Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 is the best Android tablet you could buy

In the world of technology, a handy screen is a bliss. People are moving away from laptops and desktops and are actively looking for tablets, which are handy, powerful and can take care of their daily work requirement.

If you are looking out for a tablet which is compact, has a good touch screen, powerful processor and most importantly is lightweight, you can check out Samsung's latest tablet.

Samsung is known for making gorgeous looking devices with vibrant displays, and the company’s latest flagship tablet, the Galaxy Tab S6 is no exception. The S6 is an upgrade of the predecessor S4 and includes interesting changes.

Design

The S6 sports an all-metal look with compact, sleek, modern design, with rounded corners. It is 5.7 mm thick and weighs just 420 grams.

The lightweight design makes it an ultra-portable device, which is easy to carry on the go, bezels are slim and there's nothing on the bezels to distract you.

The curved edges and metallic built makes the Tab S6 easy to hold and sturdy. The design is a significant improvement over S4. However, it shares similarities with the S5e launched a few months earlier.

At the back, you'll find a place to hold the S-Pen. Yes, the tablet comes along with a stylus, which can magnetically get stuck on the tablet. We, however, found the magnetic force to be slightly weak due to which the S-Pen would drop on light jerks.

You might like to consider purchasing the tab with the Samsung BookCover Keyboard (sold separately) as it protects the SPen by covering the entire back.

The Book Cover Keyboard comes in two pieces

A folding keyboard that attaches to a magnetic connector on the bottom edge of the tablet, and a rear cover/kickstand that attaches to the back of the tablet using a big strip of sticky suction adhesive. Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 has a dual rear camera and single front camera.

At the back of the Galaxy Tab S6, two things catch your eye: The dual camera set up includes a 13-megapixel and 5-megapixel shooter. One is an ultra-wide lens and the other is a regular wide-angle lens.

Display

The biggest star of the show is the 10.5-inch SUPER AMOLED display.

This screen is extremely inviting to the eyes - the colours pop, blacks are inky deep, and it is bright enough to use outdoors as well.

The HDR10 and HDR10+ support make binge-watching Netflix or YouTube videos great viewing experience. I enjoyed streaming the entire season of 'The Family Man' on Amazon Prime, as the images were punchy and sharp, the contrast and colours were bright and the overall experience was enhanced with great sound as S6 boasts of four AKG-tuned speakers, two on both of the narrow edges.

The bottom edge also contains the USB-C port. However, there is no 3.5mm headphone jack, which personally I think is a negative as all your fancy headphones will now need to be connected only with the help of a dongle which you will need to buy separately. The Tab S6 has a fingerprint scanner embedded in the screen. For me, it was not always accurate though.

Performance

The Galaxy Tab S6 holds a Snapdragon 855 processor and is available in either 6GB/128GB or 8GB of RAM with 256GB of storage plus support for microSD cards for storage expansion.

The MicroSD card can go up to 1TB in size. I’ve been using the 6GB/128GB storage model and despite multitasking heavily and switching between apps frequently, I did not face any trouble with the performance. The tablet comes with a 7,040 mAh battery, which is good for a full day usage including streaming videos from OTT platforms.

While the battery is great, the charging time is slightly slow as the tab comes bundled with a 15W charger, which takes over four hours to replenish the drained-out battery.

S Pen

The Tab S6 bundles the stylus - S Pen. The S Pen is a good tool for drawing or taking handwritten notes on the tablet.

The new addition to the S Pen this time is the Air Actions, which is essentially gesture controls that were first introduced on the Galaxy Note series.

You can scroll through the media, take pictures, move slides in a power-point presentation etc with this S Pen. The S Pen gets magnetically attached to the back of the tablet at a specific area. Placed like that the stylus also gets charged, similar to the Apple Pencil on the iPad Pro.

A 10-minute charge can last the stylus battery for about 8-10 hours.

Productivity

You can also switch from the standard Android home screen to the DeX mode from the quick settings menu -- you will need an external screen for this. In the DeX mode, you'll be able to navigate through all your open apps and be able to multitask with several windows and apps on screen at the same time.

Writing emails or creating powerpoint presentations gets pretty comfortable on the Tab S6 when you add a keyboard cover (sold separately) as it turns into a notebook.

Two parts to the keyboard cover allow you to use the kickstand without the keyboard and keep the S Pen safe. The keyboard has a laptop-like trackpad and a quick-launch button for DeX.

Verdict

The Galaxy Tab S6 is definitely pricey at Rs 59,900 plus Rs 10,999 if you want the keyboard cover. You could argue why not invest in a laptop instead?

Sure, you can but is the laptop going to be as portable, lightweight, comfortable to carry while travelling or maybe watch your favourite series while on the go?

Tab S6 will allow you to do that with ease. Plus Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 outperforms its predecessor with a more powerful processor, optimized DeX mode and increased storage.

The minimalistic design and updated S Pen stylus are positives as well. It is great for consuming media and good for productivity as well.

Hands down it is the best Android tablet money can buy.