Samsung Galaxy Tab S unveiled: $499 10.5-inch and $399 8.4-inch Android tablets take aim at iPad (hands-on)

Samsung's latest Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab S, takes direct aim at the iPad with units that are both thinner and lighter -- despite offering larger screen sizes -- for the same price as Apple's iconic tablets.

The new Samsung models add to the already dizzying array of tablets from the Korean giant available at different price points, sizes, and across two different product lines: the consumer-focused Galaxy Tab and the more productivity/business oriented Note line, which includes a stylus.

And while all new tablets always come out of the gate with the iPad in their sights, the Galaxy Tab S seems to have a leg up on its earlier Samsung siblings, at least from a specs and value perspective.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S: Hands-on with Samsung's newest tablet (pictures)

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Same price as the iPad, but thinner and lighter

The Galaxy Tab S comes in two colors -- Titanium Bronze and Dazzling White -- and two sizes, a smaller 8.4-inch model and a larger 10.5-incher. Due to ship in early July, they'll retail in the US for $400 and $500 respectively, and £349 and £449 in the UK. Australian prices are yet to be announced, but the US price tags convert to AU$425 and AU$530 respectively.

Prices sound familiar? Yes, the iPad Mini Retina (16GB) starts at $399 while the entry-level Air (16GB) goes for $499. The shape and screen sizes of the iPads don't correspond exactly to the two Tab S slates, which have a widescreen format, but they're in the ballpark.

The Tab S models weigh slightly less than their iPad counterparts, with the Tab S 8.4 coming in at 10 ounces or 294 grams (compared to the Mini Retina's 331 grams) while the Tab 10.5 tops the scales at right around a pound (465 grams), or 4 grams less than what the iPad Air weighs.

Thickness? The Tab S measures in at measly 6.6mm compared to the iPads' 7.5mm. And I can tell you that both Tab S models feel very slim in hand - just as the iPads do - and share some of the same design elements as the Galaxy S5, most notably the dimpled back, which has its supporters and detractors (I happen to like it).

Beyond the operating systems -- the Tab S runs Samsung's version of Android 4.4 KitKat -- there are differences, of course, and Samsung is highlighting them, even it never mentions the iPad or Apple by name. That's kind of weird, but it's very Samsung to do battle with an enemy that's quite visible yet invisible at the same time.

First AMOLED tablet display

The biggest talking point -- or selling point if you buy into Samsung's marketing -- is the Tab S's display. It's the first Super AMOLED display to appear on a Samsung tablet and it's the first thing that stands out when you pick up the devices.

Its 2,560x1,600-pixel resolution (that's a 16:10 aspect ratio) equates to double HD or 2K (as opposed to 4K). The iPad Air, by comparison, has a 2,048x1,536 resolution with 264ppi density, so you'll be hard-pressed see any difference in sharpness. But AMOLED is known for having deeper blacks (higher contrast ratios) and richer colors. Samsung says the Tab S has a 100,000:1 contrast ration, which is 100x greater than traditional LCD displays.

In my brief hands-on time with the products, I wasn't able to whip out an iPad to compare it to the Tab S, but that AMOLED display does have plenty of pop to it, and the short video demos I watched looked impressive. (Samsung says the number one thing people do with their tablets is watch video, followed by surfing the Web and social networking).

Samsung wouldn't let me take the tablet outside, but it says its "advanced outdoor visibility technology makes on-screen content look bright, natural, and easy to view." The display is also "adaptive" and will adjust to certain lighting conditions and applications, just like the Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone. A few different "professional" manual presets are available, too, including AMOLED Cinema and AMOLED Photo.

Battery life is rated at 11 hours of continuous video watching (for both tablets), which again, is slightly better than the iPad's rated battery life of 10 hours of continuous video watching.

To help manage battery life, the Tab S runs on Samsung's own Exynos 5 Octa, an octa-core mobile CPU that splits duties between a 1.9 GHz quad-core processor and 1.3 GHz quad-core processor. We're still trying to track down exactly what flavor Exynos 5 Octa is in Tab S, but it does not appear to be a 64-bit chip (the iPad Air runs on the 64-bit A7 chip).

All that said, in my short trial, the Tab S felt zippy and it does support simple multitasking (Samsung refers to it as multiwindow, where two apps share the screen at the same time), a feature currently available on the Galaxy S5 smartphone. Samsung was also highlighting SideSync 3.0, which allows you to connect the Tab S to your Galaxy S5 (via WiFi Direct) to transfer files and make calls from your tablet using your S5 as a conduit.

Expandable memory

Like the iPad, the Galaxy Tab S base models come with 16GB of built-in memory (and 3GB of RAM). In fact, that's the only memory configuration that will be available at launch, but if there's one key difference between the Tab S and the iPad, it's that the Tab S has a microSD card slot for adding memory -- it accepts cards up to 128GB. That makes memory expansion is much more affordable.

I didn't get a chance to take any pictures with the tablets, but you do get an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera (with flash) and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video chats. I was told the Wi-Fi is 802.11 a/b/g/n with dual channel (2.4GHz and 5GHz) and MIMO and there'll be forthcoming versions with a 4G LTE cellular data option (add $100 or £100 for the 4G LTE models).

In terms of extras, you get some stuff you may or may not want. The one hardware extra is a fingerprint scanner, the very same one found on the Galaxy S5. However, there's no tap-to-pair NFC technology (I don't find it to be a terribly useful, but some people do).

Samsung has also included a Tab S-optimized version of its "free" music service Milk and Papergarden, a magazine subscription marketplace (as you might expect, Samsung says the content is both tailored to and designed to look good on the Tab S's AMOLED display).

For better or worse, Galaxy Gifts, a service that hawks promotions from entertainment, productivity, and news providers, is also part of the Galaxy ecosystem, and on the Tab S it includes one-year free of Gogo In-flight Wi-Fi access (up to 36 segments), a 12-month subscription to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 6-month trial subscription to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington post, 3-month subscription to The New York Times, 3 months free Sirius XM Radio, and 3 months free subscription to Audible. (These offers are all specific to the US, and will vary by region.) This is another carry-over from the Galaxy S5 phone.

Accessories

One thing Samsung seems to have learned from Apple is that when you launch a tablet, it's important to have some accessories for it out of the gate. As you might suspect, the Tab S works with the Gear 2 (Samsung talked a lot of about seamless connectivity with other Galaxy devices). But consumers will also get to choose between three slim covers: the Simple Cover, Book Cover, and Keyboard Cover.

What's interesting about the Simple and Book covers is that literally snap onto the tablet. The Book cover has a built-in magnet and folds into a stand with three angles to choose from.

I got a chance to play around a bit with the keyboard cover and it seems pretty nice. It's customized for the Tab S and share the same design themes, including the dimpled back. It had a solid feel to it and the keyboard was laid out nicely.

I only saw the three covers, but apparently Samsung will also be serving up a standalone Bluetooth keyboard, S Action Mouse, USB LAN Hub, a power saving cable and portable battery packs. (See Samsung debuts Galaxy Tab S cover accessories and Bluetooth keyboard for more info.)

Final first thoughts

When you sort through all the "special" features and marketing messages, what you're left with is a slickly designed, zippy Android tablet with a very nice screen and an expansion port for additional memory.

While the Galaxy Tab S doesn't have the iPad's aluminum unibody design, it does manage to come across as a premium tablet, though not necessarily as premium as the iPad.

The question, of course, is how the screen truly stacks up against the iPad's (we'll be doing comprehensive comparisons as soon as we get our review samples). It may very well come out the winner, but for me anyway, beyond the screen, the Tab S's biggest selling point is its expandable memory option. For about $35 more, you'll be able to turn the Tab S into an 80GB tablet, for a total of $435 or $535. Last I checked, the 64GB iPad Air cost a whopping $699.