Samsung Galaxy Tab Active Pro Review: A Rugged Battery Life Champ

Samsung Galaxy Tab Active Pro: A Tough Tablet For Road Warriors

Personal electronics take quite a beating. Think for a moment about all the places your smartphone can end up: on top of the car, buried in a bag, shoved into a pocket along with keys, tossed on a seat where it may bounce off and hit the floor, and so many other situations. Just like a phone, a

For smartphones, Samsung’s Galaxy Active family has served as the rugged device built to withstand a tougher environment. In October, Samsung unveiled the

Samsung Galaxy Tab Active Pro
Specifications & Features

SoC
Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 (2x Kryo 360 @ 2.0 GHz, 6x Kryo 360 @ 1.7 GHz, Adreno 616 graphics)

Display
10.1″ 1920×1200 IPS display with capacitive multi-touch and S Pen support

Memory
4 GB LPDDR4x

Storage
64 GB internal storage, micro SD port

Rear-Facing Cameras
13 MP f/1.8

Front-Facing Cameras
8 MP f/2.0

Video Recording
4K at 30fps, 1080p at 30 or 60 fps, 16:9 aspect

Battery
7,400 mAh

Sensors
NFC, GPS, Rotation, Ambient Light

OS
Android 9 Oreo

Dimensions
6.70″ x 9.58″ x 0.38″ (170.2 x 243.5 x 9.9 mm)

Weight
1.43 pounds (653 grams)

Connectivity
802.11ac Wi-Fi, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct and hotspot supported (4G LTE model only)

Colors
Black

Pricing
Starts at $599 as tested, $679 for 4G LTE model on Amazon

Samsung says that the Galaxy Tab Active Pro has an octa-core SoC that runs at up to 2.0 GHz, but doesn’t specify exactly which in its specs. According to both AnTuTu and Geekbench on the device, the SoC in question is the

While the Galaxy Tab Active Pro isn’t exactly a gaming device, the built-in Adreno 615 graphics should be enough for most games without a lot of stuttering or jank. 4 GB of LPDDR4x memory back the SoC, which doesn’t sound like much in an age of 8 GB and 12 GB smartphones, but should still be adequate for a decent amount of multi-tasking. For primary storage, the

There’s plenty of network connectivity in the

Since the Samsung aimed the Galaxy Tab Active Pro at professional markets, it has a suitably large battery. The unit in our test unit was rated at 7,400 mAh at 3.8v, which works out to 28.12 Watt-hours. That’s not quite as big as the typical ultrabook battery at around 50 Wh, but we’re not trying to drive a 15W

Hardware Features and Industrial Design

Externally, the biggest eye catcher is all the effort that went into making this device rugged enough to meet the

Secondly, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro has physical hardware buttons, just like the AT&T exclusive Galaxy Active smartphones. The hardware buttons are in Samsung’s default configuration, which differs from stock Android by putting the back button on the right and the multi-tasking button on the left. If you’ve ever used a Samsung phone before, this should be familiar, but users of just about any other Android phone will have a little bit to get used to. Anybody who’s used a touch screen with gloves on knows these buttons are pretty handy. The home button also doubles as a fingerprint reader for the only form of

In the box, Samsung includes a polycarbonate case that the tablet slips into easily. Holstered in that case is an

The tablet itself is made from a matte textured polycarbonate body like the case. Hearkening back to the Good Old Days, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro has a pop-off back cover, which grants access to a user replaceable battery and micro SD slot. Since this device is targeted at businesses, having a user-replaceable battery should extend the usable life of the device should the juice pack go south. What’s unfortunate is that seemingly every flagship smartphone followed

The 1920×1200 display on the Galaxy Tab Active Pro is an

Above the display sits an 8 megapixel front-facing camera for taking selfies or (perhaps more likely, on a business device) streaming video for video conferencing apps. We’ll examine still performance later on, but for video conferencing this does the job. The image isn’t particularly sharp but it’s certainly enough to get by in a WebEx meeting. Around the back is a 13-megapixel camera for taking stills or video up to

All of the side buttons are on the same edge of the Galaxy Tab Active Pro as the camera, so changing the volume or waking the display is all along the top edge of the device. There’s a fourth button here, dubbed the Active Button, which is programmable and can launch two apps. Unlike the

Software Experience with Android 9 and One UI

On the software side, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro runs

The default Home screen of the Galaxy Tab Active Pro The nonpayment Home screen of the Galaxy Tab Active Pro

Anybody who’s touched a recent Samsung phone knows that

The Galaxy Tab Active Pro also supports

Samsung partnered with Citrix to bring

The number of default apps is pretty light, which we appreciate. There’s little bloat taking up precious storage. The number of default apps is pretty lighter, which we appreciate. There ‘s little bloat taking up precious storehouse.

The S Pen works out of the box with the a couple of apps: Samsung Notes, which has some interesting tricks up its sleeve, and

Taking notes in the Notes app using the S Pen and then double-tapping them with a finger will prompt the Galaxy Tab Active Pro to convert handwriting to text. We had some hit-and-miss results with ours, as my handwriting isn’t great. The number of mistakes it made on my sloppy scribbles made it a bigger hassle to fix text than it was to just type it out in the first place. However, when I took my time and wrote legibly, the

Top: my handwriting. Bottom: writing to text via OCR top : my handwriting. Bottom : compose to text via OCR
Now that we’ve found our way around the Galaxy Tab Pro Active, let’s run some tests. 

personal electronics take quite a perplex. Think for a here and now about all the places your smartphone can end up : on top of the car, buried in a bag, shoved into a pocket along with keys, tossed on a seat where it may bounce off and hit the floor, and so many other situations. Just like a earphone, a pad can end up in a lot of those lapp places, excessively. environmental factors come in to play for users who are active as well, be it in a delivery vehicle, on a factory floor, or as a foremost respondent in a vehicle. In those situations, the peace of mind brought by paying for extra-durable devices can be wholly worth it.For smartphones, Samsung ‘s Galaxy Active syndicate has served as the rugged device built to withstand a tough environment. In October, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Tab Active lineup for occupation customers that want something ultra-mobile, but in a larger format than a smartphone. Samsung says these tablets are built to withstand boisterous environments while delivering the performance and connectivity that businesses need to keep their field agents productive. The Galaxy Tab Active family has a pair of members : the Galaxy Tab Active 2 is an 8 ” tablet, while the Galaxy Tab Active Pro is a 10.1 ” device. differently, they have very similar spectacles. today, we ‘re looking at the Pro model with the specification listed below.Samsung says that the Galaxy Tab Active Pro has an octa-core SoC that runs at up to 2.0 GHz, but does n’t specify precisely which in its spectacles. According to both AnTuTu and Geekbench on the device, the SoC in question is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 SoC with a pair of 2 GHz Kryo 360 Gold cores and six 1.7 GHz Kryo 360 Silver cores. The copulate of Kryo 360 Gold cores should be batch of dynamism for lightly-threaded performance sensible tasks like browsing the web and running the huge majority of apps. interim, six Kryo 360 Silver cores should be more than enough to handle background tasks.While the Galaxy Tab Active Pro is n’t precisely a gambling device, the built-in Adreno 615 graphics should be adequate for most games without a fortune of stuttering or jank. 4 GB of LPDDR4x memory back the SoC, which does n’t sound like much in an age of 8 GB and 12 GB smartphones, but should however be adequate for a decent amount of multi-tasking. For primary memory, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro relies on 64 GB of internal flash along with a micro SD slot for extra space.There ‘s enough of network connectivity in the Galaxy Tab Active Pro. The device supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band and Bluetooth 5.0 with the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile ( A2DP ) for high quality sound. While our quiz unit does n’t support it, Samsung does have a translation of the Galaxy Tab Active Pro with 4G LTE cellular connectivity, excessively. Samsung gave the Galaxy Tab Active Pro a pair of cameras, with one on each side of the tablet. While taking photos with a pad can look downright silly to the casual observer, the rear-facing television camera looks pretty solid on newspaper with its 13 megapixel detector and wide f/1.8 aperture. The front camera is no slouch, boasting an 8 megapixel detector and a slightly narrower f/2.0 aperture. Both sensors should have no problem gain lightly, but we ‘ll test it in dimmed scenarios.Since the Samsung aimed the Galaxy Tab Active Pro at professional markets, it has a appropriately big barrage. The unit in our test unit was rated at 7,400 mAh at 3.8v, which works out to 28.12 Watt-hours. That ‘s not quite angstrom big as the typical ultrabook battery at around 50 Wh, but we ‘re not trying to drive a 15W Intel Core processor, either. The battery life in the Galaxy Tab Pro Active should be reasonably solid, but there ‘s only one manner to find out. tip : it ‘s on the following page.Externally, the biggest eye catcher is all the attempt that went into making this device rugged enough to meet the MIL-STD-810G specification. This means that the pill meets sealed criteria, for exercise, it can survive extreme point temperatures, debris, shock absorber, shaking, and gloomy pressure/high altitude use. As separate of that certificate process, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro besides has an ingress protection denounce of IP68, which means it can withstand 1.5 meters of body of water for 30 minutes and is dust resistant.Secondly, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro has physical hardware buttons, good like the AT & T single Galaxy Active smartphones. The hardware buttons are in Samsung ‘s default shape, which differs from stock Android by putting the back button on the right and the multi-tasking button on the left. If you ‘ve ever used a Samsung earphone earlier, this should be conversant, but users of precisely about any other Android telephone will have a little bit to get used to. Anybody who ‘s used a touch riddle with gloves on knows these buttons are reasonably handy. The dwelling button besides doubles as a fingerprint lector for the only kind of biometric authentication in the tablet. This hearkens back to the days when the fingerprint proofreader was on the front man of many Galaxy S phones like the Galaxy S5 and S6. Below those hardware buttons sits a set of pogo pins for use with some third party add-ons like docks and mounts.In the box, Samsung includes a polycarbonate case that the pill slips into easily. Holstered in that lawsuit is an S Pen which carries the lapp IP68 rat of the pad. The S Pen is an active stylus that connects via Bluetooth, but if the battery dies it can silent be used for writing. The Bluetooth features like hover do need the battery. The miss of battery besides means that there ‘s no Bluetooth connection or Air Action compatibility like the Note 10, though. For the target consultation, we think skipping those extra features and excluding the battery was the right call. The S Pen itself is a solid stylus about deoxyadenosine monophosphate bombastic as a nice ballpoint pen.The pill itself is made from a matte textured polycarbonate body like the case. Hearkening rear to the Good Old Days, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro has a pop-off back cover, which grants access to a drug user replaceable barrage and micro SD slot. Since this device is targeted at businesses, having a user-replaceable battery should extend the functional life of the device should the juice pack go south. What ‘s unfortunate is that apparently every flagship smartphone followed Apple ‘s contribute and denies the same experience to consumers. We like it the serviceable barrage in the Galaxy Tab Active Pro an amazing batch, though.The 1920×1200 display on the Galaxy Tab Active Pro is an IPS panel with 10-point refer responsiveness, and as a result the see angles are courteous and wide. The display gets reasonably bright indoors, measuring 350 nits at maximum luminosity on our clean meter. however, that ‘s not very bright enough for outdoor use without being in the shade. Since the hardware buttons are present on the tablet, none of the screen real number estate is lost to a wide navigation banish at the bottom of the screen. Bixby is present on the pill, but not assigned to any hardware buttons by default.Above the display sits an 8 megapixel front-facing camera for taking selfies or ( possibly more likely, on a clientele device ) streaming television for video conferencing apps. We ‘ll examine inactive performance late on, but for television conferencing this does the job. The picture is n’t particularly sharp but it ‘s surely enough to get by in a WebEx suffer. Around the back is a 13-megapixel television camera for taking stills or video up to 4K at 30 federal protective service or 1080p at 60 federal protective service. The microphones on the Galaxy Tab Active Pro do a becoming occupation of capturing the environment on video, and canceling out background noise in television calls when used with the front-facing camera. For audio playback, the pad has a unmarried speaker on the right side, when holding the tablet with the front-facing television camera on peak. It works for video recording conferencing, but not a lot else. fortunately, there ‘s besides a headset jack for distinctive four-pole analogue headsets.All of the side buttons are on the lapp edge of the Galaxy Tab Active Pro as the television camera, so changing the volume or waking the display is all along the exceed edge of the device. There ‘s a fourth clitoris here, dubbed the Active Button, which is programmable and can launch two apps. Unlike the Bixby button on the Galaxy S smartphone batting order, this button is amply programmable. By default tapping it will launch the television camera, and long presses will open the calendar, but either of these actions can be tied to any of the apps on the system.On the software side, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro runs Android 9 Pie with Samsung ‘s One UI. With a populace unveil of Android 11 right around the recess and given the premium price of this tablet, it ‘s a little disappointing that the OS has n’t been kept wholly stream. inactive, the OS is plenty modern for merely about every app and consumption event, since many Android app developers are stuck supporting Android 6 Marshmallow just to make certain that their apps will run on the largest act of devices.Anybody who ‘s touched a recent Samsung phone knows that One UI is pretty solid. While Samsung does make its own customizations to Android ‘s user interface, those changes not angstrom bumbling as they used to be in TouchWiz. The stock launcher is western fence lizard and smooth to navigate, and apps launch pretty promptly. The Galaxy Tab Active Pro has a built-in survival of no-nonsense applications without unnecessary always-on bloatware. A match of crucial apps for occupation users are DeX, the Knox security chopine, and Citrix Intelligent Workspace.The Galaxy Tab Active Pro besides supports Samsung DeX, the desktop PC-style interface for Android devices. Samsung supports DeX through a variety show of first and third-party accessories, including keyboard cases, mutli-port adapters, and HDMI cables. DeX can besides mirror the tablet ‘s display to another computer using an application for Windows and Mac OS. even without DeX, the software keyboard has some extra tricks that the stock keyboard from Google does n’t have, like a Control key. Hold Ctrl on the keyboard and entree several common keyboard shortcuts, like Ctrl+A to select all, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+C to cut and copy, and Ctrl+V to paste. Typing directly on the device using the touch expose is a reasonably good feel overall, considering the miss of buttons. Samsung ‘s keyboard supports dragged gesture input, which is constantly welcome on touch devices.Samsung partnered with Citrix to bring Citrix Intelligent Workspace to the Galaxy Tab Active Pro. This allows businesses to give employees secure access to applications and data they need to get their jobs done. While we ‘re on the subjugate of security, the Galaxy Tab Active Pro besides has Samsung ‘s Knox security platform. IT administrators can besides use Knox to push applications and configurations to a evanesce of devices across the business to give users the tools they need and lock down the device to protect against unauthorized access.The S Pen works out of the box with the a couple of apps : Samsung Notes, which has some interest tricks up its sleeve, and Penup. Samsung describes Penup as a “ creative social net “ in which where artists can share their creations with other Penup users or the internet at bombastic. Going beyond that, Penup besides hosts Live Drawings, which are videos that picture how an artist created a sketch, un-colored sketches for discolor, and drawing challenges.Taking notes in the Notes app using the S Pen and then double-tapping them with a finger will prompt the Galaxy Tab Active Pro to convert handwriting to text. We had some hit-and-miss results with ours, as my handwriting is n’t great. The number of mistakes it made on my baggy scribbles made it a bigger harass to fix textbook than it was to merely type it out in the foremost place. however, when I took my clock and wrote legibly, the Samsung Notes app did a sanely effective job of interpreting my wimp scratches into text. Cursive was a bigger problem than equitable printing. With adequate practice, we were finally able to get it to translate our notes into something legible.Now that we ‘ve found our way around the Galaxy Tab Pro Active, let ‘s run some tests .