Yes of course, After several years, no one’s managed to precisely nail it no device will ever manage to straddle the line as the perfect laptop and tablet. But the category is a rare bright spot in an otherwise stagnant tablet market, and Samsung’s never been one to stand down from a challenge.
If nothing else, the Tab S4 represents Samsung’s most aggressive approach to the category yet. The company appears fairly confident that it will fulfill the need for both laptop and tablet for a certain segment of the population, at least — which would go a ways toward justifying that $650 starting price.
To accomplish this, the company is reinventing DeX. Formerly used to refer to the smartphone docking station, it’s now the name of the company’s desktop mode for Android. DeX is the key to the Tab’s convertibility. The S4 defaults to standard Android mode, switching over to DeX as soon as it docks in the keyboard case.
It’s an interesting choice. Rather than go with Windows 10, Chrome or any other operating systems designed specifically for the desktop environment, Samsung’s doubling down on the environment it introduced for the original DeX docks.
Why? I suspect it’s a control thing, at least in part. Windows 10 would have required surrendering more functionality to Microsoft *. With Android, Samsung can effectively run roughshod over the operating system as it sees fit. That means, no doubt, the eventually addition of things like the S-Pen’s Air Command interface and other proprietary Samsung differentiators In the dual mode, multi-tasking was smoother when we connected Galaxy Tab S4 with a bigger monitor with an HDMI adapter. In the dual mode, it was easy to move files between apps and seamlessly shift content just like a desktop PC The Galaxy Tab S4 isn’t quite the end-all, be-all laptop replacement, Samsung was no doubt hoping for, but it does represent an interesting new paradigm for the company in the wild world of convertible tablets.
