Samsung’s S Pen dreams with the Galaxy Note 7 may have withered with the phone’s battery, but thanks to the Galaxy Tab A 10.1 with S Pen, they will not die, at least for 2016.
Staying true to its name, the Tab A 10.1 features a 10.1-inch, 1,920 x 1,200 resolution display, with a 2-megapixel selfie camera above it and an 8MP sensor around back. Below the display is the combination of a physical home button and capacitive multitasking and back buttons that Samsung users have come to know, with the screen incorporating an anti-glare coating to reduce reflections. As for the bottom, they may not be true stereo speakers, but you will find a pair of them nonetheless.
Hidden in a slot is Samsung’s S Pen, though we are not sure whether its implementation is similar to the one found in the Galaxy Note 7 or from a previous incarnation. Regardless, you will not need to buy a separate stylus, since the S Pen already acts like one, while the display can recognize difference levels of pressure.
Under the hood, Samsung’s octa-core Exynos 7870 chipset and 3GB RAM run the show, with the 16GB of storage boosted by up to an additional 256GB through the MicroSD card slot. The 7,300mAh battery promises to deliver 13 hours of video playback, with general use possibly a bit shorter. Finally, the Tab A 10.1 runs Android Marshmallow out of the box, though we presume it will receive an update to Nougat down the road.
If the Tab A 10.1 sounds familiar, that is because the tablet already exists, albeit without S Pen support and with 2GB RAM. Furthermore, whereas the regular Tab A 10.1 goes for $300, the version with S Pen support will carry a $350 asking price when it becomes available starting October 28.
