Yesterday, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Tab S7 FE via press release, and today it appears to have outed the S7’s successor via a survey in Korea.
The survey, spotted by SamMobile, lists three distinct high-end tablets with the codenames Basquait 1 to 3. While the simplistic diagram included doesn’t suggest these will be Samsung’s upcoming foldable tablets, they do promise the kind of enviable specs you'd expect from the Galaxy Tab S line.
The biggest highlight? A giant 14.6-inch slate that could be the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, which would be much bigger than the 12.9-inch iPad Pro 2021.
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Basquait 1 is likely the entry-level Samsung Galaxy Tab S8. It’ll be a 6.3mm thick tablet featuring an 11-inch TFT 120Hz display with a 8,000mAh battery and 45W charging. These, you may note, are identical specs to the current Galaxy Tab S7, but the leak does highlight it’ll feature 8GB RAM (up from either 6 or 8GB in the last-gen model) and the “fastest next-gen” processor, which should give it a performance boost.
Basquait 2 feels equally familiar, meaning it’s almost certainly the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Plus. It’s a 5.7mm thick 12.4-inch OLED device with a 120Hz screen and a 10,090mAh battery. Again, that's identical to the current Tab S7 Plus, right down to the in-display fingerprint scanner. It too will get the processor upgrade and the same 8GB RAM.
Things get interesting with the Basquait 3, which would be a brand new addition, rumored to be the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. The 5.5mm thick device will pack a monster 14.6-inch 120Hz OLED display and an enormous 12,000mAh battery. That means it’ll be hefty to hold, weighing in at 650g (against 502g and 575g for the smaller models), and will add a second camera to the front with a 5MP ultrawide sensor joining the 8MP lens which features on all the models.
It also comes with greater internal storage options. While the S8 and S8 Plus are listed as having 128GB or 256GB, the Ultra model ships with either 128GB or 512GB of internal storage. Choosing the latter option will also bump up the RAM to 12GB, but the processor remains the same as the other models.
The S Pen will be bundled with all three tablets, which will be available in Wi-FI, LTE and 5G flavors. A new keyboard accessory will be available for the devices, too, but as is usually the way this will be an optional accessory. The leak highlights expected prices in Korean Won, which convert to around $740 for the Tab S8, $1,120 for the Tab S8 Plus and $1,320 for the Tab S8 Ultra, though increasing storage and adding in cellular support ups the prices as you would expect. We would expect the prices to be lower than the above conversions.
No release dates were provided, and we’re not necessarily expecting these tablets to appear soon given that the last generation launched last winter, and the FE versions literally only appeared yesterday. All the same, it looks like Samsung is forging ahead with premium tablets, even if they remain firmly in the shadow of the iPad and iPad Pro in terms of adoption rate.
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