The Ultimate Face-Off: Apple’s Latest iPad Air Versus Samsung’s New Galaxy Tab S7+ Reviewed

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The iPad Air 4 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ are powerful tablets in terms of multimedia and productivity. Apple has tended to dominate the tablet market with its variousiPad models , while Android tablets are often known better for providing good value. Samsung is the exception to that, with its premium slates that can go head-to-head with anything Apple can offer. We’ve evaluated both devices, considering their design, display quality, performance capabilities, battery life, productivity, and price to help you decide which one to get.

Design and Display

Apple

The iPad Air 4 is one of the newest svelte tablets from Apple, building on the design and features of the2019 iPad Air. You get a slate with minimized bezels and rounded corners, similar to the iPad Pro. The home button is removed in favor of swiping up from the bottom. The fingerprint sensor is combined with the lock button. Last but not least, the iPad Air 4 has aUSB-C port in place of the Lightning port, putting it on the same level as the iPad Pro series and allowing you to use a variety of USB-C accessories and dongles. The tablet is also uses the magnetic Magic Connector, letting you sync and charge the Apple Pencil and connect the Magic Keyboard.

The display consists of a gorgeous 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display. At 10.9 inches, it’s slightly larger than the iPad Air 10.5-inch panel, but it has the same resolution and pixel density at 2360x1640 and 264ppi. The screen is crisp and bright at 500 nits and looks great even outdoors, resulting in sharp text, graphics, and media content. One important thing to note is that the display isn’t high refresh and doesn’t support standards like HDR10.

Despite being an Android slate, it’s possible to see some common design elements between the Galaxy Tab S7+ and iPad Air 4. Both make the bezels as narrow as possible, remove any buttons from the front of the device, and push the buttons off to the side. The fingerprint sensor is in-screen, though it registers a tad slow. Like the Air 4, the Galaxy Tab S7+ is designed to work with additional accessories like Samsung’s Book Cover keyboard and S Pen.

Amazon

The screen quality of the Tab S7+ is one of the best on the market. It boasts a Super AMOLED HDR+ panel with a 2800x1752 pixel resolution. It’s incredibly pixel-dense at 266ppi and supports a 120Hz refresh rate, making for smoother screen animations, responsive S Pen use, and appealing multimedia. This is a big advantage the Tab S7+ boasts over the iPad Air 4. If your primary use is consuming media and productivity, the Tab S7+ is a device without compromise.

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Performance and Battery

Apple

Apple’s A14 Bionic chip powers the iPad Air 4. It’s one of the fastest tablets in Apple’s lineup, next to the iPad Pro. The powerful processor translates into fast and responsive performance capable of responsive multitasking, productivity, and intensive gaming. There’s nothing you can throw at the iPad Air that will make it choke, and combined with the Magic Keyboard, it comes very close to becoming a laptop replacement. Our reviewer managed to run Photoshop without a hitch, as well as demanding games like_Genshin Impact_ .

Apple says the iPad Air 4 has 10 hours of battery for general use, like surfing the web on Wi-Fi, and our reviewer clocked it at 12 hours of video streaming. That’s enough to get you through a full workday or a long plane flight before needing to recharge.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ is no slouch when it comes to performance. It has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ processor, a base model with 6GB of RAM, and an 8GB RAM option. It excelled at benchmark tests, handled running programs like Adobe Photoshop without a problem, and easily tackled games, including streaming Halo 4 throughXbox Game Pass . Adding the Book Cover and S Pen also turns the Galaxy Tab S7+ into a full-fledged laptop replacement.

Despite the power-hungry screen, the Galaxy Tab S7+ manages solid battery life. Watching videos at reasonable brightness, our tester clocked 14 hours of video playback. That’s two hours longer than the iPad Air 4 and enough to cover you for an entire workday or a very long trip.

Software and Productivity

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Samsung

Unsurprisingly, the iPad Air 4 ships with iPadOS 14 and is upgradeable toiPadOS 17 . You get a focus on productivity and multitasking features to make it a more capable laptop replacement. You can run apps side-by-side, switch between multiple apps, and generally split the screen to work on two windows simultaneously. The Magic Keyboard features a full array of keyboard keys and a touchpad. It’s slightly cramped due to the size, but you can work on word processing without a problem once you get used to it. The Apple Pencil allows you to take handwritten notes and translate writing to text, making it particularly useful for students.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ comes running Android 10 out of the box with Samsung One UI 2.5 skin on top (upgradeable toAndroid 13 ). Like the iPad Air 4, the software is geared towards multitasking and productivity, focusing on turning the slate into a laptop replacement. Aside from running apps side-by-side, you can useSamsung DeX to put the Tab S7+ into desktop mode. This gives you a taskbar, program files, and draggable, overlapping application windows. This essentially gives you an experience similar to a Chromebook. Add in the Book Cover and S Pen for word processing and note-taking, and you get a tablet that genuinely can serve to replace your daily use laptop.

Price

Price is a huge factor for some people. Apple’s 2020 iPad Air is around $200 cheaper than Samsung’s Tab S7+. But when you consider that the base Galaxy Tab model comes with 128 GB of storage while the iPad Air only has 64 GB for that price and that the latter also has a higher refresh rate, the difference in cost makes a little more sense.

Final Verdict

Much of your choice between the iPad Air 4 and Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ will come from the ecosystem you’re already in. Apple users will find adding the iPad Air 4 to their existing mix of devices easier, while Android users will find the Galaxy Tab S7+ to suit them better. Both tablets will do well at multitasking and productivity, though the Galaxy Tab S7+ has a slight edge due to DeX mode desktop experience. As for multimedia, the Tab S7+ wins out again due to its gorgeous HDR+ capable display and 120Hz refresh rate.

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