After switching to Galaxy Tab S11, the iPad no longer makes any sense to me
The best tablet for consuming media is not an iPad.
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
Do you have a tablet? If yes, then you're most likely using an iPad.
Don't blame me of fanboyism; that's just an objective fact: ever since the inception of the tablet niche, Apple has always been the unanimous leader in both shipments and market share. In Q3 2025, Apple shipped 13.2 million iPads worldwide, whereas its closest competitor—Samsung—was glued to the second spot with a respectable 6.9 million Galaxy tablets.
I've used iPads on and off for nearly a decade now in what can be best described as a "love-hate situationship" with the venerable Apple tablet. On one hand, I've always debated the usefulness of a tablet to the point where I had to deliberately force myself to use the device to justify its place in my everyday workflow. On the other hand, an iPad fits so well in the Apple ecosystem that it often feels like the true centerpiece rather than an iPhone or a MacBook.
But it wasn't until I got my hands on a Galaxy Tab S11 as a daily driver at home that I realized what I've been missing and just how many compromises I had settled on with the iPad.
High-end Android tablets are just better
Before I tell you why an iPad isn't the best tablet you can get, let me make something clear.
Look, I'm not one of those anti-computer nerds that struggles to do all of their daily work on a tablet and prays for the downfall of the laptop. Ironically, this makes me one of those uncool people from Apple's controversial "What's a Computer?" ad for the iPad Pro back in the day.
To me, a tablet is strictly a multimedia machine. I read e-books on it, I watch YouTube a lot, I watch TV shows and movies, and I occasionally indulge myself in social media, particularly short-form videos.
Of course, an iPad can easily do all of these, too. But to me, the Galaxy Tab S11 does all of this better thanks to three simple reasons: display, sound, and most importantly, its operating system.
Design
The Galaxy Tab S11 is a tablet that's as well-designed as an iPad. Its slim aluminum unibody and flat design language are extremely similar to the iPad Air or the iPad Pro, so I'm not sacrificing anything from a design perspective. The added IP68 water- and dust-resistance is another quality-of-life feature that I absolutely love to have.
The added S Pen is a great addition as well. I don't use it too often, but I definitely cherish the fact that Samsung still includes these in the box while Apple sells them separately. Sure, professional users might swear by the Apple Pencil and ProCreate, but as someone who needs to use a stylus once in a blue moon, the S Pen is as good as they come.
Screen
The Galaxy Tab S11 has a superb OLED display that is a joy to watch content on. It makes just about anything truly pop thanks to its superb peak brightness of roughly 1,500 nits, as per the PhoneArena in-house tests. That's plenty for a device you mostly use at home and usually once the sun goes down, but I appreciate the brightness potential here, which comes in particularly handy when watching HDR content.
It also has the correct aspect ratio of 16:10 for experiencing content, which means you won't be watching letterboxed content nearly as often as with the iPad, which uses a more productivity-based 3:2 screen.
And that's critical, given that the display is one of the key hardware features of a tablet, so it's absolutely crucial to be 100, nay, 110% satisfied with your tablet's scren.
Speakers
In the world of high-end tablets, iPads are often lauded as being some of the best-sounding tablets you can get. That's mostly true.
But do you know what tablet sounds slightly better, at least to my ears? You guessed it, the Galaxy Tab S11.
While the bass might not be as punchy, I find the audio coming from it just a bit more detailed in the mid-range and highs, which makes it slightly better for the talking heads videos that I typically watch. It's overall a bit more balanced to my taste, but don't get me wrong: an iPad, especially those Pro models, still sounds mighty fine!
Android plus One UI equals awesomeness
I have always been partial to using Android on a larger screen. To me at least, it feels much better to use instead of iPadOS, which aims to bridge that gap between iOS and macOS but still fails to do so.
I will never stop reiterating how much I love sideloading apps from outside the Play Store on Android, especially great FOSS stuff only found on GitHub, and the iPad feels quite limiting and constraining in contrast.
The multitasking on Android is also simply better, and once we include Samsung DeX in the equation, it's simply game over for the iPadOS. Put a keyboard on the iPad, and you get mostly a proper laptop replacement, which ironically can't really be said about the latest iPad Pro without sacrificing a lot of desktop nice-to-haves.
And I've been on the record many times about how awesome One UI is in terms of personalization and customization, and this is valid with the full force of the Galaxy Tab S11. It enjoys the same bells and whistles that Samsung's phones do, which means one of the nicest Android interfaces around and full Good Lock compatibility for customization lovers.
Conclusion
Is the Galaxy Tab S11 a better buy than any of Apple's iPads?
To me, yes.
I hate the fact that even a decade and a half later, the iPad still feels like an enlarged iPhone that's slightly more awkward to use than the real deal. Don't get me wrong, they are well-built devices, but I can't justify using one of those when Samsung's excellent Galaxy Tab series exists.
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