You can’t help but hear about tablets that are designed to replace your laptop. Microsoft and Apple have been pouring tons of effort and marketing into the Surface Pro and iPad Pro, two devices that are supposed to be productivity machines in addition to tablets.
You can see them at every NFL game, in countless commercials, and plastered billboards. You’ve also probably heard that these productivity tablets still have a lot of room for improvement, as both tablets and laptop replacements.
But there’s a sleeper agent that’s competing with them, another tablet vying to be a computer that you might not have heard about: the Samsung’s Galaxy TabPro S. It was announced earlier this year and quietly put on shelves a couple of weeks ago. The TabPro S is a lot like the iPad Pro and Surface Pro, and it’s yet another tablet with the promise of being a productivity machine.
In many ways, the TabPro S is better than the Surface Pro or iPad Pro. It’s more portable than the Surface, yet more powerful than the iPad. It’s slim and svelte, yet runs a full desktop operating system and all of its related productivity apps. Is it the perfect device that can let you forget about your iPad and your laptop and not miss a thing? No, certainly not. But it’s the best execution on a productivity-focused tablet I’ve used yet.
Like any good tablet, the TabPro S is remarkably thin and light at 6.3mm and just over 1.5 pounds. It shares a lot of design traits with Samsung’s Galaxy line of Android smartphones. It has a metal frame, an incredibly bright and vibrant Super AMOLED display (12-inch, 3:2 aspect ratio, 2160 x 1440 pixel resolution), and is as well put together as any of Samsung’s recent flagship smartphones. It charges via a single USB Type-C port (the only port on the device, save for a 3.5mm headphone jack), and has a speaker on each side of the display.
The keyboard itself isn’t remarkable on first glance: it’s a bit flimsy and doesn’t inspire confidence. But typing on it isn’t an issue – I was able to get comfortable on it quickly and enjoyed typing on it more than on the Surface’s keyboard. The trackpad is small and cramped, but it’s smooth, tracks well, and supports all of the multi-finger gestures in Windows 10. The only thing I really miss on the keyboard are backlit keys, something that Microsoft’s (but not Apple’s) keyboard has.On its own, the TabPro S is a bit big and clunky. Like other 12-inch tablets, it’s too large and heavy to comfortably use for casual entertainment. But it really comes to life when you snap it into its keyboard case. Included with the TabPro S1, the case has a full-size keyboard, complete with a function row and plenty of shortcuts, and a trackpad. It connects to the bottom of the tablet with a pogo-pin connector, and offers two angles for typing. The whole thing snaps to the back of the tablet with magnets and folds up into a really compact folio when it’s time to leave. With the keyboard case attached and closed, the TabPro S is thinner than both the Surface Pro 4 and iPad Pro are with their keyboards.
There are two things that make the TabPro S keyboard case distinctly better than Apple or Microsoft’s, however. Firstly, it has a flat base and a small footprint. That means it’s stable on my lap, yet not so large that it falls off the back of a seat tray when I’m on a plane, two scenarios where the Surface Pro 4 struggles. Second, it has a large enough deck to rest my palms on, so it doesn’t feel like I’m working on a miniature computer and the tablet doesn’t feel like it’s going to tip forward on me as I hammer away at the keys.
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