Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 review: nice screen and battery life, but Android tablet apps are mediocre, and it needs accessories to be useful beyond media consumption
Stefan Etienne / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung's flagship tablets have followed a fixed script since the Galaxy Tab S2 was flagged as a hard sell above $400 in 2015: best-in-class screens and batteries wrapped around software that never justifies the price. The Tab S3 review two years earlier made the same complaint from the other direction — tight stylus hardware undermined by cramped keyboards and limited multitasking.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the Tab S4 get a media device out of the box; anything beyond video requires buying Samsung's keyboard and other accessories, raising the real cost of productivity well past the tablet's sticker price.
Second-order effects
- Samsung is pushed further into compensating with its own software layers like DeX rather than waiting on Google or app developers — a bet that its own later Tab S7 reviews show still felt unfinished years on.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across generations — and the 2022 Tab S8 reviews repeat the same app-ecosystem complaint — Android tablets stay structurally confined to consumption, ceding the productivity-tablet market to Apple regardless of how good Samsung's panels get.
The trend: Samsung keeps shipping flagship Android tablet hardware that outruns its software ecosystem, leaving each generation dependent on first-party accessories and desktop-mode workarounds.