※ Download: Samsung galaxy tab s4 keyboard
Android tablets have long felt stale, and the idea of a windowed app experience, with up to 20 windows open at once Windows has no such limit, iOS tops out at three , had me eager and excited at first. All in all, the combo works well enough to make up for the lack of customisability, however. Those after extra protection will be pleased to learn that the Tab S4 features the same iris scanner as the Samsung Galaxy S9.
Apps run fine, and even games such as Asphalt 9 are fast and smooth. One thing is for sure, though, the home and hardware navigational buttons are out of the picture considering the slim bezels. The newest version of the S Pen is included with the Galaxy Tab S4 and allows users to take notes on the fly through the Screen-Off Memo feature, as well as navigate, translate and organize notes through Samsung Notes, and send personalized texts through Samsung Live Message.
- Press the button on the barrel while hovering over the screen and you'll get a menu of pen productivity tools. As I'm the only one to report this, and I got 2 defective keyboards...
The Good The Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 raises the bar on its predecessor with a bigger display, better performance and the addition of Samsung DeX, which gives it a PC-like interface. Samsung includes an excellent S Pen for drawing and writing on the 10. The Bad The keyboard cover is not included, it's expensive and, in the end, hurts the DeX desktop experience. The Bottom Line The Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 is an excellent premium Android tablet that can also help your productivity in a pinch. Premium tablets are at a crossroads. It's no longer good enough to have great performance, an amazing display and stellar sound. If you're going to charge laptop prices for a tablet, you better make one that can be used for productivity tasks, too. And Samsung includes a full-size S Pen that extends the Tab S4's usefulness even further. Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, the Tab S4 is essentially an Android competitor to Windows 10 two-in-ones like the , and the. The big selling points for those are long battery lives and optional LTE connectivity so you can more safely work anywhere. However, Android performs better than Windows with the Snapdragon mobile processor, giving the Tab S4 an edge. An LTE version a exclusive to start, but will come to other major carriers including , and later in Q3 2018 makes it a better idea for mobile workers. In a market filling up with inexpensive Windows two-in-ones and premium Chromebooks that can run both web and Android apps, the draw for a premium tablet like this is a little unclear. It's a full-size pen making it comfortable to hold and use and it doesn't need charging. Press the button on the barrel while hovering over the screen and you'll get a menu of pen productivity tools. You can even write on the display without opening an app or even unlocking the tablet, which makes it particularly handy for jotting down a quick to-do or shopping list. While writing on glass still doesn't feel quite the same as a pen on paper, the S Pen tip has the smooth glide of a gel pen with just a modicum of delay. That and the new DeX desktop-like interface that changes the tablet's Android interface into a desktop-style experience. The feature first popped up in Samsung's Galaxy phones using the and and for the most part the experience is the same, which is to say it's not going to replace an actual PC or even a Chromebook, but it works in a pinch. You can switch to DeX from the S4's Quick Panel settings or, if you have the keyboard cover, you can have it change automatically when you sit the tablet up for typing. Attach a USB-C adapter with an HDMI output and you can work on an external display while simultaneously using the Tab S4 as a giant touchpad, or grab the S Pen and use the S4's screen like a Wacom tablet. You can also continue to use the S4 as an Android tablet, so you could keep a video playing on the tablet while you continue to work on a PowerPoint presentation on another display. There's USB and Bluetooth mouse support, too, so you don't have to rely on the touchscreen for navigation. What's irritating is there is no touchpad on the keyboard cover -- Microsoft managed to squeeze a usable one onto its smaller since that device has a built-in kickstand. While I was able to type reasonably fast on it, it's definitely cramped and not backlit. The cover also sits the screen at a single viewing angle, which works for desks, but not much else. And despite being connected to the tablet by a set of magnetic pogo pins, the keyboard would intermittently stop responding.
And today, we get to see the accessories and the white variant. First, you may want to switch the display mode. And you could use the on-device keyboard, and certainly with touch or the S Pen versus a mouse to guide that experience, so that option does exist. The cover also sits the screen at a single viewing angle, which works for desks, but not much else. My biggest concern is the glass rear. And Samsung includes a full-size S Pen that extends the Tab S4's usefulness even further. The S Pen wins points for feeling more like an actual pen than any stylus I've ever used. I'd agree that it is limiting.
