Bigger, wider and elegant –  has the tablet finally arrived? The tablet has been evolving for around five years now. Many say it began with the iPad. Hogwash! The first fairly decent tablets were seen way back in 2000 when Microsoft introduced its tablet software and computer brands like Fujitsu, Toshiba,  among several others; provided the hardware. There were a lot of initial “ooos” and “aahs” – Moses’ prayer seemed to have been answered. These tablets were bulky, heavy,  slow and most of all, were just way too expensive for even the upper middle-income earners to even consider getting their hands on one of these. The outcome – yes,  you guessed it. “wham,  bam and scrammed” out of the market.  

What Apple did was introduce the iPad –  revolutionary because it was generally affordable for many, with prices being 70% cheaper than the ones that had Microsoft on them, some years earlier. They were sleek,  fast and had many after-market accessories that added “bling” to them. Fame seemed to have gotten the better of them because call it what you may – iPad,  iPad2,3,4,5,6: they are all the same, just OS improvements. They have lots of fancy names for the stuff the iPad can do –  yawn!  Every other company that could put two wires together were manufacturing tablets, too; capable of doing what the iPad could do, more,  exciting and cheaper still.

Today , we are spoilt for choice. Screen sizes start at 4 inches for the mini phones,  to the 5 inch – 6.4 inch phablet(cross between phone and tablet), up to the 12.1inch Samsung Galaxy Note Pro. Earlier on, I wrote an article about the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8.4. I was and am so highly impressed with it. It’s a brilliant piece of artwork and form, superb all round. I thought this was the ideal size tablet, easily transportable, light, the “take everywhere” Personal Assistant cum infotainment device. The S10.5 version was launched at the same time as the S8.4 but I didn’t even give it a second look…at first. I mean, big screen,  bulky,  heavy,  all the trappings of the 1st generation iPad.

Photo taken using the Oppo Find 7

Then,  a couple of weeks ago,  I was at a Samsung store and I picked up the Tab s10.5. I was pleasantly surprised by how light it weighed. It was already a good-looker like the smaller S8.4. It felt really comfortable in my hand.  It was built to view in landscape mode as the famed Samsung single physical button, the home and back keys were on the bottom of the screen. In this mode,  the sound speakers we’re on both sides on the upper edges. it also has a bigger battery capacity. All other specifications were exactly the same as it’s smaller sibling.

Having used it for about two weeks, I love the idea of having the screen buttons on the left side of the screen (when I’m using it in protrait mode); this is a worthy “best”  tablet; yes,  even better than the S8.4 mainly because of its larger screen real estate. Pricy – at RM300 more than the S8.4; the S10.5 is worth it.