Just the other day, Samsung accidentally leaked their upcoming flagship Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra
tablet on their own website..
And if that wasn’t bad enough, it apparently comes with a NOTCH, yes a notch!
And I don’t know if you remember or not..
But Samsung has been making fun of the notch for years, ever since the iPhone X, and even
as recent as last year when they made fun of the new MacBook Pro’s notch.
But thanks to these new leaked images, it’s pretty clear that Samsung was ironically working
on a notched tablet of their own the entire time.
And if you thought it couldn’t get any worse, they actually leaked the specs of each of
the different Tab S8 models by posting actual listings to Amazon which official images of
each model!
And the folks over at Android Authority were nice enough to compile a chart with all of
the specs..
And to be completely honest, if these are the actual specs that these tablets will come
with, then I think there’s a pretty good chance that the Tab S8 is gonna FAIL, at least
compared to Apple’s M1 iPad Pro which is soon gonna be a full-year-old, not to mention
their upcoming M2 iPad Pro coming later this year.
So in this video, I’m gonna be comparing the leaked specs and features of the Tab S8
Ultra to what we already have with the M1 iPad Pro to show how Samsung’s new tablet
is more behind than ever before!
Now the first thing I want to mention is that there will be three different sizes, including
an 11” LCD model, a 12.7” AMOLED model, and finally, the new 14.6” Ultra model,
which is the one that’s coming with a notch, and the reason for that is because it apparently
comes with a secondary 12MP selfie camera which probably uses an ultrawide lens.
And looking at the official product images that Samsung leaked on Amazon, the Tab S8
And S8 Plus look essentially identical to the design of the previous Tab S7 which we
already compared to the M1 iPad Pro.
And since the leaked display specs on the new Tab S8 Plus model is literally identical
to the one in the Tab S7+, I’ll actually be able to show you guys the differences in
display quality from the previous comparison.
But before we get into that, I want to compare some of the other specs that were leaked,
especially the chip.
Unlike last year, every Tab S8 model will now come with 8GB of RAM which perfectly matches
both models of the iPad Pro, and the Ultra model will not be able to come with up to
16GB of RAM, just like the M1 iPad Pro.
And now as far as the storage space, both the regular and Plus models will come with
128GB base storage, just like the iPad Pro, except that the Ultra model will now come
with 256GB at the base price, which is actually pretty nice.
However, the leaked Amazon listing showed a price of around 1,308 Euros for the 5G model,
which converts to around 1,479 US dollars which is actually more expensive than a similarly
specced 12.9” iPad Pro with 256GB of storage and 5G cellular, but keep in mind that the
Tab S8 Ultra will have a larger 14.6” display.
So I guess the big question is if you’re gonna be paying more money for a Samsung Android
tablet than an iPad Pro, what benefits are you getting other than the larger display
size?
Well, first of all, the S-Pen is gonna be included compared to having to buy the Apple
Pencil separately for the iPad, but unfortunately, it’s been confirmed that Samsung hasn’t
upgraded the S-Pen at all since the last-gen.
Another benefit is that the battery size on the Tab S8 Ultra will be around 4% larger
than the one in the 12.9” iPad Pro..
And one more advantage that I really wish the M1 iPad Pro had is the latest Bluetooth
5.2 and WiFi 6E support on all of the Tab S8 models, which should be a nice bonus!
And then as far as the cameras, it’s a hit or miss because the Ultra comes with two selfie
cameras, both packed with 12MP sensors, which is gonna be nice for both close up shots and
ultrawide, but then on the rear, the ultrawide camera only has 6MP resolution compared to
12 on the iPad Pro, but at least the main camera has 13MP’s on these new Samsung tablets
instead of 12 on the iPad Pro.
But now getting into the major downsides of these new tablets, the USB-C ports only support
3.2 Gen-1 speeds, which means transfer speeds of only 5Gbps, compared to the M1 iPad Pro
which comes with a Thunderbolt port with speeds up to 40Gbps, which is 8x faster!
So that’s already something that should get potential buyers thinking since the iPad
Pro has such a huge advantage in terms of the port.
But going further, every new Tab S8 model including the Ultra is coming with the same
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, which let me remind you, is a smartphone chip.
And if you’re wondering how powerful this chip is compared to Apple’s M1 in the iPad
Pro, let me first show you how it compares to Apple’s lower-end iPhone chips.
And this brings us to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip review video from Geekerwan who according
to the title..
Don’t think too fondly of this new chip.
Compared to the previous Snapdragon 888, the new chip is only 1.5% faster in terms of Geekbench
5 multi-core performance, and only around 5.7% faster for single-core, and the craziest
thing about it is that it’s slower than the three-year-old A13 chip from the iPhone
11!
Yes, let me repeat that… the brand new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 going into the new flagship Galaxy
Tab S8 Ultra has less single-core performance than the iPhone 11’s A13 chip.
But to make things even worse, this new Snapdragon chip consumes considerably more power than
Apple’s A14 and A15 chips, while being a lot slower as you can see on the right side
where it shows the score per watt.
And in case you’re wondering how it compares to the M1 chip within the 8-month old iPad
Pro, the M1 is about 42.5% faster in terms of single-core, and literally almost twice
as fast in terms of multi-core.
But thankfully, things over on the graphics side are a little bit better since the Snapdragon’s
GPU actually compared to the lower-end version of the new A15 when using the Vulkan API,
which is pretty impressive.
However, looking at the power consumption, it uses 72% more power than that same 4-core
A15 chip, leading to a pretty terrible performance per watt score.
But then once again, when we compare it to the M1 iPad Pro, there is a massive difference,
with the M1 scoring 82 FPS in the 1440P test and 210 in the 1080P test, making it 60-70%
faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
So as you guys can see, the upcoming Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra is no match for Apple’s M1
iPad Pro, especially in the multi-core performance department.
But now the last saving grace for the Samsung tablet is the AMOLED display, so let’s revisit
our comparison of the Tab S7 Plus and the 12.9” M1 iPad Pro.
One of the downsides of Samsung’s display is that it’s very reflective so it causes
it to look grey instead of being a very deep and dark black like on the iPad Pro.
And when you’re holding it up to your face, the Samsung display almost looks like a mirror
compared to barely anything being visible on the iPad.
And then in terms of HDR brightness, the mini-LED display on the iPad Pro looks incredibly bright
compared to the grey-looking Samsung.
However, the mini-LED display did suffer from blooming in this fireworks scene compared
to the AMOLED that looks much better with no blooming at all, so that’s a point for
the Samsung tablet.
But with all of that said, the specs of the new Tab S8 just can’t compete with the M1
iPad Pro, especially in terms of performance and USB-C port speeds, and that’s even before
we get into the differences in resale value, reliability, and the app store.
And this was honestly the year where Samsung needed to show a huge improvement in order
to catch up to Apple’s M1 iPad Pro.. but in my opinion, they’ve failed, and this
is all really bad news for when Apple releases their M2 iPad Pro later this year, which will
take it up another notch.
So if you’re interested in seeing Samsung’s new tablet go head to head with the M1 iPad
Pro here in a few weeks, click that circle above so you don’t miss out on our comparison
videos!
Definitely check out one of those two videos right there, and we’ll see you in the next
one!