Productivity-focused tablets are breathing new life into a market that’s been on the decline for a while now, and Samsung wants a piece of the action. As part of the tablet line that started this revitalization, it’s only natural that the Surface Pro 4 be the dominant player on the market at the moment, followed by the iPad Pro and Google’s new Pixel C, not to mention a handful of Surface clones from companies like Dell and HP. Samsung’s newest addition to the tablet market is actually a bit of a Surface clone itself, considering how it runs on Windows 10, but what separates it from the clones that the likes of Dell and HP have released is that Samsung actually knows how to make a good tablet, and the Galaxy TabPro S is certainly that. From what the company unveiled on Tuesday, the device looks gorgeous and packs some serious hardware.
Samsung has shown off its new Galaxy TabPro S, a tablet running Microsoft’s Windows 10 to take on the likes of the iPad Pro and Surface Pro 4. Another entry into the “laptop killer” category, this tablet promises full notebook PC performance plus a keyboard cover complete with trackpad. The Galaxy TabPro S, unveiled at CES 2016, is indeed slender at 6.3mm thin and 693g, so can be conceivably be carried around all day. The full-sized keyboard cover, which comes included with the tablet, is a pleasure to use and WIRED had a good experience playing with it – the trackpad in particular was impressively responsive. A Pogo pin on the keyboard means there is no need for pairing or charging separately. The 12in Super AMOLED display (2,160×1440 pixels) is, as you would expect, bright and clear. According to Samsung the multitouch screen can reproduce “a deeper colour contrast with 94 percent of natural tones” to better show true-to-life colours. And that, coupled with the size of the screen, is good news for media playback and gaming. The overall impression is a quality product with some clever industrial design that fulfils the brief of being a viable replacement for your existing laptop. For connectivity the TabPro S supports LTE Cat 6, while the 5,200mAh battery borrows the fast-charging tech from Samsung smartphones so can fully charge in 2.5 hours, with a claimed 10.5 hour battery life. The tablet’s 2.2GHz Intel Core M processor delivers a low 4.5W of power consumption.
