Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 preorders start tomorrow at Best Buy, Amazon, and Samsung's site, will be available in stores on March 24 for $599.99
The Galaxy Tab S3, Samsung's latest flagship Android tablet, will be available next week. Pre-orders start tomorrow at Best Buy, Amazon …
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung is asking $599.99 for the Galaxy Tab S3 — a steep climb from the $400 starting price of the Tab S2 just eighteen months earlier, and the clearest sign yet that the company sees its flagship Android tablets as premium productivity hardware rather than budget media slates. Yesterday's Best Buy listing already revealed the fine print: the S Pen stylus ships in the box, but the keyboard costs an extra $129.99.
The multi-channel preorder window — Best Buy, Amazon, and Samsung's own site starting tomorrow, with stores on March 24 — puts the device on shelves alongside the spring phone cycle, where Samsung has been training buyers to accept flagship pricing.
First-order effects
- Buyers deciding between the Tab S2 and the new model now face a roughly $200 step-up for the S Pen-included flagship, plus another $129.99 if they want the keyboard — making the true laptop-comparable cost around $730.
Second-order effects
- The $599.99 anchor sets the floor Samsung's successors build on: the Tab S4 lands at $650+ the following year and the Tab S6 at $649+, while the line eventually reaches $800+ with the Tab S9 — each generation treating the prior one's price as the new baseline.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, premium Android tablets consolidate into a stylus-and-keyboard accessory ecosystem where the base price understates the real cost of entry, pushing the category toward laptop-style pricing and leaving only low-end slates below $400.
The trend: Samsung's flagship Galaxy Tab line is ratcheting steadily upmarket generation over generation, converting the Android tablet from a cheap media slate into a premium productivity device priced against laptops.