Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Announced (2019)

doug56hl

At least they kept you in the loop.
Ordered my 128GB/Black from amazon over a week ago (stated delivery 20/4) and they're now showing availability 1-2 months (delivery 8/5 to 1/6).  It hasn't been dispatched yet and I've had nothing saying it will be delayed although my order is still showing it will be delivered today (amazon chat has confirmed it won't be).

As the cutoff date for applying for the free 512GB card is 18/5 I'm going to be well pissed if my order won't arrive until after that. Unless Samsung extends the cutoff date and/or my Tab S5E arrives before then I'll be cancelling my order

chrism_scotland

Picked mine up on the way home yesterday and played for a few hours, would feel better if I had a case for it!! Having to prop it up on a Logitech Tablet keyboard which isn't ideal!

I'll get some time later for fuller thoughts but its a nice piece of kit, when I held the box I thought they'd forgotten to put the tablet in it!

I went for the Silver, 128GB WiFI model from John Lewis - it feels very light, thin, a nice size really, also picked up a 400GB Sandisk Extreme MicroSD (As JL didn't offer the Tablet until the 18th I missed the 512GB Card offer!).

I did have a few initial issues getting reacquainted with how Android works (I've been all iOS for a few years now) and may have some queries about that later!

Overall I'm happy with it - installed most of the media apps and productivity bits I wanted to try, it doesn't seem to suffer for performance with it being rapid most of the time, the screen is gorgeous!!

Should also add the 4x Speaker setup seems really good, very decent sound output and I certainly would be happy enough using this for filling a room with tunes!

I had it yesterday plugged into my 4K monitor via USB-C in DEX Mode, running apps on the monitor while streaming 1080P content to my ChromeCast and it didn't miss a beat (once I adjusted the buffer settings in VLC) - it seems to have plenty of power and I suspect the 6GB RAM on this variant is helping to an extent too!

I think for me the only things really missing are some better photo editing apps, Affinity Photo on the iPad is tremendous and all but replaced Desktop Photoshop for me, I'll need to see how Android Lightroom CC is v the iPad equivalent.

I also do find myself missing the stylus a little a times but having full mouse support is probably more important for me to be honest for my intended uses, I suspect I could always add a third party stylus of some kind if I wanted to, I'm not sure the extra cost of the S4 (and that being for a 4GB/64GB model) would really justify the amount of S-Pen use I'd do, especially as the Android version of OneNote (which I use for work notes) seem fairly dire v the Windows or iOS versions.

I work in IT and I've been asked to setup my bosses new Work iPad Air 3 so I've got that to compare this weekend and see what its like!... although first impressions are that the s5e screen, size and shape is nicer to be honest!

If anyone has any questions I'll try and answer!

chrism_scotland

Query for those folk who use Android, I know iOS gets a lot of stick for file management.. but - I used an app on my old iPad (FileBrowser) which basically brought all my Cloud Services, NAS, Local Drives into one place and also meant that in almost any app I could get into that and open files from OneDrive, NAS, etc - Android seems to just go into the File Structure when I try and open a file - is there anyway to get access to Cloud Services or am I forever going to be downloading / copy/paste stuff from OneDrive to get it into somewhere that an Android App can see/ open?

Crafty

You could try samba, if its just media you are after Plex should work too.

Google releases Samba client for Android, adds Windows file shares to the Downloads/Files app


For those wondering about samsung tablets, I have an 8" S2 that must be 4 or 5 years old now (maybe older?), gets used nearly every day and is still working/performing fine.

Garioch

Thanks so much for this review. Your thoughts align with my initial reaction to the announcement of the S5e. As you say, I cannot justify the additional cost of the S4 (which I thought was overpriced to begin with) for the 4GB/64GB model (incidentally, I thought that 64GB was too low a storage 2 years ago - personally I much prefer increased onboard storage in lieu of storage expansion). I am very VERY tempted by the S5e and may well pick one up this year.

Glad to see that you like the 4x speakers. Thanks once again.

PS: I love a stylus and wonder whether a 3rd party one would work. Did you say that you use use a keyboard for it? Is there a decent keyboard / case available for this? Cheers.

chrism_scotland

I'm going to order the Adonit Dash 3 Stylus and see if it works ok - it seems the highest rated 3rd party stylus available.

As for case, currently all I have is a Sleeve, actually from my old Pixel C - and I'm using a Logitech Wireless K380 board, there's no cases in stock on Amazon yet!

I will nip into the Samsung Store in town tomorrow, they had stocl of the s5e in last week so hopefully cases too, there's meant to tbe the usual "book cover" or a keyboard case option.

chrism_scotland

No cases yet in the Samsung store and no clue when they will be, pretty poor really releasing a tablet with no official case available.

Garioch

Can the 4g model be used as a phone? Just wondering if it can pair with a wireless headset to make / receive calls. Cheers.

HaRd2BeAr

Had another text from Argos saying they are still waiting to hear back from Samsung...i'm on chat with them now as i could buy the tablet from John Lewis for £10 less as well and they have stock but i'd lose the SD card pre order bonus. I know it's not really their fault but very frustrating.

doug56hl

Cynically I think Samsung is the cause as they don't want to give out the free SD cards.

Only people with stock (excluding Samsung) are those who weren't doing pre-orders with the free card. Hence amazon.uk is showing 1-3 months before shipping by which time the window to apply for the card will have closed...