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    Android Long term Galaxy Tab S6 review: The best Android tablet that is awfully underrated

    June 02, 2020

    Android Long term Galaxy Tab S6 review: The best Android tablet that is awfully underrated

    Long term Galaxy Tab S6 review: The best Android tablet that is awfully underrated

    Posted: 01 Jun 2020 07:14 PM PDT

    Last year, I was in the market for a new tablet. Since I was already in the Android/Samsung ecosystem, and my girlfriend already has the iPad Pro, I took the bullet and bought the Galaxy Tab S6. Here is my in-depth review after using it for about 8 months:

    Display

    This is the highlight of this device. I will say it: The Galaxy Tab S6 has the best looking ~10" display you can get on any device today. It's vivid, contrasty, bright, and has excellent viewing angles. The main advantage is the fact that it's a large version of the AMOLED panel used on Samsung's flagship phones. I have the new MacBook Pro 13", iPad Pro and a Galaxy S10 to compare, and I can't think of a better device to watch movies or play games than the Tab S6. It doesn't have the 120hz refresh rate of the iPad Pro, but for my use case of watching Netflix, reading eBooks, and playing some popular games (CoD Mobile, PUBG, Asphalt), all of which fall under 60fps, this 60hz AMOLED display wins over a 120hz LCD display. For more latency-sensitive use like drawing, and playing certain games, then the iPad Pro has an advantage. Worth mentioning that the Tab S7 that's right around the corner, will likely have 120hz support as well.

    Speaker

    The Tab S6 comes with a quad-speaker set up. It's loud, clear, and balanced. It's better than my (gf's) iPad Pro (2019) and almost as good as my MacBook Pro 13 speaker (which is regarded as having one of the best speakers for a laptop). Listening to music, watching movies or gaming is quite enjoyable on these. The speaker also seems to change its audio profile/direction depending on your screen rotation dynamically.

    Design

    The design is premium and sturdy. The design on the Tab S6 is as good as it can get for a modern tablet. I do wish they had an IP rating, but that's something the iPad Pro also lacks. The S-Pen sticks to the back of the tablet. At first, I thought this was weird, especially if you are going to lay down your tablet flat. However, pretty much any case which would flatten the bump and makes it look like the S-Pen is in a tiny hidden pocket. I think some even might prefer this over the iPad Pro approach (which adds extra width).

    Battery

    The battery lasts all day of continuous usage. Standby time has been pretty good for me as well, even after leaving it on standby for some days. Overall, I have no complaints in this department.

    Software

    You would think Samsung would slap on their One UI that's on their phones and be done with it, but Samsung did add small but noticeable tablet-specific optimizations and features here and there. The S-Pen and Samsung Dex integration are well done. You can enable Samsung Dex straight from your tablet without having to use a second monitor, which is pretty cool. Some apps like Samsung Internet even use different desktop-style layouts in Dex mode. Also, overall system layouts are pretty intuitive and optimized for a tablet. Speaking of layouts...

    App scaling

    I've been pretty surprised by how well Android apps work on devices with varying screen sizes. I can't think of any app where I thought the layout was bothering me. I guess if Android apps work well on Chromebooks, foldables, and Samsung Dex, they should work fine on a tablet.

    Some Google apps like YouTube, many Samsung apps like Samsung Internet and My Files have some tablet optimizations. By tablet optimizations, I mean letting you see a bit more content at once. I think they are a nice touch, but I don't think they are an absolute necessity on Android since Android already handles app scaling pretty well.

    Apps without tablet optimizations work way better than they do on an iPad. Instagram, for example, has massive letterboxing on an iPad. Whereas on an Android, it's full screen. Some might argue Android is just "enlarging" the app, but I would say most people would prefer that over a miniature version of the app. Plus, most Android apps make use of the larger screen real estate by displaying more content (for example, more songs on Spotify and more emails at once on Tab S6 vs. S20).

    S-Pen

    These are just bigger versions of the S-Pen on the Note series, which are excellent. Compared to the iPad Pro, the latency could be better, but that's more of a display refresh rate issue.

    The biggest problem is the lack of apps that make use of the pen. Some apps like Dropbox Paper have excellent iPad pencil support but no Android pen support. I've found Samsung Notes to be the best at note-taking when it comes to the S-Pen support. Hopefully, more widespread adoption of the Galaxy Note/Fold 2 series will help drive more S-Pen support in apps.

    Main gripes

    • Slow updates. I got the Android 10 One UI 2 update a month ago, May 2020. That's pretty late to the party. Some parts of the world got it months earlier but the US got it last. The One UI 2 on S10 was released late Nov 2019, which makes you wonder why it took so long. Security updates are also slow. I get security updates every three months, but my S10 gets them monthly? I am not sure why there's a vast discrepancy in update speed between Samsung's devices. Likely the issue is a mix of long QA testing, slow roll out to test bugs, and carriers taking their time.
    • Fingerprint scanner. In the past, the FP scanner had 60% success rate. Nowadays, on the newer version of the software, I think it's pretty good at a ~85% success rate. Still could be better, but these optical fp scanners are surprisingly more accurate to wet, sweaty fingers than the old capacitive fp scanners.
    • Camera. It's acceptable. It's a single 12MP camera that is not as good as the S10's camera. I've tried GCAM ports on it, and they do seem to improve picture quality. Tablets have always had weaker cameras than phones, and this is not an exception.
    • Poor thermal management when charging. If I'm playing a graphically intensive game while charging, the frame-rate drops 10 minutes in. My S10 does not do this, even though they have the same SoC, and the tablet has a larger surface area for heat dissipation. I guess that the Tab S6 lacks the liquid cooling of the S10 and/or the system doesn't correctly slow its charging speed under load.

    Final thoughts

    The Tab S6 is a surprisingly good premium android tablet that does many things right. Every time I use this device, I can't help but think it deserves a lot more recognition than it gets. A lot of popular tech reviewers seem to overlook this tablet entirely. The Tab S6 is without a doubt an expensive tablet, but if you are someone who is strictly looking for the best Android tablet, or the best 10" entertainment device, I think this tablet should be #1 on your list.

    submitted by /u/neuprotron
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    Posted: 01 Jun 2020 10:56 AM PDT

    From 4.0-8.0, viewing your recent apps was optimal, since you could see several apps at any given time, which not only made access to your most recent apps a breeze, but also made it easier to search among several different apps further back. These were also launcher-agnostic, so it allowed you to freely explore that aspect of Android without worry

    In 9.0, I disliked the horizontal recent app screen at first. However, given that it was made for the new gestures at the time which let you swipe along the navbar to scrub through your recent apps, I thought it was actually pretty ok.

    Still, 9.0 made using the 3-button setup without that gesture much less efficient (unless you had ONE UI 1), and the fact that gestures worked worse with third party launchers was extremely limiting in terms of whether you wanted a decent recent apps experience, or a nicer home screen experience

    Now, the fact that the 2-button setup can't use the navbar to scroll through the recent app screen makes me dislike the new system even more. Being able to swipe on the bottom bar to move between recent apps one at a time is great, but it does nothing to make reaching less recently used apps easier, and in my experience, seeing the phone lag for a second while it loads up an intermediate app I have no interest in using isn't helpful either.

    At this point, I think Google should offer the vertical recent apps as an option to 3-button nav people, scrolling with the navbar as an option to 2-button nav people, and stacked thumbnails as an option to anyone who wants to use the horizontal view

    Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

    submitted by /u/zodigram
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    Posted: 01 Jun 2020 08:03 AM PDT

    edit- Just to clarify with a TL;DR - I did not use the new transfer tool, i downloaded and re uploaded to YTM. however, the end result would have been effectively the same.

    ​

    I have been using GPM since launch. I was never a paid member but used all other features otherwise. I have been looking for a solution knowing the transition is eminent. This was my process:

    • I downloaded my library from GPM and this process actually went smoothly. 19k songs downloaded into well organized folders based on artist and album. Great!
    • I realized that I needed some tag hygiene which I completed to make sure all my album covers were right.
    • I am not eligible to transfer my data to YTM yet, but knowing I had my whole library downloaded, I figured I would upload to YTM to see how it worked.

    These are my findings:

    • Upload went smoothly - no issues or glitches other than a few songs that wouldn't upload which were identified at the end.
    • Organization is abysmal.
      • I want to click on an artist and then the next level be seeing all albums for that artist. Seeing all songs for that artist makes browsing impossible. basically need to search instead of browse.
      • If you do not have an Album Artist set for your albums, then there is no clickable link to the artist. Example you see a grid of albums, and under the album art it just says "Album" and the year unless you have an album artist listed in which case there will also be a clickable link to the artist. This makes navigation absurd unless you set them all ahead of time.
      • The Artist sections uses true song artist (from the mp3 tag) not the album artist. This makes my library look terrible. Example - hip hop record where every track has a featured artist now has a separate artist listing for each combination.
      • Lastly, Composer is also being used in an unknown way, causing issues. Example - Johnny Cash's cover of bridge over troubled water is showing up in Paul Simon's artist list because Paul Simon wrote the song.
      • Deleting multiple items IS A NIGHTMARE. I realized I didn't have album artist set for about 100 albums (see issue above on album artist) and wanted to delete them and re-upload. There is no way to multi-select or sort options so i literally had to delete them one by one. Because of the way albums are sorted, I had to scroll through them all instead of starting with the artist.
    • Features are still not on parity.
      • You can make a playlist with your uploads, but you CAN'T download that playlist without a premium account. You can download albums and songs you've uploaded, just not playlists.
      • You CAN'T cast your uploaded content to speakers or speaker groups. Only to cast items that have a screen (TV's and Nest Hub)
      • You CAN'T start a radio station for an artist and listen with the screen off or cast to a speaker or speaker group. I did this ALL the time with GPM, and even though there were ads, it was a great way to just kick some music on for a party or get together.

    Lastly, there is a lot of "Loading" time issues as well. If you have a long list of artists or albums you'll reach the end of a loaded section and have to wait until more load. In GPM, once it was loaded once you could quickly scroll all the way to the bottom of the library. In this case you scroll, then wait, then scroll, repeat. annoying. Also, there is no slider to quickly get through a list so you have to manually scroll.

    Just wanted to give some insight into the process, as it was not ideal and I am not really happy with the product. let me know if you have questions or want me to clarify on anything. Happy to help.

    The big kick in the pants is going to be when people "migrate" from GPM and their whole library is jumbled because both platforms sort the music differently with no easy way to mass delete. Meaning, once you transfer and all your albums were cleanly organized before but now you see the mess created by sorting by song artist, you can't easily remove all those from YTM besides doing it one at a time if you want to repair and re-upload

    submitted by /u/Natta_3333
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