Okay, so I’ve made a Short on thisand I’ve made videos about these monster tablets in the pastand every single time people get really into themand I’m really into them. But the question that always keeps coming up every time is,are these actually iPad killers?Like, is an iPad killer a real thing?So let’s talk about it.(upbeat music)So this is the newest,highest end Android tablet from Samsung,the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra,and it’s even more ridiculousthan the previous year’s already crazy Ultra, and I love it.So I’ve already made a video on the Tab S7 ,and then last year, the Tab S8 Ultra.
If you haven’t already seen that, I’ll link it below.That was last year’s version.And so, now,just like the rest of Samsung’s recent announcements,this new one mostly looks the same as last year’s versionbut all of the changes they’ve madeare in the same direction, just making it even more capable.So you’ve got this gigantic 14.6 inch tablet that, I mean,it feels like I’m holding a small TV in my hands.It’s somehow also razor thin with a huge battery insideand it actually doesn’t snap in half,despite looking likeit probably should be susceptible to that.But hey, watch Zack’s video for yourselfif you don’t believe me,it survives better than a lot of other devices have.This year though, a new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy insideplus a new vapor chamber cooling system under the hood,so there’s going to be an even higher ceilingfor performance for everything it’s already good at.We’ve seen this thing do multitasking well for yearsand be quick to scroll around,and open and close apps with normal usage.
Is the iPad Killer Real
And now, it’ll do better at gaming and video editing,and potentially, also last a bit longeron that same 11,200 milliamp hour batterythat’s bigger than any battery that’s ever been in an iPad.This year, the quad speaker setupis also now made up of 20% larger speakers,which is a pretty big jump.And I’m not ready to call thesethe best sounding speakers in any tablet quite yet,that goes to the iPad Pro still.But these sure do get really loudwith very little distortion,and you can flip on Dolby Atmos audioif you want some pretty impressive surround sound effectsfor music or videos or games.And then, this entire tabletis now IP68 water and dust-resistant for the first time,which means it’s safe to, not just splash it with water,but literally completely submergethe whole thing underwater,and it’ll be totally fine, which is crazy,I don’t know any situationwhere you would end up with a tablet underwater,maybe you’re recklessly watching Netflixnext to a pool or something, and then you drop it in,I don’t know.But if you did, it would still be fine.
But then on top of that,this S Pen also comes in the box again,and this thing also now has an IP68 rating of its ownand it also now supports bi-directional charging,but not the bi-directional chargingyou’re probably thinking ofwhen you can accept charge from the tablet,but also charge other things.No, I just mean whatever direction the pen faceswhen you magnetize it to the back of the tablet,it will work and charge perfectly fine,which is better than last year.What I’m surprised doesn’t come in the boxis any charging brick.I mean, for a tablet that does everything,this thing is actually capable of 45 watt charging,which is really solid.But the only way to get that is to buy a charger,something like this Anker Prime desktop charger,which I would totally getover any Samsung first party chargerbecause it’s gallium nitride, it’s smaller,and then it also has multi-port chargingup to 240 watts max output.
So you could literally charge a laptop full speedand the tablet full speed at the same time.But then, of course,they also make a really convenient battery bank option.So this is the Anker Prime 250 watt battery bankwith two USB-C ports and one USB-A port.It has a built-in inductive wireless charging padso that can charge the battery bank up to 100 watts,and then there’s an app connected to itthat lets you configure the display and optimize chargingor even play a sound to find it.It’s way more advanced than any chargerthat’s ever come in any Samsung box,so shout out to Anker for sponsoring this video and I’ll put a link in the descriptionfor you to check this one out right below that like button.
But the point is, I mean,you’ve seen all the specs now, they’re all huge numbers.It’s a 14 and a half inch screen in my hands,it’s 120 hertz, it’s an 11,200 milliamp hour battery,it’s quad speakers, it’s the minimum 12 gigs of RAM,it’s a terabyte of internal storagewith up to another terabyte of micro SD card storage.All these numbers are great,but it’s actually using this tabletand actually holding it,it’s hard to describe it to youbut it’s even more hilariously fun.So I’m personally partialto like media consumption on devices like this,like I would just want to watch YouTube videoson a gigantic screen,take them with me, download them offline,watch ’em on flights with my free time,like it’s already amazing for that.And honestly, I think that’s whatmost people do on tablets a lot of the time.But of course, for all the additional stuffthat tablet power users are gonna be doing,there is just so much more that this thing is capable of.Basically, it’s at the forefront of tablets.There’s all of Samsung’s multi window multitasking featuresand popup windows on that 16×10 aspect ratio display,all of the stylus features,which, if you wanna use a stylus on a tablet,it feels like Samsung and Appleare really the only ones taking it seriously.
But you know, I’m using it to sign documentsevery once in a while,but there are some peoplewhose entire workflows go through this thing.And then you can’t forget about DeX,there’s a whole clever keyboard folio casethat I didn’t even have here for this onebut I had it for the S8 Ultra,and that adds a whole nother dimension,and DeX Mode has been super usefulwhile giving you that desktop experiencewith independent windowsand you can plug it into an even larger display,if you want to.It’s more powerful than anythingApple has even tried to do on the iPad.And all of that isn’t even mentioning thatthis is probably the biggest camera viewfinderanyone has ever used.Plus on the front, that little notch up there,I’ve mentioned this before,but there’s two selfie cameras,a front-facing normal camera and an ultra widethat can do auto framing in videos or in video calls,similar to what Apple calls Center Stage,except these cameras are actually in the right placeon the long side of the tablet.So all that being said, can this be an iPad killer?
That’s the question we keep asking,and it’s a real question,like this is clearly competing against the iPad Pro,the biggest, baddest iPad Pro,but it’s gonna have a lot of things, a lot of features,a lot of numbers to one up the iPad Pro, right?It’s got a bigger screen, it’s got bigger speakers,it’s got external expandable storage,it’s got the fingerprint readerthat the iPad Pro doesn’t have, and all of thatcosts $100 more than the equivalent iPad Pro.This reminds me of the conversationwe’ve had about Sony phones.Like, in the world of Android phones,Sony is out here making incredibly well-equipped,super high-end phones with a ton of enthusiast featuresand expandable memory and manual controlsthat the competition like just straight up doesn’t offer.And that’s only really at the expenseof a little bit of automatic mode usability and price.
Like they just, they’re expensive, they cost more.And while it’s really easyto point out all the obvious benefits and advantagesto all these extra featuresand these cool things that it does,it turns out that the number of peoplewho will actually take advantage of these features is tiny.And I mean, they’re everywhere on YouTube,but when it comes to actually voting with their wallets,most people end up just going withthis sort of more standard one.And I feel like there isa similar phenomenon happening here.For whatever reason, videos about these tablets do numbers,they’re going crazy, like people love to see these on videoand I like talking about ’em.
But then when it comes to actually buying them,people, the ecosystem effect is way stronger than any YouTube comments would suggest.People love flocking to the iPad for iMessage and FaceTimeand all these other things.But to keep it even more simple,I have this analogy that I really like even better,people like bigger screensas long as it doesn’t sacrifice too muchin the other areas of the device.So take the MacBook Air, for example.That 13 inch MacBook Airwas one of the bestselling laptops for years,it was Apple’s number one bestselling laptopfor a long time, and people wanted a bigger screenbut the only way that they could get a bigger screenand still buy an Apple productwas to move all the way up to the 16 inch MacBook Pro,which was just dramatically more expensive,I mean, it was overkill,most people did not need that much computer.
the Real iPad Killer
And so, people would actually startto drift away and go buy a different,slightly bigger screened laptop from some other company.So much so that Apple finally this yeardecided to introduce a larger 15 inch MacBook Air,and it turned out that’s exactly what people wanted,they just want the bigger screen.On the other end of this,Apple tried introducing a mini iPhone for two whole years,which you would think is a brilliant ideaif you only read YouTube comments.
But again, it turns out most people want the bigger screen.And so, that ended up not selling enough,it got discontinuedand today we have a Plus phone instead.So this is a bigger screen tablet than the iPad Pro,which is why it’s so amazingand impressive to hold and look at.But it’s also a very different tablet from the iPad Pro,it’s a hundred bucks more, but it’s an Android tablet,it has a whole different feature set.And for a lot of people, that’s too much sacrificeand a lot of people will continue to just get iPads.But for those who are not looped into the ecosystemand who don’t depend on these features,this is a hell of a tablet. Thanks for watching, catch ya in the next one, peace.