Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra — the ultimate tablet for Android?
Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra has a large canvas for digital artists. Picture and illustration Noel Campion
Apple has been trying to blur the lines between tablets and computers and while the iPad Pro can replace a lot of what we’ve traditionally used our laptops for, there’s still a wide gap to fill to make them a true replacement or alternative.
Android tablets don’t generally offer the same class-leading hardware or software, but Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S series continues to buck the Android trend with outstanding hardware and Samsung-exclusive apps and software features that make it come close to closing that gap.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra is a giant among tablets. The 14.6-inch display is surrounded by thin bezels, which are even smaller than the bezels on last year's Tab S7 Plus while maintaining the same 5.5mm thickness. This seems impossibly thin, considering most phones are over 7mm thick.
I didn’t receive any extras with my loan unit from Samsung, which made me nervous to carry around and use the Ultra. That being said, the front is protected by Gorilla Glass 5, while the body is aluminium. Still, anyone buying the Ultra should consider some form of case to protect it especially if you intend on travelling with it a lot.
Despite the thinness, the Ultra feels solid and robust, with little flex in the 726g body.
The front features two cameras and a small cutout to house them. At the back is the camera bump, with dual cameras and an LED flash. To the left is a glossy stripe to which the S-Pen magnetically clings. The rest of the body, including the sides, has a matt texture and it looks almost identical to the Tab S7 Plus, albeit larger.
The left and right sides have two speaker grills, top and bottom, for a quad-speaker setup. These produce an incredibly powerful and balanced sound that’s great for watching movies or listening to music.
The top left has the power and volume buttons, as well as a slot for the microSD card and SIM card slot if you choose the 5G model. The base has a three-pin POGO connector for smart accessories like the keyboard dock and the right has the USB-C port.
The thing I absolutely love about the Tab S8 Ultra is the size. The large screen is stunning in every way. However, the size does make it unwieldy as a tablet, and you need to consider why you want or need something with such a large display. It has so many amazing benefits, but it’s harder to bring with you and it feels a little awkward at times to hold.
A sturdy case or keyboard cover is a must and should be factored into the cost of ownership from day one.
The other design choice I’ve never been a fan of is the placement of the S-Pen on the back. It’s awkward to find the correct place and to charge, it has to have the nib facing the cameras. Also, when you put it down on a desk or flat surface, the S-Pen gets in the way and you have to remove it. The only solution would be to use a case that has a dedicated slot for it. Of course, the S-Pen doesn't need to be charged to work, but it does need the power to perform remote functions like using it to trigger the camera.
The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra has a massive 16:9 ratio, 14.6-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and WQXGA+ resolution. This is the pinnacle of display technology and a true marvel to behold, regardless of what you’re doing on it.
As it is a tablet, I find you tend to hold it closer than you would a laptop and the screen gets eye-watering bright. The text is sharp, the colours pop and the contrast is everything you’d expect from a high-end AMOLED panel.
The 16:9 aspect ratio is ideal for watching movies, and YouTube videos and in general is fantastic for all sorts of media consumption. The small bezels allow for an impressive 90% screen-to-body ratio, with the only blemish being the notch at the top that interrupts the otherwise perfect display.
I’ve done all the benchmarks and compared the Ultra to the 7 Plus as well as other tablets including the class-leading iPad Pro, which totally sits on top of the numbers as the clear winner. However, unless you’re spending all your time playing triple "A" gaming titles, you're not going to notice a real-world difference between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip in the Ultra over last year’s Tab S7’s Snapdragon 865 Plus. In all my testing, the Ultra was always fast and responsive using the base model with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage — the 512GB version comes with 16GB of RAM.
Android OS still has a lot of catching up to do with iPad OS. Many apps are still not optimised for the larger screen, but Samsung has done an incredible job of filling in many of the cracks with OneUI 4.1.
Where the massive screen on the Ultra really shines is in DeX mode, which is Samsung’s alternative interface that turns the tablet into a PC-style desktop. You can also cast DeX from the tablet to a monitor or TV wirelessly or wired. Connect a mouse and keyboard and the whole system starts to feel more like a desktop or laptop.
With my artist's hat on, the Tab S8 Ultra is a dream to use with the S Pen, which has a latency of 2.8ms. The soft tip means it doesn’t slip on the surface of the glass as it does with the Apple Pencil. The downside is that the tips wear out much quicker. Samsung has been perfecting its own software to take full advantage of the S-Pen but also third-party apps are getting better too including Clip Studio Paint and video editing software LumaFusion which is due to be released for Android later this year.
I’ve tried a lot of drawing and creative apps on the Tab S8 Ultra and many are excellent, but none compare to the class-leading Procreate, which is still exclusive to the iPad. The Tab S8 Ultra hardware and S-Pen are excellent and the big screen is a joy to draw on, but while Samsung has got the hardware right, it now needs a Procreate killer app for Android to lure more digital artists their way.
I’m bewildered as to why Samsung decided not to include a charger in the box of the Tab S8 Ultra. Even Apple includes one with all of its tablets. It supports up to 45W charging and using a 65W charger won’t make it charge any faster. It does come with a long USB-C to USB-C cable and a SIM tray ejector tool in the box.
Like the iPad, you should be good for an average screen on time of 10 hours depending on the usual factors such as screen brightness and CPU activity.
Despite all the niggles I have with the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, it is still one of my favourite tech products of this year so far. The screen is stunning, and the performance is second only to the M1 iPad. Although Android still needs optimising for tablets, Samsung has to be commended for their gigantic efforts with OneUI and DeX, which continue to improve with each new update.
As a media device, the Ultra is unmatched. The big question is the Ultra too big for you? If so, then the alternative might be the smaller Tab S8 or Tab S8 Plus.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra from €1,179 samsung.com/ie
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