Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 Review: An Android Tablet For Mobile Professionals

The Galaxy Tab S4 runs Android 8.1, aka Oreo. Oreo has a similar look and feel to previous versions, but it comes with some significant changes. Oreo comes with Google’s new Neural Networks API, which allows applications to better take advantage of hardware acceleration, reducing latency and network loads and on the Samung Tab S4, it also comes with Bixby Home. While Bixby isn't fully operational yet and remains a work in progress for Samsung, it can still help you set a schedule, add apps to the tablet, and control smart home devices, among many other things. 

DeX is also promising, but our experience was a mixed bag in the end. The familiarity of a desktop user interface did increase productivity. It made it easier to navigate and intuitive to find applications with a keyboard and mouse, but there is a catch if you want to use the S Pen on its own. While we like the S Pen for what it is, it isn't a replacement for a mouse or good track pad. Even if you have the keyboard, there is no track pad built, so you have to rely on another device to get get the job done. Other than that we found the DeX feature to work quite well, as it made us feel more at home when using a tablet instead of our tried and true notebook or desktop. We should also mention that DeX also has hotkey support, but most of them differ from Microsoft and Apple, so you'll have to relearn all the hotkeys before you can take full advantage.

Next we are going to see how the Galaxy S4 performs in general and gaming performance and test battery life as well...