At the moment, there is no specific release date for the tablet

May 9, 2014 11:32 GMT  ·  By

Samsung has been expected to unveil 8-inch and 10-inch AMOLED tablets for some time now, but the devices failed to make an appearance. Nevertheless, in recent times it was revealed these products are indeed in the pipe-line and they will arrive in the form of the Galaxy Tab S line-up.

The Galaxy Tab S will come in 8.4-inch and 10.5-inch flavors and this week, courtesy of SamMobile, we get to lay eyes on the first live picture showcasing the larger tablet.

Judging by the image, the new tablet should be pretty similar to the latest Galaxy TabPRO/NotePRO slates launched earlier this year, design-wise. Of course, the major difference represents the replacement of the LCD panels with OLED units.

Sadly, the crisp contrast characteristic of AMOLED display isn't quite visible in the photographs, so we will have to wait for the real-life version to get an idea of the quality of the display.

The Galaxy Tab S is expected to be the first tablet line-up to come with a fingerprint sensor (like in the Galaxy S5) which will live in the home button.

The back of the tablet is coated in a perforated material instead of the familiar faux leather. If you look closely, you can notice some dots on the tablet’s rear. What are they, you might be wondering. According to sources, they are proprietary connectors for Samsung’s book cover.

We’re not sure what that means exactly, but we’re probably going to be dealing with some new feature.

All the fingerprint sensor-specific feats will be thus accessible to users of the Galaxy Tab S, including Fingerprint Unlock, PayPal Payments, Private Folder and Samsung Apps login.

Another novelty will consist in the addition of the Multi-User login feat. This means that users will be able to sign in in their respective account just by swiping a finger on the home button from the lock screen.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S will arrive with fingerprint scanner
Samsung Galaxy Tab S will arrive with fingerprint scanner
Moving on, the Galaxy Tab S tablets will draw power from an Octa-Core Exynos 5 (5420) SoC with ARM’s big.LITTLE technology (four 1.9GHz Cortex-A15 cores and four 1.3GHz Cortex-A7 cores) fitted with 6-core ARM Mali-T628 GPU with clock speed of 533MHz.

In the connectivity department, the Galaxy Tab S will arrive with Wi-Fi 802.11ac support, Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 LE / ANT+, GPS, GLONASS and IR blaster.

Initial rumors expected the Galaxy Tab S to become available in Wi-Fi, 3G and LTE versions, but insider sources claim the Korean tech giant has dropped the 3G variant for now. Samsung normally uses Qualcomm chips in their LTE models, but this time the Korean tech giant is sticking to its own Exynos 5 platform (thanks to modems from Intel).

Last but not least, the new slates will run Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box and Samsung’s Magazine UX will be making a return too.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab S shown in first live pics
Samsung Galaxy Tab S will arrive with fingerprint scanner
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