Samsung announces new tablets with AMOLED screens

Samsung has announced two new tablets that are equipped with an AMOLED screen. It is an 8″ and 9.7″ variant, both of which are part of the Galaxy Tab S2 series. Compared to the predecessors, the aspect ratio has been adjusted.

The two Tab S2 models follow the tablets from the Tab S series released last year. The first generation consisted of an 8.4″ and 10.5″ model, both with a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:10. With the new models, the aspect ratio has been adjusted to 4:3, while the tablets with screen diagonals of 8″ and 9.7″ are slightly smaller than their predecessors. Both tablets have Super Amoled panels with a screen resolution of 2048×1536 pixels, good for pixel densities of 320 and 264 pixels per inch respectively.

Samsung uses metal for the edges of the housings, while the backs are made of plastic. That back contains two magnetic connection points for an optional keyboard dock. The physical home button known for Samsung is present on both tablets and it has the same kind of fingerprint scanner as the Galaxy S6.

According to Samsung, the Tab S2 tablets are the lightest in their class: the smallest model weighs 265 grams and the larger variant 389 grams. Both are 5.6mm thick. Samsung is referring to the iPad mini 3 and Air 2, which have almost the same dimensions and weigh 331 and 437 grams respectively. The battery capacity of the tablets is 4000mAh and 5870mAh.

The tablets are powered by an Exynos 5433-soc. This one has four Cortex A57 and four Cortex A53 cores in a big.Little setup. Those cores are linked to a Mali T760 GPU with six cores and 3GB lpddr3 memory. The soc is manufactured using a 20nm process. 32GB of flash memory is available for storage and the memory can be expanded via a micro-SD slot. No versions with other capacities are planned for the time being. Wirelessly, there is support for WiFi b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1 and GPS.

The tablets should be on the market at the beginning of September in the colors black and white. Both a WiFi and WiFi+Lte version of the 9.7″ model will appear with prices of EUR 499 and 579 respectively. The smaller 8″ model will only appear as a WiFi variant and will have a suggested retail price of EUR 399.

Learn more about the Galaxy Tab S2 tablets in our preview.