The Galaxy TabS4 WTF Samsung

For the first part of my smartphone membership, I was a Windows Phone user.

The 1520 to be exact and had Microsoft not lost their mind more than a few times I would still be a Windows Phone user. I can see myself with a Lumia 950XL or Elite X2. My end point came with Windows Phone came when Microsoft decided to charge flagship prices for a product that was nearing its end.

Which brings me to Samsung the place I now dwell end on the smartphone spectrum. That S8+ is a beauty although I am a Note 8 owner now.

Yet Samsung has recreated the Microsoft snafu with the released of the Samsung Tab S4.

For the longest Samsung has produced the best Android tablets on the market. However, the problem is the Android tablet market is dead at best. Even if you set aside iOS and their dominance the Android tablet game is over with the advent of Acer releasing the Chromebook Tab 10 the first tablet to run the Chrome OS.

Chrome OS still has a way to go before it is tablet really but in all honesty, so does Android. One is the future, and one right now is barely alive. That aside Samsung cranked out probably the best Android tablet of all time with the Tab S4, but instead of sending the Tab S4 out in a blaze of tablet glory Samsung decided to let it fade out in misery.

Again when it comes to specs, I try to set them aside with tech talk on this blog. The Tab S4 is a beauty

like most things Samsung does, and that beauty comes with a price, and, the Tab S4 is carrying a premium price tag. But why, if there’s any company that understands Chrome OS continued ascent it’s Samsung who manufacturer two of the best Chromebooks on the planet.
Don’t get me wrong the Tab S4 is worth the $650 that its entry price has if this was 2016, but it’s not. If it was $650 for $750 model with the keyboard included and the entry price check in at $550 with the keyboard included. Yet Samsung’s stubbornness brings the entry level at $650 + $150 for the keyboard which you will need if you want to use Dex which is included as software in the Tab S4. Yet that $800 price tag is more than an iPad, puts you in the iPad Pro range, Pixelbook and a lot more than Microsoft Surface Go which is sure to be the tablet darling of the year.

Ode to the Tablet.

Oh, the tablet how far you have fallen. Once upon a time, you were heralded as the PC Killer. Little did we know that actually a device we all had the smartphone would signal the end of the PC.

Somber tomes aside to me the tablet never signaled the end of the PC. That was merely hype spread by the hype machine Apple whose iPad was probably the only tablet to grab some mainstream notoriety.

Don’t get me wrong the iPad wasn’t the only ride in town. Asus gave us The Transformer, Amazon low balled us with the Fire HD line and of course Samsung with the Galaxy Tab. Yet for some reason, Android tablets did not really catch on.

There were many reasons for this none of which had anything to do with the quality of the tablet. There was a time when the Transformer by Asus was vastly superior to the iPad spec wise. The iPad sold because it built by Apple at a time when anything with the orchard logo on it was going to the

sell.

The iPad’s hype fooled everyone about the importance of tablets that no one really ask outside of consumption what is the tablet good for and what is a fair price point?

Android tablets can’t sell what about the Fire HD about by Amazon but its very inexpensive. Although it ran WebOS the Touchpad by HP couldn’t stay on the shelf once HP decided to kill off the tablet by selling it at $99.

I’m quite sure Samsung could make a killing with Samsung Tab S3 a magnificent tablet whose price point is too high by at least $150.

In this day and age crossing $500 gets you a great 2-in-1 Chromebook a few of which are made by Samsung. As for the smaller 7-8 tablets, they were useful in the age of 4-inch Smartphones but in the era of the Phablet, our 5.1 to 7-inch slabs of techno-wizardry have almost rendered them useless.

Tablets still have a place but at the right price point which Amazon proves every day but until some manufacturer takes a chance and produces a flagship caliber tablet at a midrange price we will continue to see them as an extra add-on when buying a smartphone or trending on the net from a fire sale.