Gadgetory

is Samsung's newest miniature tablet the best Galaxy Tab yet we've spent the last five days testing using and abusing it to try to answer that question I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is our four of you of the Galaxy Tab pro 8.4 if you're keen on Samsung's more recent tweaks to us design language this particular tablet will be right up your alley in terms of look and feel it's virtually a scaled-up Galaxy Note 3 it has the same photo their backing found on the popular Galaxy Note series fake stitching lines the perimeter of the backside and the trim along the edges is a full brushed metal made of plastic while the materials may not feel utterly premium the tablet is built exceptionally well but no bending or creaking when you grip and twist the tablet it's incredibly lightweight at just 331 grams for the Wi-Fi model and the bezels upfront art for the most part minimal its physical footprint is comparatively small for the size of display it houses 219 millimeters tall 128 point five millimeters wide and just seven point two millimeters thick its width makes it quite easy to grip with one hand and unlike other similarly shaped tablets this one feels pretty natural in portrait or landscape the internals are also pretty impressive a 2.3 gigahertz quad-core Krait 400 CPU and Adreno 330 GPU to make up the Snapdragon 800 chipset 2 gigabytes of RAM 16 gigabytes of fixed storage with a micro SD card slot for up to 60 for additional gigabytes and 8 megapixel camera on the back and a 4800 milliamp hour 19.2 wide our fixed battery it also sports infrared Wi-Fi AC and Bluetooth Low Energy but it lacks USB 3.0 and NFC but let's not gloss over one of the most impressive aspects of this tablet the display at 8.4 inches the Super Clear LCD bares a resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels and overall density of 359 pixels per inch the result is a display that is extremely bright has extra wide viewing angles great contrast relatively deep blacks and colors that pop the temperature of the display is a tad warm and it appears as if Samsung is boosting color saturation as some videos look a tad unnatural especially with skin tones it still looks fantastic even with slightly exaggerated colors in all the hardware aspect of this device is not quite as nice as some of its competitors such as the iPad Mini with Retina display or even the understated design of the budget-friendly Nexus 7 but we can't complain about the specs or how well-built the tablet is the software situation has improved somewhat with the most recent generation of Samsung tablets and the latest iteration of Android KitKat the Galaxy Tab pro 8.4 runs Android version 4.4.2 in it features Samsung's newer Flipboard powered magazine UX from the home screen you will find two tile pages by default with user definable information such as a calendar Science and Technology news and calm office and other Flipboard style news feeds the main home screen by default is still the basic Android style home screen icons widgets and a wallpaper the application drawer is still accessed by a button in the lower right corner the notification shade has been improved and optimized for larger screen devices it's no longer fullscreen and it's in or aligned the UI has been flattened and simplified throughout and in the notification shade and Settings app in particular we noticed a Tizen OS inspired appearance to little surprise settings icons are now circular which brings us to our main point the software seems very conflicted and confused it doesn't feel completely finished as there is disparity between the icons in the notification shade and the home screen the notification shade looks like a mash-up of old TouchWiz and Tizen and the Settings app is still the cluttered jumbled tabbed and pained mess it's cumbersome to use and slightly altering its appearance hasn't helped its usability at all Samsung has seemingly trimmed down its smart offerings on this tablet however narrowing it to smart stay smart rotation and smart pause and it has improved the loved multi window feature at least in how its accessed a pool from the right edge of the display it's no longer indicated by a small tab which clings to either side of the display aside from that it's business as usual with no notable improvements however our own Michael Fischer did discover some unusual layout problems with a multi window in landscape particularly with Twitter and YouTube comments they seem to work just fine and portrait though we're happy to see the software at least looks much nicer in this most recent version of TouchWiz but all the kinks aren't ironed out just yet performance on the Tab pro 8.4 or so you would imagine should be great in gaming multitasking even watching video or browsing the web is fantastic in fact this may be our favorite tablet for gaming yet thanks to the combination of the size at weight Snapdragon 800 and the gorgeous display Need for Speed Most Wanted has been more addicting than usual on this model but performance isn't exactly buttery smooth all the time opening apps returning home task switching and your most casual tasks work fine with few to no hiccups but we could very nearly create lag on demand by opening an app returning to the home screen and trying to flick between the pages a large portion of our time with this tablet this would cause a split second hang once or twice before the system caught up it's as if the home screen is so large and resource intensive it causes a short drop in performance if you can cope with this performance is about as good as it gets in gaming benchmarking and the usual the speakers are one of the most upsetting aspects of this tablet and not necessarily because the sound they produce but because of their placement sound is loud I'll be at rather tinny but the stereo speakers are along the bottom edge they don't offer great stereo separation and they're incredibly easy to muffle especially in landscape mode if you plan to watch a movie or play games on this tablet do yourself a favor and plug in some headphones battery life has been acceptable thus far through our testing gaming and other casual use we have yet to kill the tablet in a single day but we don't feel that's impossible to do especially with how bright the display gets or how hot the backside can get during intense gaming the 19 point 2 watt hour battery will likely last most one to two days per charge and the standby is particularly great the camera performance is hit or miss as with most tablets it's not a priority and usually feels like an afterthought the Tab pro 8.4 is no exception to the rule the 8 megapixel camera around back set to capture at 6 megapixels by default works well for stills but will likely leave you wanting more the images aren't as sharp or colorful as we'd like and the field of view is narrow not only will you look out of holding a tablet up to take a picture you'll look even stranger than usual holding it up and taking several steps backward to fit everything in frame at the end of the day the Galaxy Tab pro 8.4 is a solid entry from Samsung one that will compete with the likes of the iPad Mini with Retina display quite effectively we still wish Samsung would use finer plastics or even metal in its design but we won't complain too much about the leathery texture around back this time software has improved somewhat but hasn't gotten any easier to use or navigate and it's brought a few tiny performance bugs along for the ride of the smaller tablets we've used to date this is easily the most enjoyable form factor and Samsung deserves some kudos for that for more in depth detail in the final review score of the Galaxy Tab pro 8.4 be sure to check out the full review at pocketnow.com ladies and gents that's going to wrap up this review if you enjoyed it be sure to click the thumbs up button below and subscribe to the channel to see more videos like this one in the future be sure to follow us on all the usual places twitter facebook and google+ at pocket now I'm Taylor Martin you can find me on twitter at casper tech and i will see you next time