SAMSUNG Galaxy Tab S8 11” 256GB WiFi 6E Android Tablet, Large LCD Screen, S Pen Included, Ultra Wide Camera, Long Lasting Battery, US Version, 2022, Graphite

TL;DR:Overall love this tablet, preferred over S8+, and a great tool for digital artists (just get a nice cover for the s pen)______________________________________S8 vs S8+ (vs iPad?)Went to an electronics store to see the actual comparison.COLORthe color difference is negligible. it's like going to the back of the electronics aisle with all the TVs and seeing the *very slight* difference between displays. yeah, okay, one might look slightly more vibrant but does that justify the $200 price difference? not for me at least.SCREEN SIZEthe next difference that i care about is the screen size but i actually prefer the *slightly* smaller screen of the s8. it's still a decent sized screen unless you need your tablet to get as close to the size of an average sized laptop as possible. any larger and it will actually be awkward for me to play games on the tablet.STORAGEi got the 128gb since i mostly use cloud storage. it has a little slot you can open up to add a micro sd to get more storage so honestly unless you *know* that you will need more storage, i will opt for 128gb. this is the advantage the samsung tablet has over apple. ipad *does not* have an sd slot so it gets more annoying to expand storage--such as needing cloud storage, a separate wireless storage device, or separate storage device that plugs into the charging port and just...sits there all clunky.__________________________________________S8 for ART (vs Kodak Cybertablet F10; Wacom Bamboo CTL-470; Huion Kamvas GT-156 v2)WORKSPACEi use clip studio paint with a *very* cluttered workspace and in *portrait* orientation. i'm talking like all the panels and windows out and the screen size still doesn't feel small or cramped to draw on the actual canvas. comparison of workspace size/tablet sizes in photos.DISPLAYS8 has TFT (LCD) and S8+ has Super AMOLED. S8 and my Huion are both LCD and they are still really good. i actually like the S8 better since i still haven't found the right color settings or color profile for my Huion to match the display colors with my phone (i tend to optimize colors for mobile devices). AMOLED makes it look more vibrant? the brights are richer and the blacks are darker. i thought the "more accurate" colors might justify the additional $200 price tag but then i realized "wait if my art looks slightly different on all these other displays anyway, what's the point of it looking *really good* on mine when it looks probably more like the S8's display on all my clients' and followers' devices?"S PENCHARGING: i find that it dies pretty fast compared to my graphic tablet pens, but it also charges really fast too. my huion pen is the most comparable since it also has a "charge" type pen compared to the other "replace the battery" tablet pens. for Huion, i don't even know how long it takes to charge since i can plug the cord into my laptop and draw with the pen while it's charging, and unplug it whenever i feel like it's fully charged. huion holds a charge for weeks but the s pen needs several charges throughout the week. since it attaches magnetically to the back of the tablet to charge, i can't use it while charging. but it charges *really* fast so was not a problem for me. when it's dying, i magnet it to the back, check my messages and emails, and then it's already charged and ready for me to use again.PRESSURE: honestly out of all the tablets, all at different price points, i barely feel a difference. i'm just not sensitive to this "over 9000 levels of pressure sensitivity" thing. everything feels nice when drawing comics, illustrations, and whatnots. lack of complaints is a good thing here.NIB: the pen nib/tip is rubber, not plastic. still, the tip goes to a nice fine point. i was worried that the tip might be too rubbery and flatten out and drag across the screen when pressed, but it's nice and firm and holds the point well. i'm used to needing a matte paper-esque screen protector for my tablets since the pens are plastic, but because this one's a rubber tip, i won't be getting nor needing one.ERGONOMICS: wow this s pen is light. very light and very thin. thickness comparison in photos. the weight doesn't bother me but the thinness does. i'm used to thicker pens where it's a relatively relaxed grip but with the s pen sometimes i feel like i'm drawing with a toothpick and it strains my hand to hold the pen so precisely. it has a button on it that i use for an eraser tool but it's so small it can actually cramp my hand after a while. it really is "after a while" and i do abuse the eraser more often than the average artist but i still will be getting some kind of sleeve or cover to make the pen easier to hold. this is my biggest complaint but also one that doesn't bother me as long as i get a good cover that still gives me access to the button.

I'm not a tablet guy. I prefer laptops, but my daughter found that her Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook didn't have all the options for Tiktok, and I indulged her with this tablet. Because I have an Android phone and this tablet runs on Android, I'm very familiar with the system. Set-up only took ten minutes. I put on both my Google account and my daughter's. The screen looks great, the swiping on the screen works like my Samsung phone, the speakers sound good, and the tablet offers better value than the pricier iPad Air in terms of power, and included stylus. We put the protective screen cover on it and that's a good thing because after using it for 10 minutes, my daughter dropped it, split the screen cover and fortunately the actual device was unharmed. It is a must that you put a rugged case and screen cover on the Galaxy tablet. It is slippery in your hand and you will inevitably drop it. For this reason, for children and teens, I recommend you get a good Chromebook like the Lenovo Flex 5i or the Acer Spin 713 or Spin 714. I find it is more rugged, can be used as both a tablet and a laptop, and gets 7 years of updates. I believe this Galaxy only gets 4 years of updates. But if you insist on the tablet experience, I can give this Galaxy Tab S8, 5 stars.

I primarily use my tab s8 for reading, note-taking, and school assignments (have even used it for coding with google colab), at every task it exceeds in ways that I never would have expected from a tablet. Before this, I had a surface pro 7 and used it for the same reasons, it really was just terrible, and I felt horrible for wasting so much money on such a bad product—without exaggeration, every time I turned it on there was a new problem. In contrast, the tab s8 is the exact opposite, it seems that Samsung goes out of their way to make the workflow as efficient as possible on a tablet, and I haven't had a single bug in the three months I've owned the product.The only thing that I would change is to add a few more features to Samsung notes, compared to the almost unnecessary amount of features in the standard UI, I am surprised they haven't added a straight line tool with an angle tolerance setting (If you are reading this please add). They recently added a feature to lock images in place, which is much appreciated (the pen menu has a screenshot tool that is absolutely phenomenal, and you can easily drag them onto Samsung notes), but they could add the ability to merge and lock shapes into place as well.With that, I have to say that Samsung is awesome about adding features and it seems that something useful is added on a monthly basis, I can't think of another company that cares for their product on the level that Samsung does. You can find complaints on the microsoft forums with hundreds of replies that haven't been fixed in 8+ years, I can promise you that you won't have problems like that with this product. On top of that, while this is a "tablet" you can do the vast majority of tasks on it that you could do on a laptop. Obviously there are limitations when it comes to games and desktop programs, but you can find workarounds for a surprising amount of them. If you are comfortable with more complicated tasks, you can download desktop programs using andronix, which allows you to install linux distros on your tablet. This vastly increases the amount of things you can do with the tablet, but is not worth using if you aren't comfortable using a terminal.