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00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here. And this, this is the best Android tablet out right now,
00:07and it looks like it's from the future or something. Like if you showed this to someone
00:1115 years ago, they would think it's impossible. Like it's this impossibly thin 1.6 pound powerful
00:16media machine with speakers that somehow fill a room, a massive battery, and an entire desktop
00:22computer interface inside. I mean it's so thin you'd swear you could just snap it in
00:26half super easily, which I'm not going to try it, but someone keep this thing away
00:30from Zach. So this is the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. So yes, there is a Galaxy Tab S8 and a Tab
00:38S8+, both of them far more reasonable, far less expensive, and most importantly, smaller.
00:44But you know what, there's a real interest in huge tablets like this, mega tablets, because
00:49there is an actual benefit to tablets that are this big, I would know, because I've been
00:54using this one. And the benefits of this massive, nearly 15 inch screen are for media watching,
00:59gaming, multitasking, and of course the huge canvas for the stylus. They're all very real.
01:05There are also some real drawbacks though. So if you are one of the many people who have
01:09been tweeting at me asking about this thing, wondering if it's a legit iPad Pro alternative,
01:13well this is everything you need to know. So really the number one standout piece of this
01:19tablet is the top-notch display. Sorry, I had to. We'll get there. But the screen is
01:25just awesome. And there's a bunch of things that combine to make it probably the most
01:28impressive I've ever seen in a tablet. Number one is just of course the sheer size of it.
01:3314.6 inches diagonally, which definitely suits the Ultra name. And it's got these thin symmetrical
01:39bezels all the way around, aside from the dual cameras. Now we're working with a 16
01:43by 10 aspect ratio at 2960 by 1848 resolution, which sounds really high. In person, it's
01:50not the sharpest thing I've ever seen just because it's so huge. So it checks out to
01:54about 240 PPI. And if you get close enough with this pixel arrangement, you can actually
01:59start to see the soft edges of some texts and icons and things like that. But it's definitely
02:03not a problem at all for normal viewing distances. And then it's OLED. So I think this is the
02:09largest OLED touchscreen I've ever used. We all know about the mini LED displays and
02:14some laptops and even the iPad Pro with their tons of local dimming zones. But this is a
02:18full size basically laptop size screen where every individual pixel lights itself. So you're
02:24getting those pitch black inky blacks, you're getting an incredible contrast ratio and watching
02:29videos that take advantage of it are very impressive. There's also an optical fingerprint
02:33reader underneath the display on the right hand side. The only thing really that's not
02:37world class about this display, honestly, is that it's not LTPO, it's just 120 Hertz
02:42all the time. And the max brightness, it maxes out at 380 nits, which is actually totally
02:48reasonable inside, but it's not actually doing much if you go out in the sun, if you're the
02:52type of person to use a tablet near a window. So that's just something to keep in mind.
02:55Just for context, the M1 iPad Pro gets up to 600 nits and the S22 Ultra, the phone I
03:00just reviewed, gets up to 1750 nits. But you know, that's a phone you use outside. So let's
03:05talk about the notch then, right? So huge display, up at the top in the middle, there's
03:10this little tiny notch with two cameras in it. That's two 12 megapixel 4K webcams, one
03:16regular and one ultra wide. They're both too big to fit in the thin bezels that they fitted
03:21all the way around the tablet, so it punches in a little bit. They've put this little notch
03:24up here. It's tiny, it's way smaller than the iPhone's notch and in a display that's
03:29way bigger. Honestly, it doesn't bother me at all. Use the screen for three seconds and
03:33it disappears to your eye and you forget about it. Now, is there a hilarious irony
03:37that this is the same company that made these commercials, making fun of the notch every
03:41chance they got? And now they're the first to put a notch on their tablet? Yeah, absolutely.
03:46That's really funny, but I don't actually mind it here. What I will say is they did
03:49put them in the right place, which is on the horizontal long side of the bezel, because
03:54this is a tablet that's basically meant to be used horizontally all the time. You know,
03:59on iPad, maybe you can argue sometimes use it in portrait, like a notebook and a clipboard,
04:04sometimes in landscape. This one feels pretty ridiculous holding it vertical. And I think
04:10Samsung knows it's going to be horizontal a lot with this aspect ratio. And so they
04:13put the webcam on the top and the fingerprint reader over there on the side is easily reachable
04:19with your thumb. It's great. And then Dave2D said something really interesting, really
04:23smart in his video, which is we don't actually usually hold these huge tablets while we're
04:28using them. Like sometimes you do, sure. Maybe you're leaning back on the couch, holding
04:32it up, watching a video, maybe typing something out real quick. But actually, most of the
04:36time we're using a tablet, we're sitting it down somewhere. It's like propped up or it's
04:41in a folio case. I don't think my iPad Pro has left its folio case in like a year just
04:46because I prop it up all the time. And so there is a book cover case available for the
04:51S8 Ultra, but it costs $350. So there's a kickstand, get to prop it up, watch stuff.
05:00But this plus the keyboard, $350. So I've been using this total, at least $1,450 package
05:10for about a week. And it's great. Honestly, it's great. The performance and animations
05:14have been consistent. It's amazing for media consumption, YouTube, Netflix, games. That
05:21is not a surprise. What's interesting is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in here, it turns
05:24out it's actually underclocked a little bit. This actually benchmarks lower than phones
05:29running the same chip. But I'm telling you, that's because a phone is eight millimeters
05:34thick and it can actually fit a new cooling solution for this hot new chip. This tablet
05:39is too thin and can't fit that. So this tablet will get a little bit warm and underclock
05:44a little bit. So then the battery life is okay. So it has, it has a surprisingly large
05:4911,200 milliamp hour battery in here, despite being so thin, but it also has a huge screen.
05:56So evens out, I was getting about eight hours of screen on time on a heavy day, which is
06:01a bit more than a really good phone, but you definitely do still have to charge it at the
06:04end of a heavy day if you use it a lot. But if you use it occasionally, you know, the
06:09standby time is excellent. It can last you several days. I just have a feeling if you're
06:12spending this much on a tablet convertible thing, you're going to want to actually get
06:17a lot of use out of it. So we're probably already fully entrenched in the, what is a
06:22computer conversation. So this computer is very much still a large Android tablet. So
06:30that means it has all of the pros and cons of every other Android tablet, meaning there's
06:35still no Instagram app that scales properly. My to-do list app, TickTick, doesn't really
06:40take advantage of the whole screen. SoundCloud doesn't work. There's lots of apps that don't
06:44look amazing on this huge screen because that's the way it is with Android tablets.
06:50And that's on the developers, yes, but that's a pretty consistent Android tablet thing.
06:54But you know what? There's one way you could say is maybe a way around it, and that is
06:59Samsung's DeX. So DeX is Samsung's desktop UI that's built into a lot of their devices.
07:05So if you were to plug into a keyboard and a monitor, or in this case, the book cover
07:09keyboard, and hit the shortcut key, it switches you into DeX mode, which kind of feels like
07:15a Chromebook. So you've got a dock at the bottom that actually matches what you had
07:18in tablet mode, plus a windowed UI now that lets you multitask and move things around.
07:24You can do file management and treat it a lot more like a real computer, or at least
07:28the Chromebook. So the trackpad is decent. It's just overall a next level of versatility
07:33that makes this thing way more useful if you are trying to turn it into your primary computer.
07:38You can also change the opacity of Windows for some reason. It's great. It's definitely
07:43not perfect though. There's plenty of apps that don't play well with the scaling. The
07:47whole system still has the same problem too that the iPad has, which is it's very top
07:51heavy. All of the weight is in the tablet, and it's genuinely difficult to use it on
07:55your lap like a normal laptop. But I still say this is clearly better than the iPad's
08:01attempt at being a computer. It does a lot of things better. It does the floating Windows
08:05support way better than the iPad ever has. It has a micro SD card slot, which the iPad
08:10has never had. And it also has the cameras horizontally in the right place and in much
08:15better quality than the iPad. So for video calls or recording videos with the front facing
08:19cameras, these cameras are actually really good. The ultra wide camera even has auto
08:24framing, although it's not nearly as responsive or smooth as the iPad Pro, and it cuts down
08:29to 1080p in this mode, but at least it looks like you're looking at the person you're talking
08:35to on a Zoom call. And then last but not least, drawing stuff. Now, I'm not even going
08:40to pretend to be an artist who can take advantage of the differences between this and the Apple
08:45Pencil versus others, but here are some things that I definitely did notice. So number one,
08:49this pen still charges on the back of the tablet here in only this specific orientation,
08:55which is kind of easy to scrape off and get knocked off if you move around too much, which
08:59is unfortunate. But what's funny is they did make a case, this book cover case, and you
09:04can see it has a little indentation here. So if you slap it on the back, it actually
09:08holds the pen in place if you align everything just right. So it's charging and can be accessed
09:16like that. Cool. The other thing is it actually does now attach magnetically to the top, but
09:23it doesn't charge there. So that's a good place to leave it temporarily, I guess, if
09:26you're going back and forth between using it and not using it. But yeah, if it doesn't
09:29charge there, don't forget about it. At least you have the option. And number two, this
09:33pen is actually included with this tablet. So you can mess around with it if you want
09:39to. You're kind of encouraged to play around with it and try stuff. The features pop up
09:42and just make themselves known whenever you pull the tablet off of the back of the thing.
09:47But you know, it's really good at just drawing and sketching and things like that. The palm
09:50rejection with these tiny bezels is good enough that I don't have to think about it. And it
09:54has lightning quick, basically real time 2.8 millisecond response times that make it feel
09:59like real paper. Remote controlled air actions are still here. Samsung notes is as powerful
10:05as ever with the handwriting recognition. And pen up is also included for, you know,
10:09more digital drawing type of stuff. And it's good. You know, I'll defer to some actual
10:13digital artists to make the call on whether it's actually better than other options out
10:17there in their reviews. But I like this overall package. And then bonus points, the Tab S8
10:22Ultra has the second best speakers I've ever heard in a tablet right behind the larger
10:27iPad Pro. But it's got all this space. So it's got this huge quad speaker setup, Dolby
10:32Atmos support, very loud, not quite as full and bassy as the iPad Pro, but easily fills
10:38a room, plenty for watching movies and videos and things like that. Really good speaker
10:43setup. So if it sounds like I like this tablet a lot, it's because I do. I really like this.
10:47I think this is the best Android tablet out right now. And it's even going to be getting
10:51better. They said they're going to add, they're working on adding LumaFusion to the Galaxy
10:56Store, which is that video editing app on tablets, which could make it even more powerful.
11:00So then do I recommend it? Well, you got to know what you want. And if you were looking
11:06for a tablet that actually fits the Ultra name, this is the first one that actually
11:10does it. The huge screen is kind of unrivaled in any other tablet. And then it's so capable
11:15with DeX and with all this other stuff they've built in, that it's actually genuinely one
11:20of the most versatile computers you can get. So that's been it. Thanks for watching. Catch
11:27you guys in the next one. Peace.