Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 Preview

Introduction

Samsung started the craze for big-sized devices back in 2011 when it supersized the smartphone with the launch of the Galaxy Note, creating a whole new class of devices we now often refer to as ‘phablets’. Phablets, as the name suggests, are devices crossing the border between a ‘ph’one and a t’ablet’. Users loved the phablet idea and in just three years, the Note phablet series have become Samsung’s most successful and profitable product.

Now, in 2014, the company has clearly decided it’s time to do the same with its tablets - supersize them. The Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 is one of the first of this kind - a 12.2-inch tablet bigger than all other slates out there. It’s almost as big as a laptop, and with the word ‘Pro’ in its name, there’s a clear lean towards business and productivity. So can Samsung succeed again with a big sized device? And can this new 12.2-incher make the coffee shop your new office? Finally, is the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 the start of a new era of crossover devices between tablets and laptops; is it the first ‘tabtop’?

On paper, Samsung has checked all the boxes - an extremely sharp, 2560 x 1600-pixel display, a powerful Exynos 5420 octa-core chip under the hood, and the latest Android 4.4 KitKat adorned with a brand new user interface that Samsung calls Magazine UX. There are also two versions of the tablet - a Wi-Fi only one that’s cheaper, and a more expensive one featuring 4G LTE connectivity. We have an early version of the Tab Pro 12.2, and we can get an early glimpse at how this all comes together. Let's go.

Design

It’s seriously big - almost the size of a food tray, but it’s also well put together boasting a nice faux-leather back and a thin profile.

If back in 2010, the iPad was ridiculed for being nothing but a stretched out iPhone without a phone function, now, in 2014, someone could easily make the same point for the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2. With a familiar fake leather faux-stitched finish, it looks just like an oversized Galaxy Note 3. Thankfully, the faux-leather finish feels nicer to hold than the glossy plastic Samsung has previously used, and it catches less grease and fingerprints. With that said, the elephant in the room remains the fact that this is one huge device. Measuring 11.6 inches wide and 8 inches tall, we imagine one could use this as a food tray just for the fun of it - it’s certainly large enough. The Tab Pro 12.2 is, however, not just large - it’s also an excruciatingly heavy device. At 1.6 pounds (732g), it’s not meant to be held in one hand, and we found it tiring to hold even with two hands for longer periods of time. Actually, the most convenient way to use the Tab Pro 12.2 is a bit like a laptop - rest it on a table or on your lap, but unlike a laptop you have to support it with your hand.

It’s clear that the Tab Pro 12.2 does not have any direct competitors - it’s the first tablet with such a large display - but if we had to compare it to a device like the iPad Air, we’d point out that both are remarkably thin and ‘airy’. Samsung’s tablet is still a hair thicker at 8mm (0.31”), but the difference is really negligible.

The Tab Pro 12.2 comes without on-screen buttons and instead features the traditional for Samsung physical home button with a capacitive multitasking and back key. The tablet is better fit for landscape use as in that orientation the two speakers would be on its sides and sound won’t get muffled. On its sides, there are also a microSD card slot, a micro SIM card slot (only on the 4G LTE enabled model), and an infrared beamer.

Display

The 12.2-inch display features the highest resolution we’ve seen on a tablet.

The gigantic, 12.2-inch LCD display is clearly the focus of all attention in this tablet and it’s an extremely sharp, bright and vivid display. With a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels and pixel density of 247ppi, it’s roughly on par with the ‘Retina’ iPad screen in terms of sharpness. We are definitely impressed with its sharpness and viewing angles, but we also noticed that this is not a standard RGB display. Instead, Samsung has used an RGBW Pentile matrix. The W here stands for a white sub-pixel in addition to the R (red), G (green), and B (blue) ones. Unlike them, though, the W does not carry any meaningful color information, and you end up having less color information and a distinctive, slightly annoying, checkered pattern appears in monotone color areas.

Colors on our non-final unit seem eye-popping at first, but one quickly understands that they are not accurate by any means. We hope Samsung improves the calibration on the Tab Pro 12.2 in its final version.

Magazine UX introduces new looks with large-sized tiles that somewhat remind us of interfaces like the one in Flipboard or of Microsoft’s Modern UI. There are all sorts of these tiles - some update automatically to bring you the latest news, others serve as shortcuts to apps (instead of the traditional icons), and some are like widgets. You can also rearrange and resize them in all sorts of ways, which is nice. Overall, the new Magazine UX with these tiles that are larger than the usual Android icons, seems to do a good job of making Android more approachable to first time users. You can have multiple screens with those tiles, and alongside you can also add a panel with traditional icons, but you need to have at least one tile-based screen.

Power users, of course, can always install a launcher like Nova that brings nearly stock user interface with a more traditional, icon-based Android experience - that’s the beauty of Android, being able to customize it fully to your taste and needs.

The new Magazine UI, however, includes more than just the usual Samsung suite of apps. Sure, the Samsung app store and features like Smart Stay, Blocking Mode, S Voice, and KNOX are here, but it is clear that this app is clearly made to take care of business. It comes with Cisco’s WebEx Meetings app, a built-in Hancom office with Word, Excel and PowerPoint replacement apps and Bloomberg’s Businessweek+. Being a ‘pro’ tablet, the Tab Pro 12.2 also features improved Multi Window multitasking that allows you to run up to four apps at the same time. Can the Tab Pro 12.2 replace a laptop for business users, though, and become the first of this new ‘tabtop’ category? We will be looking forward to answering this question once we get the finalized version of the tablet.

Processor and Memory

A version with octa-core Exynos, and a version with Snapdragon – a version without LTE, and one with.

The tablet features the latest octa-core Samsung Exynos chip with 3GB of RAM (some models will ship with Snapdragon 800).

As for the technical details, we are looking at a big.LITTLE combination of four high-performance 1.9GHz Cortex A15 cores and four power-efficient 1.3GHz Cortex A7 cores. Graphics are taken care of by the Mali-T628 MP6 GPU, which should be powerful enough to handle even the most requiring games out there (again, other models will ship with the almost equally powerful Snapdragon 800).

The Tab Pro 12.2 comes in a model with 32GB of internal storage and another one with 64 gigs on board, but both support expandable storage, taking in microSD cards of up to 64GB. Thus, total on board storage could reach 128 gigs, which should be enough for most users.

Internet and Connectivity

12.2 inches means that you can enjoy desktop versions of websites on an Android tablet.

You can access the web on the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 either via Samsung’s custom Android browser or via Google’s mobile Chrome (Adobe Flash is not supported natively). The big plus of the 12.2-inch Tab Pro is that it's almost as large as the average ultrabook, so you can enjoy webpages in their full size and glory - without needing to zoom in or deal with mobile versions. The high resolution makes a big difference when reading as you can make out even tinier fonts easily.

The Tab Pro 12.2 comes in both a Wi-Fi-only and a 4G LTE-enabled model. By all visible clues, it seems that Samsung will release a separate version for the United States that supports U.S. specific LTE bands, and another one for the rest of the world supporting most European and Asian LTE bands. Both 4G versions will also be able to fall back to 3G networks in case your carrier does not support LTE just yet.

Other connectivity options include dual-channel Wi-Fi, A-GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, but there is no NFC on board.

Multimedia

You can get lost watching a movie on a 12-inch tablet.

The 12.2-inch screen is an absolute treasure for watching YouTube videos and full-on movies on the go. The screen makes for a truly immersive experience, and the built-in videos app managed to play most common formats (except for DivX-encoded files) with ease.

For music, you have both Samsung’s custom music app and the stock Play Music by Google. Both are great, but Samsung’s one has a bit more tweaks and settings that music geeks would love. Sound output via the two loudspeakers is not bad and there is a slight stereo effect, but the sound volume was surprisingly quiet – something we hope Samsung will improve in the final version of the tablet.

Expectations

With a base price of $649.99 for the 32GB Wi-Fi-only model (we expect price of around $779.99 for the 32GB 4G LTE model), the Tab Pro 12.2 is - frankly put - expensive. With its new user interface, Samsung has also pushed Android in a brand new territory, that of business oriented devices. Question remains, though, whether all of its advanced functions like multitasking with four apps at the same time could run smoothly.

Right now, there is plenty of competition in the business-oriented tablet market. For the same money you pay for the Tab Pro 12.2, you can buy a basic ultrabook that would feature a much more powerful Core series Intel processor, a physical keyboard and full-on Windows 8 with support for legacy programs. The Microsoft Surface 2 with Windows RT - and with all its flaws – also looks much better suited for business users with its free Microsoft Office and OS-native multitasking. The iPad Air is another alternative with a much more vibrant app ecosystem (Android does not have that many great tablet apps), and it’s cheaper.

All in all, we think that Samsung is facing an uphill battle with this tablet. The larger screen size is an interesting experiment that might switch some people over, but we are not so certain when it comes to the UI and productivity part. Most of all, we doubt that the high price will go well with many users. Hopefully, though, Samsung will be able to pull it off, but for now we'd rather remain conservative until we get the final unit for review.