Tablets were designed to replace PCs and laptops, letting us stream content, browse the web, read books, even edit documents and photos. As time progressed, most of us switched from small screen phones to large phones with massive screen sizes. Looking at it as a trend, Samsung recently introduced the Galaxy Tab S5e. It’s a tablet with a large screen, aiming to offer superior and unparalleled performance at a sweet price tag of Rs. 24,999*. If you’re looking for a tablet with a solid premium design and an abundance of features at a reasonable price, you will want to read more on the Galaxy Tab S5e.
Design and Build
The Samsung Tab S5e has a refreshed design. It comes with a polished metal body, which is strong and durable. The brush matte finish adds a fine line of elegance to the S5e. Tablets are meant to be lightweight and Samsung has ensured that by designing the S5e to be incredibly thin and weighing only 400g. It is extremely easy to carry around for meetings or to classrooms. The Galaxy Tab S5e maintains a compact form-factor while offering a massive 10.5-inch display. The screen is surrounded by a thin bezel, which is quite similar to the older Galaxy Tab S4. Samsung has trimmed down the bezels, but at the same time has ensured there is enough room to rest thumbs when holding the tablet. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e is available in a range of three classy colours – gold, silver and black.
The back of the S5e is simple and clean. There’s a single camera lens, antenna bands and the Samsung logo engraved at the center. The camera lens slightly protrudes a bit. Along the sides is a connector pin to attach to a Samsung keyboard, four speaker grills, a microSD card tray and a USB Type-C charging connector. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack, so you are only left with an option to use an adapter or a nice pair of wireless earphones. With an attempt to reduce the bezel, Samsung has got rid of the home button from the front. The power button is on the right edge of the S5e and it doubles as a fingerprint sensor. The button is clickable and flat. The placement of the power button feels raised and we found ourselves searching for it quite often. A physical fingerprint sensor may be less trendy than the in-display fingerprint feature, but many people might find it best in practice. There are volume buttons right below the power button, which are easy to access with an index finger.
Features
Samsung showcases several new innovations with every new tablet they design. The Galaxy Tab S5e is thoughtfully designed with a Super AMOLED display. It has a 2560 x 1600 resolution giving the tablet a 16:10 aspect ratio. It is a treat for your eyes when reading or watching content. Besides brighter and colourful display, four AKG-tuned speakers also grab your attention. Speakers are integrated with the auto-rotate stereo technology to produce better sound depending on how you hold the tablet (portrait or landscape). In addition, the S5e features Dolby Atmos sound for a powerful, loud and immersive 3D surround sound.
On paper, the Tab S5e’s specification might not surprise or impress. It features mid-range hardware - a Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 processor and 4GB of RAM. This is powerful enough to drive the tablet to do just about anything like browsing, chatting, watching movies and reading. The internal storage is 64GB, sufficient to store number of apps and media. It can be expanded up to 128GB using a microSD card.
The Tab S5e runs Android 9 Pie, which is optimized for better and uninterrupted performance. It comes with a 7,040 mAh non-removable battery, letting you enjoy up to 15 hours of video playback. This is roughly the length of 8 movies. The Galaxy Tab S5e and the Tab S4 have a lot in common, except the S-Pen and LTE support. The Tab S5e has the same display, identical 13MP rear + 8MP front camera and support for Samsung DeX at a reasonable price tag. Samsung Dex offers a PC-like environment, which means you can turn your Tab S5e into a laptop. In terms of security, the Tab S5e features both fingerprint and face unlock, which is expected on every new device these days.
Performance
Samsung is known for making quality screens and the Tab S5e is a good example of it. The large 10.5-inch AMOLED display is bright and vibrant. Content appears colourful with decent contrast and brightness. Colours aren’t accurate and they’re on the gaudier side. The Tab S5e isn’t limited to viewing content, because its slim and lightweight form factor can make it a good eBook reader. You can easily spend hours on reading. You can also have extended gaming sessions on the Tab S5e. We played a few basic car racing games such as Asphalt 8. It was fun on the wide screen but more importantly of the vivid visuals.
The Tab S5e has a good screen, but what about the audio quality? The S5e supports Dolby Atmos and the quad speaker setup are tuned by AKG, a sound division owned by Samsung. This makes the S5e loud, but not extra-ordinary. The interesting thing is the auto-rotate stereo technology, which reorients audio depending on how you hold the tablet. We watched several movie trailers and YouTube videos. It’s pretty loud and impactful with deeper bass. We felt the vocals were not clear with the volume cranked all the way up. Other competing products only have a single speaker that gets easily muffled when you cover the speaker, and that’s where the S5e’s quad speaker is magical.
We ran few benchmarks to test the hardware compatibility and performance of the S5e. The AnTuTu benchmark that runs CPU, GPU and memory tests scored 1,86,908. This is a really good score in a tablet at this price. The 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme gaming benchmark earned an OpenGL score of 1,588, whereas the Vulkan score was 1,544. The scores obtained are not challenging, but they aren’t bad either. The Geekbench benchmark’s single-core and multi-core scores were 341 and 1,418 respectively. Talking about the productivity tool, the Samsung DeX gives you a PC-like environment. You can connect the keyboard case to the S5e and continue working. There are few apps that adapt to DeX’s PC-like environment automatically. You also have an option to force other apps to adapt to the DeX environment so you can multitask just like you would on a PC or laptop. We did notice slight sluggishness when we forcefully tried adapting apps to the DeX mode. We were able to run several tasks on a 7,040 mAh battery packed inside the S5e. It is optimized for a long-lasting performance and that should keep you entertained for a day or more on a sustained use.
Conclusion
The Galaxy Tab S5e is a gem in the market if you don’t want to spend a lot on a tablet. It is also a great alternative to a laptop, if paired with a keyboard and the Samsung DeX offers a PC-like environment. Overall, it’s the ideal Android tablet designed for watching movies, browsing and basic gaming. Priced at Rs. 24,999*, the S5e has a decent AMOLED display, excellent build quality and good speakers. It is perfectly tuned to redefine the entertainment space. The Tab S5e’s slim factor and long-lasting battery makes it the perfect travel companion. As long as you don’t use the Tab S5e for a lot of gaming, you’ll be content with its performance.
