| NETWORK | Technology | No cellular connectivity |
|---|
| LAUNCH | Announced | 2014, June |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Available. Released 2014, July |
| BODY | Dimensions | 247.3 x 177.3 x 6.6 mm (9.74 x 6.98 x 0.26 in) |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 465 g (1.03 lb) | |
| SIM | No |
| DISPLAY | Type | Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 10.5 inches (~72.9% screen-to-body ratio) | |
| Resolution | 2560 x 1600 pixels (~288 ppi pixel density) | |
| Multitouch | Yes | |
| - Samsung TouchWiz UI |
| PLATFORM | OS | Android OS, v4.4.2 (KitKat), upgradable to v5.0.2 (Lollipop) |
|---|---|---|
| Chipset | Exynos 5420 Octa | |
| CPU | Quad-core 1.9 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7 | |
| GPU | Mali-T628 MP6 |
| MEMORY | Card slot | microSD, up to 256 GB (dedicated slot) |
|---|---|---|
| Internal | 16/32 GB, 3 GB RAM |
| CAMERA | Primary | 8 MP, autofocus, LED flash, check quality |
|---|---|---|
| Features | Geo-tagging, panorama, HDR | |
| Video | 1080p@30fps, check quality | |
| Secondary | 2.1 MP |
| SOUND | Alert types | Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones |
|---|---|---|
| Loudspeaker | Yes, with stereo speakers | |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes |
| COMMS | WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
|---|---|---|
| Bluetooth | v4.0, A2DP, LE | |
| GPS | Yes, GLONASS, BDS | |
| Infrared port | Yes | |
| Radio | No | |
| USB | microUSB v2.0 (MHL 2.1), USB Host |
| FEATURES | Sensors | Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, compass |
|---|---|---|
| Messaging | Email, Push Email, IM | |
| Browser | HTML5 | |
| Java | No | |
| - Dropbox (50 GB cloud storage) - MP4/H.264/WMV player - MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA/Flac player - Photo/video editor - Document editor |
| BATTERY | Non-removable Li-Ion 7900 mAh battery | |
|---|---|---|
| Talk time | Up to 11 h (multimedia) | |
| Music play | Up to 121 h |
| MISC | Colors | Dazzling White, Titanium Bronze |
|---|---|---|
| SAR US | 0.77 W/kg (body) | |
| SAR EU | 0.20 W/kg (body) | |
| Price group | 7/10 |
Samsung's superb Galaxy Tab S range has just been replaced by its pair of brand-new Tab S2 tablets, but if you don't want to pay full price for the Tab S2 9.7 or want something a little larger, then the Galaxy Tab A 10.5 is still a great bargain. With its high-resolution 2,560x1,080 Super AMOLED panel, the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 continues to have one of the best screens around, putting up serious competition to the iPad Air 2, Nexus 9, and even the Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet. It's also received a £100 price drop since it first launched, too, making it a bit of a big screen bargain.
The Tab S 10.5's screen uses a slightly different AMOLED technology to Samsung's smaller Galaxy Tab S 8.4, as the 8.4 has a pentile pixel arrangement, where there are two subpixels per pixel (red and green or blue and green) instead of three (red, green and blue). The Tab S 10.5, on the other hand, has what Samsung calls "S Stripe", where each pixel has a rectangular red and a green pixel and a longer, thinner "stripe" blue pixel, so each pixel has the full three sub-pixels.
The larger number of sub-pixels on an RGB stripe display can lead to sharper text and more accurate colours compared to pentile. Samsung claims that it had to use the pentile arrangement on the Tab S 8.4 in order to fit so many pixels into the smaller screen, but had no such problems with the larger Tab S 10.5.
Despite the Tab S 8.4's screen having supposedly inferior technology, we struggled to find fault with it when compared to the Tab S 10.5 in normal use. We noticed that text on the S 8.4's screen had a slight cross-hatch effect, while the S 10.5's text consists of pure, solid lines, but you really need to try to spot it
Despite the Tab S 8.4's screen having supposedly inferior technology, we struggled to find fault with it when compared to the Tab S 10.5 in normal use. We noticed that text on the S 8.4's screen had a slight cross-hatch effect, while the S 10.5's text consists of pure, solid lines, but you really need to try to spot it
^ Compared to the smooth Galaxy Tab S 10.5 icon (left) the Galaxy Tab S 8.4's pentile arrangement (right) is clearly visible, if you look hard enough
As a result, both screens look superb and each one was incredibly vibrant. As with its little brother, our calibrator returned a perfect 100% sRGB colour gamut coverage for the Galaxy Tab S 10.5, which compares well to its big rivals, the iPad Air 2 and Xperia Z4 Tablet, as Apple's top-end tablet scored just 90.7% in the same test, while the Z4 scored 98.3%.
During subjective testing, however, the picture became a bit more muddled. When browsing web pages, we preferred the Z4 Tablet and iPad Air 2's screens as whites looked cleaner and text more solid. The Tab S 10.5's screen looked slightly yellow by comparison, but this is a common problem associated with AMOLED displays. The same was true when we switched to viewing photos, as the Tab S 10.5's screen made our images look oversaturated by comparison.
Design
The Xperia Z4 Tablet does cost another £200, though, and for its price, the Tab S 10.5 still has one of the best displays around. That quality is matched by the tablet's design, too. The tablet is available in standard Samsung white, but our review model came in Titanium Bronze.