Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 vs Apple iPad Air: specs comparison

Samsung has just announced its newest flagship tablets (that don't include S Pen styluses), so we naturally want to see how the new Galaxy Tab S devices stack up to the current competition. This one focuses on the larger display category, and that means it is time for a specs battle between the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and the Apple iPad Air.

The big focus of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 was in the dimensions and the display, with both changes aimed squarely at the iPad Air. Samsung was able to build a tablet that has a larger display with a higher resolution than the iPad Air, while still making the table thinner and (just barely) lighter. Maybe even more impressive is that the Galaxy Tab S doesn't have a footprint all that much bigger than the Air, even though its display is 0.8 inches larger. If you can get past Samsung's usual plastic backing materials, that could make for an impressive tablet. 

Unsurprisingly, the other internals of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (SoC, RAM, etc) look far more impressive on paper, but we'll have to wait and see how the device performs in real world conditions, because Samsung's software additions tend to cause performance issues.

For this comparison, we've also added in the Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1, which was released back in February and is the most direct predecessor to the new Tab S 10.5.