am overall happy with the performance of the tablet. It is not quite as fluid as an iPad -- for example, when rotating the screen or opening app folders, the animation is occasionally ever so slightly jumpy rather than totally smooth. (I have the 128/6GB version, as I wanted the extra RAM.)
The speakers are really good, and there is no headphone jack. I have to say, given how thin this tablet is, I just might buy the argument that one wouldn't fit inside. (But I'd still rather have one.) A PASSIVE USB-C headphone dongle is included. This means that the included dongle will not work on many other USB-C phones. On the other hand, an active adapter like the one from my Google Pixel 3 will still work on the Galaxy Tab.
I am enjoying the screen -- it is bright and readable outdoors. It dims pretty low too, which is good for night reading.
I'm not a big gamer, and so my various casual games have no problems running on the tablet.
About the only issue I've been having is that I'm finding the fingerprint scanner/button a bit finicky. It's not clear to me the right way to turn on the tablet. Sometimes it seems like I need to press and hold, other times, just touch my finger to it, and other times it has trouble reading my finger on the first attempt. Some of this might be getting used to a very small/narrow reader, but it is a little annoying. At the time I wrote this, some other reviewers are saying there is a problem with the wifi when you hold the tablet sideways and cover the antenna with your hands. I could not recreate that issue on my device.
So, I'm pretty pleased and I think this will let me finally ditch the iOS ecosystem (and lightning cables). My actual star rating would be 4.5.
PS -- I do think a case is needed for this. It is very thin and, while it doesn't feel flimsy, some reinforcement is good. At the moment, Samsung's official (non-keyboard) case is a mind boggling $70 for a basic plastic folio case. I ordered one elsewhere, but I do think the official one looks good. Maybe if it goes on sale sometime.
May 17, 2019 -- I promised I would give an updated review after I had owned the tablet for awhile:
Honest Reviewer gave a VERY comprehensive review on April 26, 2019, so I will only add a few things. Thin and light weight, easy to hold although I'd recommend a case of some kind for any tablet. Screen is beautiful. Speakers/sound is the best we've had in a tablet. No headphone jack understandable to get this thin so you will need bluetooth enabled headphones or speakers for external audio. Our Wi-Fi performance has been good, we have tried to duplicate the wi-fi issue reported by others that wi-fi reception varies with tablet orientation and have not been able to replicate the problem. We have encountered only two issues so far, first, that the default Samsung keyboard covered up a critical portion of one account sign in screen, although we eventually got around this I would recommend installing Gboard (the free Google keyboard) or Swiftkey ($), which allow vertical size adjustment of the keyboard, before setting up other apps -- you can always switch back to the Samsung keyboard later if you like it better. The second problem is that we have been unable to get the tablet to respond to case cover opening and closing to turn on and off. Since we are still awaiting delivery of a matching case we are using a case from an older Galaxy Pro but the magnets are strong, we've tried both case orientations, made sure we had the feature enabled in Settings/Advanced/Accessories, and turned screen lock completely off. At this time it appears the only way to turn the tablet on and off is the main power switch (that's what the manual says as well). Now if you close the case (or just stop using the tablet), the tablet will turn itself off after 5 minutes, at which point with Smart Lock turned off you can reawaken it with a double tap just like a phone, but that's almost 5 minutes of screen on time at full brightness (it only dims for the last 15 seconds) before auto-off. The original case I ordered weeks ago is still in transit (from China?) so I can't cancel it, now MOKO has a case that claims the magnets work to turn the table on and off -- It's on order, we'll see.
Original review: I promise to submit a more comprehensive review later, but based on my initial experience I'm going to give one star, not only to warn others about this specific problem but to get Amazon's attention since it is its their account sign-in screen that needs fixing.
Since my wife was in the middle of a Kindle book the first app we tried was that – it gave us a full screen asking us to sign in to our Amazon account, which included a 'captcha' (type the characters shown so we know you are not a robot), below that some options for the captcha, and below that the blue 'sign in' button. The problems are:
The blue sign in button ends up covered up by the default Samsung keyboard.
The Go button on the keyboard, instead of implementing the sign in button, implements a reload of the captcha.
We spent a good half hour trying to sign in to our Amazon account. Finally I touched something on the screen that made the keyboard retract so we could hit the sign in button.
Feel free to post ways to avoid this (the obvious is downloading GBoard or Swiftkey that allow vertical adjustment of keyboard size, before you do anything else) but since many folks are not going to read this, Amazon needs to work with Samsung to reduce the vertical size of Amazon's sign in screen so it fits in the space left by the default Samsung keyboard.
Primo tablet! I held on to my Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (T800) because the screen, it spoiled me. Samsung came to their senses and brought back the superb screen and they didn't rest on their laurels. The speakers are amazingly loud and the sound quality is suprising. I don't know what is more impressive, the incredible battery life or how thin and light the Tab s5e is. It's so small with the ultra thin bezel. And the face recognition unlocks it quickly. It is very fast (I got the 128gb w 6mb ram) If you are unsure about moving to a new tablet buy it with confidence. I could not be happier. The only downside I can find is the lack of custom cases available. And no dedicated audio Jack, who cares I always use bluetooth:0)
EDITED 3 May 2019:
So you've probably been reading in the news about the wifi problems when holding this tablet horizontally. If your hand covers the bottom left corner of the tablet, you can experience wifi degradation. Personally, when I tried to duplicate this, I saw one or two of the wifi bars "disappear," but I never completely lost the signal. Can Samsung fix with a software update? Probably not.
Is this a deal-breaker for me? Right now, no. Only because I mostly hold this tablet in the middle when holding horizontally. Also, I use a tablet "pillow" to prop this tablet up. And the games I play don't require me to hold this tablet with both hands. When reading, I hold vertically.
Amazon offers 30-day returns, so I can always change my mind in 23 days.
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ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I have tried again and again to use Apple because their tablets are so thin and light. But I just can't get used to not being able to customize my tablet with widgets. Thank god Samsung finally decided to make a thin and light tablet!!!!!!! That's the 1st thing you notice about this tablet! It can be held in one hand!
Likes:
- Thin and light
- Speakers sound great
- Screen: SUPERB! Great for reading Manga in my opinion...
- Available in a 6GB/128GB version
- Love the ''gold'' color...(looks like ''rose gold'' to me).
Dislikes:
- Feels a little awkward when reading epubs (cause it's a bit too big for that).
- Not enough accessories available yet.
Honestly, if I wanted a keyboard and pen, I would've bought the Tab S4, but I already have a ZAGG keyboard that I can use with this.
Feature Product
- Ultra-light for on-the-go. Lighter than a pound, our slimmest tablet won't add weight to your load. Stream, browse and more on eye catching metal design.
- Crisp. Clear. Captivating. Get drawn in to the 10. 5" Super AMOLED display with an immersive 16: 10 ratio widescreen. Shows and movies come to life in true-to-life color and crisp, clear details.
- Smartly connected. Control all your connected devices from your tablet. Adjust lights, control your TV, lock doors and even adjust the thermostat. Plus, get the details If you get a security camera alert.
- Charge Fast and go. Get up to 15 hours of video on a full charge and power up quickly with fast charging.
- Get 4 months of ad-free YouTube and YouTube music with your Samsung Galaxy device.
Description
Weighing in at less than a pound, the incredibly slim Galaxy Tab S5e is perfect for your on-the-go life. Watch your favorite shows and movies come to life on a corner-to-corner 10. 5" Super AMOLED display. Plus, control lights, door locks, the thermostat and other connected home devices right from your tablet with SmartThings. It’s everything you need, all on a thin and light Tab S5e you’ll never want to put down.
The new Tab S5e is a replacement for a 5-6 year old 8" Samsung tablet that is now a bit long in the teeth and has significantly reduced battery life.
For me these are the important features that make the Tab S5e the right unit for me.
+ Excellent high-def screen. Videos look great on the device.
+ Huge amount of storage. The 128 GB internal storage combined with a 512 GB micro SD card should be enough for a while.
+ Long battery life. I expect 12 hours of video playback to be possible.
+ Sufficient performance. I don't need a speed demon and the device is snappy.
+ USB C. One of several reasons why I did not consider an iPad.
+ Fast charge. Not so important to me but handy when you need it.
+ Light and slim. Easy to hold and handle.
+ Future proof with 6GB of memory.
I am not crazy about the following though I was aware before ordering
- Samsung crapware and eco-system. I hate their SW and BS services. This required a lot of tweaking to remove, disable or render invisible Samsung's software. Fortunately Nova Launcher simplifies this a bit.
- I wish the unit had a 16:9 aspect ratio (instead of 16:10) and were about 1" smaller. That would make holding it with one hand much easier and there'd be less wasted space with most videos.
I have heard of the wifi antenna issue that others have reported but can't really replicate the issue. While the signal indicator varies quite a bit the connection has never dropped for me. Speedtest shows me about 250 mbps download speeds. However, I have strong wifi and I don't doubt that the issue is real in situations with weak wifi implementations or lots of wifi interference.
Amazing tablet. Screen is drop dead gorgeous. Super light. Great sound from the 4 speakers.
I have zero wifi issues. Been using it for 4 days now and no dropouts or dissconnects when holding the tablet on the lower left side. Could possibly be just a silly rumor set up by Apple loyalists who cant fathom Samsung making a superior/cheaper product.
I definitely reccomend buying this tablet.
I recived my tablet today and so far, it's exactly what I wanted and expected. I'll update my review as I use the tablet. I've used a Lenovo, a kindle fire and other Samsung tablets.
Pretty excited!
The keyboard and screen is better than the Google Pixel C that this replaced, online videos , MLB TV, Plex and YouTube all play great.
Setup was easy, 15 minutes, and you can actually migrate all your apps from your old android.
I'm not sure about all the negative reviews, guess I'm lucky and got a good working new tablet.
The reports about the wifi dropping is not entirely true, the signal drops by about 1 bar if you cover the left bottom corner, but the wifi stays connected.
Beautiful picture & sound is darn good for a tablet! I've only had it 24 hours and am still adjusting to it. It is so thin it definitely needs a case, it's very slippery & hard to hang onto, so be careful! Cases are hard to find. I'm waiting because I want a keyboard case which aren't available yet.
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