The Transport Guy: Samsung has an answer to the iPad Pro, and it looks pretty good

Steve Kovach January 05, 2016 at 02:27PM

We haven't seen the end of all those tablets that act like laptops. 

On Tuesday, Samsung announced its take on the genre, the Galaxy Tab Pro S. 

Think of this as Samsung's answer to Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 and Apple's iPad Pro.

The Galaxy Tab Pro S (what a mouthful!) runs Windows 10 and comes with a snap-on keyboard cover. It starts at $999. That's a pretty good deal. Apple and Microsoft make you spend over $130 to get their keyboard covers.

But unlike Apple and Microsoft, Samsung isn't making bold claims that its new tablet can replace your laptop for good. Instead, it's targeting "mobile work forces" that need to do everything a Windows machine can do, but also want something thin, light and portable.

At first glance, it looks a lot like Samsung's Android tablets, but when you turn it on, you can see it's running Windows 10. It's incredibly thin and light and weighs just over a pound and a half.

The keyboard snaps on the back with magnets. It also has a trackpad that seemed pretty good in my brief test. (One of my biggest beefs with the iPad Pro keyboard was that it doesn't have a trackpad, which makes navigation a pain.)

It includes a USB-C port, the new kind of connector that Apple, Google, and a handful of other companies introduced in some gadgets last year. USB-C is used for charging and connecting to accessories or displays. It'll replace the regular USB plug you're used to in a few years.

Samsung says the Galaxy Tab Pro S can get 10 hours of battery life, and it has a quick charge option that'll charge the battery up faster than normal. It starts with 128 GB of storage, 4 GB of RAM, and will be available at some carriers with an LTE connection.

There's no release date yet, but Samsung says the Galaxy Tab Pro S will be available by the end of March.

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Samsung has an answer to the iPad Pro, and it looks pretty good from Business Insider: Steve Kovach