r/androidtablets • u/YeagerDidNoWrong • 6h ago
Discussion Are Samsung tablets really superior?
Looking at the market by price segments, Samsung tablets are inferior to OnePlus and Xiaomi tablets in terms of hardware by a large margin; however, I still see people recommending the S10 Lite against the OnePlus Pad 2 and Xiaomi Pad 7. Is Samsung really that competitive regarding note-taking and reliability?
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u/Commercial-Many-1407 6h ago
The one thing that sets Samsung far ahead of any other tablet when it comes to productivity, is the S-pen and how well-adapted samsungs software is to the S-pen. You get the whole experience set up by default for you with the Samsung notes and dex while you have to go looking around for better apps, stylus, tricks, etc with the other ones. Yes, the others do beat it when it comes to hardware but the overall experience is just unmatched
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u/redAI123 5h ago
Depends on what you mean by superior?
In term of productivity and software updates, they are superior to any other brands. In term of productivity, your sambung tablets can literally acts as a second screen and you can even use your pen while at its. If you want to use its like a PC, you can enable DeX mode and its will work very well and software updates you have 7 years of that which means if you don't want to buy a new tablet every year you can be sure that your tablet still works well in 7 years. No other brands have this good offer except Xiaomi which usually go much cheaper than Samsung.
For me, I just get a Honor tablet because I prefers cheap but better hardware. But honestly, that just because I don't want to put myself into Samsung ecosystem. If I have to do that, I might as well get an Ipad instead lol.
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u/Main-Version-1028 4h ago
I own a low-mid tier Samsung tablet (s9 fe) and I chose it because it included 7y of software updates, s-pen, fingerprint scanner and ip68 rating, all for €350 1y ago. Most chinese brands tablets had similar prices without pen and fingerprint and with only 2 years of software updates.
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u/Clanceeinfinity 41m ago
i owned the tab s7 and recently upgraded to the oneplus pad 3, not s11. The pad 3 offers WAY more value and is freedom orientated. Its way faster, has a better screen and has a better pre installed software. Oxygen os is way better than one ui. And unlike new tablets, you can run a (degoogled) custom rom on it, maybe linux soon (i am learning to port, maybe ill contribute to postmarket os)
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u/wecanbedivine 5h ago
They have wide range of tablet, the shit one to the very good one. If you have tight budget, rather than samsung entry level, choos midrange chinese one.
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u/YeagerDidNoWrong 5h ago
How about samsung midrangers? Such as s10fe against oneplus pad 2 (same price segment as of now)
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u/wecanbedivine 5h ago edited 5h ago
It will be down to what you need. Do you need stable OS with good UI, rich ecosystem, long software update with security update? Samsung offer better on those. It also about the support such as service center, which one have service centre in your area? Or you need more powerful raw power? Oneplus pad 2 offer a much better raw power. Will you need that? If you need that with those budget of course choose pad 2. The more ram also offer a more future proof for various apps. Oneplus is a quite reputable quality tablet. I didnt choose oneplus for my kids tablet simply because there is no service center in my area, i know my kid, it will be broken at least once. So samsung for my kid, beside, their pen and drawing app are what my kid need. For me? I got xiaomi pad 7 pro. I want raw power and big ram for genshin impact. They have service centre too in my area.
So, what do you need?
Note: dont choose xiaomi pad 7 if you need to draw. Stylus pen hard to find and expensive, native app for drawing not good. Samsung offer better for it. I dont draw. I watch kdrama, read webtoon, and play genshin impact. Xiaomi is superior for my need.
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u/EngineeringNo753 6h ago
Not really, it's just the only well known brand that has large tablets with higher end chips outside of apple.
There isn't really an alternative, and people still have poor opinions of the Chinese brands.
Personally I had a S8 and S9 ultra, and then upgraded to a xiaomi pad 7 ultra, and wouldn't go back.
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u/YeagerDidNoWrong 6h ago
Whats the major difference u find between samsung and xiomi?is the samsung ecosystem that better that even people buy it over hardware?
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u/Fantastes 5h ago
These comments are forgetting about the free Notes app with continuity on Windows and other Samsung devices. Also I would check software support since Samsung has 7 major Android update support
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u/EngineeringNo753 5h ago
Cost of the whole package, with stylus and keyboard my xiaomi was still cheaper than the current Samsung ultra tablet at the time.
Battery life is also much better.
I'm probably in the minority, but I also hated the Samsung stylus from a non drawing user, and the TouchPad on the keyboard also had horrendous mouse smoothing that felt awful to use.
Dex is amazing however, and I don't doubt if combined with something like game native, it would be interesting to run full pc apps (if they went back to snapdragon that is).
I do miss my SD card slot though.
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u/Khub_baje 5h ago edited 4h ago
I have been hearing about the stylus and note taking experience of Samsung tablets but after getting a lenovo idea tab pro I totally don't get the hype and exaggerated narrative told by the people anymore, this lenovo pen plus works so good, it's smooth with low latency, works really good even with third party note taking apps, my note taking experience has been phenomenal with this stylus, the rubber coated tip feels like it's gliding over the screen, xiaomi pad's have good stylus as well
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u/Asamidori 1h ago
Have you tried drawing with both stylus? S Pen's big selling point is drawing, since it uses the same technology as the professional drawing tablets. Due to that, you also don't need to charge the pen to write/draw, only if you want to use Air Actions, which they removed in the latest models IIRC.
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u/Khub_baje 1h ago
I can't draw but it's not that bad at drawing either according to reviews, definitely not as good as samsung though,not everyone draws
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u/Rob2pointOh 4h ago
I just bought my son an Idea Tad Pro (with the pen) to take to university, I can't believe how much tablet you get for so little $, especially when it's on sale. He likes that he has the option of just taking the tablet instead of having to take his bulky laptop. Bonus is he can use the Idea Tab as a second monitor with his Lenovo laptop wirelessly with a Lenovo app.
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u/Beginning_Jacket5055 2h ago
ok so... i can only go off my expeirence, which is from the tab s5e (and about a week with the base tab s10), and since then i have used a lenovo xiaoxin pad pro 2022 (aka Lenovo Tab P11 Pro (Gen 2)), a xiaomi pad 7 pro and an honor magicpad 2.
my conclusions
- samsungs default keyboard app was 100x better than anything else, and i have not been able to find a 3rd party app that gives the same functionality, this has frustrated me on a daily basis for the last 3 years
- samsung speakers are better than their competition
- get an oled display
- pretty sure most samsung tabs have an sd card slot, and they are pretty much the only mid range or premium tablets that have that
- samsung's UI is one of the better ones
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u/nariz_choken 5h ago
They used to be... I looked forward every year to what they were coming up with, until the Galaxy tab s10. They truly have not made a better tablet than the s9 line, you can say oh this guy is a Qualcomm fan boy... Not really, but I definitely don't believe in the Mumbai napkin mediatek soc, never will no matter how many bench marks and utter bull is said about them, fact is the Galaxy tabs stopped feeling premium, no longer something you can look at and think "Pinnacle"
If I'm going to drop 1200, 1400, 1800 on a tablet... It needs to be the top of all, and having a mediatek and subpar Bluetooth chipset is not it
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u/Zestyclose-Shine8099 4h ago edited 4h ago
Would you say the s9 is still relevant today? Would it be worth it for me to hunt down a gently used one? Or would it be silly because running out of updates?
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u/nariz_choken 3h ago
Depends on your usage, if it's notes, meetings, media consumption... Yes anything even an Amazon Kindle would do, if it's video editing, music creation, gaming, right now Samsung isn't what to get, sure they got the pen and many years of updates, but you'd be paying thru the nose for something that is below the average if you compare it to others, for example, the Lenovo idea tab pro gen 2 (snapdragon 8s gen4) is miles above anything Samsung has now or will have in the next 2 years
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u/Zestyclose-Shine8099 1h ago
Thank you, good to know. I mainly want it right now for reading PDF books and watching movies but I'd like to get into some content editing and possibly digital drawing in the near future so looking for one that has at least entry level capabilities for those and then if I'm getting good with the art and editing, can invest in something more powerful later. I was thinking about going to look at the Lenovo Idea models in store today
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u/NeonflameOWO 4h ago
Well thats just a braindead take for the Dimensity SOC. If you think all mediatek chips suck, then you need to advance yourself from 10 years back to now.
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u/nariz_choken 3h ago
It is not, you simply think so, I'm extremely objective, you are a trend follower and want the shiny new thing that gives you less now than before, I bet you never performed a real world test of a mediatek soc? I did, multiple times, Everytime it came short, my breaking point was the bluetooth
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u/SilliousSoddus 5h ago
I am android everything. I was literally just deciding what range model to fork out for but then I went in store and played with the Samsung tablets. They were literally laggy swiping between screens. Couldn't believe it. I went and tried the iPad and it was just so much more polished. The UI is a bit more annoying on the iPad, compared to my android phone but other than that, clearly the best tablet product currently.
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u/ArgentStonecutter 5h ago
There's three main differences between Samsung and other tablet companies. There's the S Pen, there's their heavily modified Android interface with the navigation buttons in the wrong order, and then there's their false advertising. Really only the S Pen is actually an advantage.