Despite the declining tablet market, Samsung thought it would be a good idea to launch the Galaxy Tab S3, a powerful Android tablet with a glass body and last year’s flagship mobile processor from Qualcomm.
It also sports a bunch of great specs that makes it a really nice media consumption device. However, it does have one killer feature that may stop people from buying it: Its price.
The Galaxy Tab S3 is very much your conventional Android tablet. It runs on Android 7.0 Nougat, is powered by a Snapdragon 820 processor paired with 4GB of RAM. You can sort of think of it as a Galaxy S7 who has had its Super AMOLED screen stretched to 9.7 inches.
But what a screen that is as it pushes a tantalising 2048×1536 pixel resolution. It also supports HDR 10 for great details in contrast and the ability to get the most out of HDR content. Besides that, the Tab S3 has four speakers tuned by AKG by Harman at each corner of its glass and metal body. If you need more than the 32GB of onboard storage, there is an option to expand storage further via a microSD card.
There’s a 6,000 mAh battery with support for quick charging via USB Type C. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack, a fingerprint scanner, a 13MP/5MP camera combo, Samsung Flow, Bluetooth 4.2 and LTE support (via nano SIM).
Although it’s certainly a table that’s built with content consumption in mind, Samsung also positions it as a productivity device especially when you get the optional keyboard. Good news is that Samsung includes an S Pen with the tablet, though the bad news is there’s no easy way to store it on the tablet itself.
For more info on this, check out the post we did earlier when we first saw it at MWC 2017.
Now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 will be priced at RM2,999, which makes this one expensive tablet. So expensive that it’s going head to head with the 9.7-inch iPad Pro! That also means it’s Android Nougat vs iOS and I don’t think I need to tell you which operating system is better optimised for the tablet form factor.
In fact, for this price, you could also consider a convertible running a full copy of Windows 10 for much more productivity and versatility.
If you want to pick up the optional Pogo Keyboard, you will have to fork out an additional RM499 for it too. If you’re on a budget or simply don’t need a keyboard, you can also opt for the Book Cover which retails for RM199 and comes in three different colours — Black, White, and Green.
This tablet will go on sale on the 1st of June 2017 at Samsung Experience stores and authorised dealers nationwide as well as online at Lazada and 11street.
