Apple's iPad series of tablets are the standard-bearers for the device category. A recent report by Statista says that Apple has been the market leader in the category since 2011 and held a comfortable 38 percent share in the market for the last quarter of 2021.
But Samsung isn't far behind. The company has been slowly encroaching on Apple's territory steadily since 2012 and managed to acquire a market share of 15.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Android as a whole has also seen some growth; it overtook Apple's operating system in 2012 and is currently the most popular among users, with iOS and iPadOS, a close second. In 2021, up to 23.8 percent of tablets that were shipped ran on Google's operating system.
With that said, how does Samsung's new tablet line-up fare against Apple's stalwarts and more importantly, how does the premium Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra stack up against Apple's legendary iPad Pro? Let's find out.
Display
At 14.6 inches with a resolution of 2960 x 1848, the Tab S8 Ultra's Super AMOLED display immediately offers a size advantage over the top of the line 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which has a Liquid Retina XDR display with a resolution of 2732 x 2048. Apple's display is brighter at 600 nits while the Tab S8 tops out at 500 nits.
The Galaxy Tab S8 supports the S-Pen and Samsung includes one in the box with the tablet. Apple's tablet supports the Apple Pencil but it does not come included in the box and has to be purchased separately.
Also Read: Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra vs iPhone 13 Pro Max: Full specifications compared
Specifications
The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra is equipped with the top-of-the-line 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 processor with a Cortex X2 core running at 3GHz, three Cortex A710 cores running at 2.5GHz and four Cortex A510 cores running at 1.8GHz.
While Apple hasn't made core information about its 5nm M1 Chip available, we do know that it's a mix between 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores. We also know it's a beast, given the various performance benchmarks already run on it. Early benchmarks between the two chips indicate that Apple still has a faster processor.
The iPad Pro also has a better 8-core GPU compared to the Adreno 730 on the Tab S8 on paper. It has more shader units and is capable of handling higher resolutions up to 7680 x 4320.
App Ecosystem
Let's face it, while Google has made giant strides to improve the Android experience on tablets, the apps and overall integration are just better on iPad OS.
Not only does it have more tablet optimised apps (3.74 million in 2021, compared to 2.5 million apps on the Google Play Store), iPad apps also provide a better user experience.
Interestingly, Google has the leading market share for tablet operating systems with Android cornering 51.9 percent of the market. This is to be expected, considering the number of devices Android is available on.
Camera
The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra has a 13-megapixel rear camera while the iPad Pro has a dual-camera module with 12-megapixel and 10-megapixel shooters.
On the front, both tablets use a 12-megapixel front-facing camera.
Battery Life
The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra has an 11,200mAh battery compared to the 9720mAh on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. That seems lopsided on paper until you consider the efficiency of the M1 chip.
Benchmarks have shown that the M1 handles battery efficiency a lot better than the Snapdragon 8, so the size may not end up mattering too much.
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