Samsung Announces Two Galaxy Tab S2 Tablets Which Are Thinner Than The iPad

Samsung Announces Two Galaxy Tab S2 Tablets Which Are Thinner Than The iPad

Samsung announced its thinnest smartphone to date last week — that’s the Galaxy A8 — and today the Korean firm took the wraps off its thinnest tablet devices so far: the Galaxy Tab S2.

Like last year’s Galaxy Tab S, design is a big focus for these two devices. And, at just 5.6mm, they are more slender than Apple’s sleekest iPad Air (6.1mm). They are available in two new sizes — 8 inch and 9.7 inch — which weigh in at just 265g and 389g, respectively. That combination of thinness and weight could make them pretty portable devices.

The Galaxy Tab S was impressive, and it shone brightest when it came to multimedia, particularly watching videos and films. It looks to be the same story again with these upcoming models. Samsung’s press materials also play up the ease of reading media on the 2048 x 1536 pixel super AMOLED display, though we’ll reserve full judgment until we’ve had a chance to get them into our hands for a deeper test.

On the specs side of things, the Galaxy Tab S2 runs Android 5.0 Lollipop. Under the hood it is powered by an octo-core processor, which pairs four 1.9GHz  cores with four 1.3GHz cores — with 3GB RAM and 32 or 64GB of internal memory. The latter is expandable to 128GB via microSD cards.

Media-wise, the tablets sport an 8-megapixel rear camera and 2.1-megapixel front camera. That’s not bad for a tablet, but we’d still rather see people taking photos and video on their phone or — god forbid — a dedicated camera, rather than bungling around with an oversized a tablet.

Samsung said the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 will go on sale across the world in August. It looks like the models will be available in white and black, but Samsung hasn’t said how much they will cost.