Difference between revisions of "Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e"

Revision as of 12:59, 25 March 2022

Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Overview

Features

Qualcomm SDM670 Snapdragon 670 (10 nm) chipset
Octa-core CPU (2x2 GHz performance cores, 6x1.7 GHz efficiency cores)
10.5" AMOLED display (2560x1600 resolution, infinite:1 contrast ratio)
Adreno 615 video chipset
64GB internal eMMC storage with 4GB of RAM

or

128GB internal eMMC storage with 6GB of RAM

Other

13MP main camera, 8MP front camera
4k at 30fps recording mode for main camera
Bluetooth 5.0
802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi (SM-T720 and 725 models)
LTE 4G support (SM-T725 model only)
4 speakers
Li-Po 7040 mAh rechargeable battery, 18W fast charging capable
Single USB-C 3.1 port

Android 9 to Android 11 supported

Best retro purpose

Early DOS and Windows 3.1 era gaming, for titles released before 1995 or as office computer. Unfortunately, despite the somewhat adequate CPU speed, the video chipset is definitely too slow for anything beyond 320x200 resolution and even 640x480 resolution is quite taxing on Windows 3.1. DOS games support is quite good if you do not need any soundcard and the PC beeper is enough.

Benchmarks

Durability and Repair-ability

The build quality seems good, with reasonably sturdy materials. No high hopes for impact survivability as the front glass has no special reinforced glass design other than a typical mid-range smartphone. As is typical with all tablets, there is no way of easily replacing the internal battery. A protection cover is essential and a smart one, that also holds its closed position, along with automatically triggering the screen on and off is recommended.

Greatest features & flaws

Features	Flaws
Great OLED screen with unbeatable contrast	Blue colour rendering less than perfect
Slim design	Slow chipset and CPU as with most tablets
Reasonably good camera image quality	Insufficient battery capacity/power efficiency for whole day operation
Good sound reproduction capability	Mediocre to poor wi-fi performance

Review

A midrange tablet released in 2019. The highlight of this model is the always enticing OLED screen, with perfect display uniformity, contrast and visual comfort. Unfortunately, despite the release date of this model, the screen does not feature any HDR10 capability and colour reproduction is slightly disappointing for blues, as they look closer to purple. This is typical of older OLED display technology. Vertical screen scrolling can be slightly annoying due to colour motion blur effect, as updates are slower than expected. However, the contrast and uniformity of the display make the visual comfort close to perfect in most circumstances.

The chipset is, clearly, the major design issue. As with most tablets, and especially so for Samsung ones, the CPU specifications are way too conservative. In general, poor performance can be more readily accepted on smaller screens, like ones of mobile phones, but tablets should have much better CPUs as they drive bigger screens, were any slowdown is that much more noticeable. Moreover, as tablets are expected to have more usability time, poorer performing CPUs also tend to use up more of the battery's capacity. However, Samsung is not the only manufacturer to blame for this approach as most Android tablets do not have better CPU/GPU and chipset combinations.

The tablet's responsiveness is decent, albeit laggy in some instances, especially when browsing the internet or using more demanding applications. The 4GB RAM configuration feels outright obsolete considering the screen and potential of the tablet, but it is, again, in line with other manufacturer's poor design decisions. A tablet with such a high resolution screen should have 6 and 8GB RAM configurations to ensure better response, especially when the rest of the configuration is not fast enough. 4GB RAM configurations are somewhat minimal even for midrange phones.

The battery capacity is another disappointment. As the CPU and screen are not particularly energy efficient, reasonably intense operation of the tablet is unlikely to reach a whole day without recharging. The camera performance is decent for a tablet, in-line with average expectations for such a device, as cameras usage is not particularly concerning in this scenario.

The wireless performance of the tablet is nothing to be excited. Although the tablet supports Wi-Fi 5 or 802.11 ac standard, networking performance is significantly lower than expected for a typical upper market tablet and transfers may be slightly slower than on similarly equipped mid-range phones. This means that watching 1080p60fps video clips may be quite difficult in some cases.

The included software installation has about the same issue as most tablets: not enough applications can be uninstalled to reduce the impact of unneccessary ones using CPU and RAM resources, dragging down the system performance. Other than that, the Android and OneUI 3 experience is pretty typical. Android 11 runs reasonably fast.

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 == Review ==
-A midrange, somewhat compact, business laptop, released in 1995. It had a below average mix of parts for a 486. While the CPU is good for a 486, the sub-par video chipset and the lack of any soundcard seriously position this laptop as more of a low-end model, despite what IBM stated.
+A midrange tablet released in 2019. The highlight of this model is the always enticing OLED screen, with perfect display uniformity, contrast and visual comfort. Unfortunately, despite the release date of this model, the screen does not feature any HDR10 capability and colour reproduction is slightly disappointing for blues, as they look closer to purple. This is typical of older OLED display technology. Vertical screen scrolling can be slightly annoying due to colour motion blur effect, as updates are slower than expected. However, the contrast and uniformity of the display make the visual comfort close to perfect in most circumstances.
-The Western Digital branded video chipset was already obsolete by the time of the laptop's release. The lack of any acceleration functions means that even running Windows 3.1 in 640x480 feels sluggish and Windows 95 operation feels very slow. It is very difficult to understand why IBM insisted on using such video chipsets that do not even expose VESA capabilities, requiring loading a special VESA TSR to be able to run Windows in 640x480 resolution. Also, although resolutions such as 1024x768 at 256 colors are possible, they are clearly beyond the user's patience.
+The chipset is, clearly, the major design issue. As with most tablets, and especially so for Samsung ones, the CPU specifications are way too conservative. In general, poor performance can be more readily accepted on smaller screens, like ones of mobile phones, but tablets should have much better CPUs as they drive bigger screens, were any slowdown is that much more noticeable. Moreover, as tablets are expected to have more usability time, poorer performing CPUs also tend to use up more of the battery's capacity. However, Samsung is not the only manufacturer to blame for this approach as most Android tablets do not have better CPU/GPU and chipset combinations.
-The inclusion of a relatively modern TFT screen, having a good contrast ratio and response time is one of the few saving graces in terms of technical prowess as most laptops of its era either had poor color LCDs or good but monochrome ones. RAM capabilities are mixed. The lack of standardization means that memory upgrades are quite difficult to find, as the laptop require a potentially proprietary memory module standard, the so-called memory module adapter, that looks like PCMCIA but is not PCMCIA, to be used.
+The tablet's responsiveness is decent, albeit laggy in some instances, especially when browsing the internet or using more demanding applications. The 4GB RAM configuration feels outright obsolete considering the screen and potential of the tablet, but it is, again, in line with other manufacturer's poor design decisions. A tablet with such a high resolution screen should have 6 and 8GB RAM configurations to ensure better response, especially when the rest of the configuration is not fast enough. 4GB RAM configurations are somewhat minimal even for midrange phones.
 <youtube width="500" height="281">1iiKe2iNQWw</youtube>
-The included standard capacity harddrive is not adequate as even modest Windows 95 installations with a Microsoft Office 95 package can take around more than 300MB. The harddrive itself is noisy and very bulky (12mm height) but the plastic drive cage along with the laptop's own casing offer excellent noise damping capabilities as metal frames are almost entirely avoided.
+The battery capacity is another disappointment. As the CPU and screen are not particularly energy efficient, reasonably intense operation of the tablet is unlikely to reach a whole day without recharging. The camera performance is decent for a tablet, in-line with average expectations for such a device, as cameras usage is not particularly concerning in this scenario.
-One of the famous features of this laptop is the easily lift-able keyboard that is operated by sliding some side latches on the chassis. This offers very easy access to most internal parts such as the battery, harddrive, floppy drive, memory. This was a very nice design feature that, fortunately, does not compromise too much the laptop's rigidity, keyboard feel and durability. Although latches can be damaged with improper operation they do withstand long use quite well and the keyboard hinges survives some rough handling.
+The wireless performance of the tablet is nothing to be excited. Although the tablet supports Wi-Fi 5 or 802.11 ac standard, networking performance is significantly lower than expected for a typical upper market tablet and transfers may be slightly slower than on similarly equipped mid-range phones. This means that watching 1080p60fps video clips may be quite difficult in some cases.
-The keyboard, trackpoint and trackpoint buttons are at the classic IBM standard. While the keyboard is not quite the best, mainly due to the lift-able design feature that reduced the travelling distance of the keys and made the keyboard feel more rigid than it should, it is still good compared with some low-end products of other manufacturers.
+The included software installation has about the same issue as most tablets: not enough applications can be uninstalled to reduce the impact of unneccessary ones using CPU and RAM resources, dragging down the system performance. Other than that, the Android and OneUI 3 experience is pretty typical. Android 11 runs reasonably fast.
-Software support is a mixed experience. While hardware capabilities are not outright bad, the video chipset seriously limit comfortable operating systems to Windows 3.1. Although Windows 95 is entirely possible, you should have at least 16MB of RAM available. DOS gaming is below average as anything newer than Wolfenstein 3D is barely playable, as is the case for the venerable DOOM.
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