Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra: Still Worth Buying? 

For sure. It's a great tablet

You notice a red and blue line in between colors ?

Perfect. Hope it helps

same, i get baited by the "newest" model & highest spec - when really all I'm using it for is for watching videos, browsing the net, 2nd screen for my work laptop when working remotely and to replace my travel laptop when I'm overseas. Former gamer in me just wants the top of the line... but I have my desktop for that..

I've own since a few months after release, I still see no reason to upgrade to the tab9 or the new iPad yet

nice thanks for the tip im updating my tablet as we speak hopefully the battery life improves, and thats my only issue with this.

I really need help with this, I got the tab s7+ of Amazon and returned it then got the s8 ultra off best buy open box and noticed the same thing, there seems to be a blue and red color border in between any color and white it only a pixel thick, is this normal ? (This is my first oled tablet but I own a galaxy s21 and i dont notice it on my phone)

​@@xanderyusuf7494 Apparently this effect you're describing is called color fringing and it's prevalent in OLED panels. I noticed this on my tablet right away but it became unnoticeable in regular use. Your phone likely doesn't have this effect because its screen is so crisp due to its high pixel density which is almost double that of your tablet's screen.

That's a great deal. Enjoy it

@@AndroidDigest love it, thank you

Same, do you notice a very thing red and blue line in between light colors?

@@xanderyusuf7494sounds defective I would return lol

Samsung will give you $800 for it as a trade in for an S9 ultra fyi

Thanks so much

For sure

This is how you get a great deal. Awesome job. Getting more software updates is a big deal and getting that water resistance and a better chip. And screen. Good work

Thanks so much!

@@AndroidDigest Just got one of these, and your videos were particularly helpful

Thanks. Hope you enjoy it!

That's the S9 Ultra. Not the S8 Ultra. If you Google it, it may come up with a Galaxy S9 phone that is water resistant but it's not the tablet. But regardless, you got a great deal

@AndroidDigest u r 100% correct thanks for the video

Same, did you notice a weird blue and red line, very thin in between a light color and white

Definitely a great deal. The device here applies to that too. Except the size is more of a middle ground on the S8 Plus. It's a safe bet

Where do you live? I can't find any S8 ultra below 650

​​@@vedantmenkudale6271 I got mine at $699 at bestbuy during black friday but is now back at that price. I only paid $599 for it because I had a $100 gift card. But you're right I haven't seen a new s8 ultra under $650

That's true.

It is launching on Jan maybe

You feel wrong

​​@@MrPoliariniswhy?

Same as iPad barely get new feature on the update. But i prefer samsung tab since we can sideloading many useful 3rd party apps

That's the reason I got it. I just wanted a bigger screen.

My tab s 8 Ultra just got an update on AI the other day.

Exactly

Looks - yes, performance - you'll notice the S9U advantage

Battery wise I don't think so

That's awesome. Glad you're enjoying it

Awesome, glad you're enjoying it!

I would do an OLED burn in test on RU-vid. Pause the screen when various colors pop up. See if there's any images burned into the screen. Every once in awhile, it's pretty rare, but about once a year Best Buy takes down their display models. So you might get a display model that's been running a demo for a year straight, which leads to burn-in on the screen. I had that happen once, and I was able to send it into Samsung under warranty.

OK thanks

@AndroidDigest not sure if you'll see this but I've figured out what it was called, apparently it's called color fringing, and some call it chromatic aberration it happened at high contrast borders, I noticed it on my Galaxy Tab S7+ from Amazon, and now my open box s8 ultra from best buy

Update : I traded the open box tab s8 ultra for a new tab s8 plus. Upon opening it I see the same lines, honestly don't know if this is an oled thing but I use an oled s21 and I don't notice this, maybe it has something to do with the pixel density

It does have UI 6.1, and it does have circle to search. I haven't looked into all the other ai features yet, but I just researched and found this "A slightly trimmed-down version of Galaxy AI (sans Instant Slow-Mo) will be coming to Samsung's flagship lineup from 2022" so hopefully that helps you. Would test just not enough time.

This seriously means a ton to me. You have no idea. I'm definitely trying my best so it does mean the world to get comments like this.

How did you get it that cheap? Which country is this? And which website?

I think you have some good thoughts for sure.

@@vedantmenkudale6271 USA, Amazon renewed

S8 ultra will get Android 16 that's 2 more software updates and probably an extra year after that for security patches. Also you can extend your battery life by charging the battery only to 80%. Im still using my s20 ultra from 2020 as my daily driver and it still fast enough for all my daily task. There is a deal going on right now where samsung is giving 800 bucks trade in credit towards s9 ultra. I'm not sure if I should hold on, pull the trigger, or wait to trade it in towards a s10 ultra. Probably still give $550 on 2025 towards that newer device.

@Juslovgranturismofan Oh, I thought the 4 years of updates was only for phones. In that case, unless something significant comes up (e.g. Tab S10 has tandem oled like the iPad and anti-reflection like the S24U so it's actually fine in bright lighting conditions), I'm probably fine holding onto the S8U until somewhere in the ballpark of fall 2026 without even missing out on OS upgrades. Maybe even 2027, though that might be pushing it.

It's definitely a beast

That's a better price for you. Glad you picked up an S9 U instead.

It's pretty great; enjoy it

Hope you enjoy it!

Very good price for sure. Maybe do a quick burn in test to test to see if it has OLED burn in. Every once in awhile they do open box items that are actually return units

It's nice

For sure. It's great

I feel you, Maybe I really need to cover some of these other tablets. I'm a US channel though so I often lean towards covering US released devices vs importing other devices, I'll consider it though in the future.

@@AndroidDigest Make it happen please! 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

Good thoughts!

Glad you're enjoying it!

I think you mean the tab S7 plus. They never had a Tab S7 Ultra. They only had a smaller 12.4 in device. Just keep in mind that they offered less software updates back with the S7 series.

@@AndroidDigest Ok so the Tab 7 Plus it is then. Wonder how much a full specked one is. AND CAN I GET PNE WITH A KEYBOARD AND PEN

I agree with you 💯

But the ipad is not good for watching movies or TV shows because the ratio is 4:3. Plus, s8 ultra is a 14.6 screen with a 16/10 ratio compared to an ipad 11-inch screen. The snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is good enough for me. I don't need the fastest chip. There's no sd card slot or expansion memory on an ipad. About half of it the stoarge is going to filled up with the ios. Compared s8 ultra 128 gb and betweeen a 128gb -1tb sd card expension. If I want to do something fast or productive, then I do it on my computer, not on Ipad. Even the new m4 chip on the ipad Pro doesn't utilize all the processes power because the iOS app is limited. Ipad and android aren't computers or a mac.

You hit the nail on the head so hard. If your operating system is going to be limited, if you're going to be working on a tablet anyway, the most important thing is going to be the screen. It helps for entertainment, obviously the S8 ultra comes with an s pen so you get a stylus versus paying more for an apple pencil. You get a much better AMOLED display, you get a much larger display, keep in mind that even the newer 13-in iPad still isn't 14.6 in and you do pay for size. Typically. You also do get some productivity software like Samsung Dex, and if all that wasn't enough, expandable storage, so many reasons to go Galaxy Tab

That would be a great one to revisit. Sadly I only do 1 video a week. I've got a new Asus Chromebook tablet that just came out, I plan to cover eventually the Moto G Stylus from 2024, to mix it up with a mid-range phone. I also want to cover the Lenovo M11, I try to cover every tablet I can that releases in the US at least once, so I've already got several videos planned, and by the time I have so many other videos to do. I do miss my OnePlus Pad though by the way, I think it is one of the most underrated tablets out.

@@AndroidDigest thats awesome keep up the good work!

I don't think they're lagging behind as much as people think. For one, one of the advantages of the iPad is app optimization. It's not a lot of apps honestly, but there are a few apps that are better optimized for ipads, a lot of that is simply because of the perception of things. I went to lunch with someone today and they made a joke about Android tablets being toys. There is an elitist attitude that is out there, and that's especially going to exist with executives and people with large amounts of money. So when those decisions are being made from the top on what apps you need to optimize, even if there is a large base of people that use Android tablets, which there are, people want their app to feel premium so having their app only optimized on the premium fancy iPads is something that some executives decide to do. Things are starting to change a lot but there are still a few more optimized apps on ipads. There's also final cut, and since that's an Apple only thing anyway, then bringing that and a couple other Pro apps to the ipad, it's not many apps, it's not many apps people use, but that is one other advantage. The last advantage is power. Apple sort of got lucky with that. No one was making arm powered laptops that were any good. Apple ended up making arm and found a way to make a super powerful processor on the laptop, the M1 processor. Since arm processors are able to be fit into places pretty easily, they were able to fit it into a tablet form factor. So having laptop level power in a tablet is a big deal. These advantages are small. Practically speaking, most people won't notice the difference in performance between an iPad and a Galaxy tablet. Galaxy tablets also have significant advantages like coming with an s pen, and Galaxy tablets have Samsung Dex which is amazing for productivity. When you factor all of those things in it really does balance things out. In my opinion 95% of people don't need an ipad. If you're in the Android ecosystem, I would definitely recommend a Galaxy tablet for pretty much everyone out there. And we are getting faster and better arm processors on android, we are getting better off optimization. Things are improving for sure

@@AndroidDigest You nailed it.. it's all about people's perception and ecosystem..

Yeah I haven't had issues with a lot of DeX apps. I try not to bring 30 apps into DeX just because it's a little unnecessary. Personally I'm able to do everything I need to. But I get it may be missing a little power for some. You're dead on with the keyboard cover though. I had major issues with it. I like the Dexnor keyboard a little better even though the touchpad isn't great. But we need an iPad Pro magic keyboard from Samsung

Personally I think the biggest difference is going to be size. The S8 Ultra you could also find for a little bit of a cheaper price too. The S9 plus is going to have better battery life, it's going to have a slightly faster processor, the screen will even be slightly brighter and better. And it has water resistance. There are definitely some advantages. But the screen is a little smaller, and on Galaxy tablets you pay for screen size. That's why the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is almost the same exact tablet as the S9 plus, but you're paying a lot more. You're mainly paying for screen size. So you really have to ask yourself if you want a ginormous tablet or if you want a tablet that's a little smaller but it's still great for productivity, and portability too. I think for most people the ultra devices are a little too big. But they are amazing for those people that fit the niche

S9+

Yeah in that case, I'd definitely do the s9 series.

Nice! That's a great deal. Normally they go for about $700 or more without a keyboard. So if you got it down to $650 that's crazy good.

Yes! Took some back and forth but at the end it was worth it!

Nothing wrong with that

Touche 😂😂

Eh, it's more about those rainy days. You walk outside and it's raining, not everyone uses a tablet bag or laptop bag. It's nice to know you don't have to worry