Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite In The Test: Is The Savings Tablet Worth It?

2023 Author: Sheila Hailey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 04:29

• Service: 5/5
• Design and display: 4/5
• Memory and performance: 3/5
• Battery: 4/5
• Camera: 3/5
• Sound: 4/5

Overall: 77 percent

The tablet is ideal for anyone who does not expect maximum performance from a tablet, but rather streams films, listen to music, check emails, take notes with the S-Pen and surf the Internet. Students in particular should be satisfied with this. Unfortunately, the photo quality is only average, which is rarely important on a tablet. But if you want to run high-end games and apps, you should rather go for the big brother Galaxy Tab S6, as it does a lot more.

intuitive operation

The "Samsung One UI" user interface appears tidy, structured and often resembles the stock Android interface. Like on an Android smartphone, you can install new apps via the Google Play Store. Samsung offers you its own "Galaxy Store" and other preinstalled Samsung apps, which you don't have to use. Logging in with a Samsung account is optional and can be skipped. All you have to do is log in with your Google account. Incidentally, there is no fingerprint sensor.

Tip: Under "Settings"> "Display"> "Navigation bar" you can change the button arrangement of the bottom three navigation buttons (Back, Home, Active Apps) or hide them completely and activate gestures. The respective swiping movements for navigation are then displayed in the settings. The gestures work perfectly, so we had them permanently activated. Gestures with the included S-Pen also work.

With the S-Pen you can use the tablet very comfortably. Even manuscripts are recognized and, if desired, translated into digital letters. The S-Pen is magnetic and can be attached to the (long) edges on the left and right, but not on the front or back. In contrast to the S-Pen of the Galaxy Tab S6, the S-Pen of the Lite version works without its own battery or Bluetooth - which can be seen as a great advantage. So-called air actions like the Galaxy Note 10 do not work here. With the button on the S-Pen you can open another menu to quickly open your favorite apps or special functions. These include, for example, screenshot notes (screenshot with your own drawn notes) or AR drawings (videos in which you create virtual drawings that “stay in place”,where they were drawn).

If you don't like Samsung's user interface, you can also install the Nova launcher to get an interface similar to Stock Android.

Nice design, but "only" TFT display

The frame of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite is well made, looks high-quality, stable and hardly differs from the Galaxy Tab S6. Despite the much lower price, the Lite version is surprisingly thin at 7 mm. The tablet feels good in hand with a weight of 467 grams. If you hold the tablet upright in front of you, there is a USB-C port at the bottom for charging and a headphone port at the top. On the right there is the Power / Bixby button and the volume rocker.

Unfortunately, Samsung only "uses" a TFT LCD display in the Galaxy S6 Tab Lite. But it has a high maximum brightness, looks clear, sharp and the colors look vivid. The viewing angle stability is also very high. The resolution of 2000 x 1200 pixels is completely sufficient and convinced us in the price range.

Expandable memory and poor performance

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite has 64 GB of internal memory installed in both versions ("Wifi" and "LTE"), which can be expanded by a maximum of 1 TB using a microSD card. Unfortunately, inserted microSD cards cannot be formatted as internal storage. Of the 64 GB specified, around 48 GB were available after setup. The rest was occupied by pre-installed apps and the Android 10 operating system with Samsung's user interface "One UI 2.1".

Samsung's "One UI 2.1" user interface always looked smooth. However, the display jerked noticeably when navigating in the Google Play Store or in the Galaxy Store, especially when the app preview images were loaded for the first time. The reason will be the slimmed down Exynos 9611 chipset, which is supported by 4 GB of RAM.

We tried to optimize the performance a little: In the settings, under the menu item "Apps", most of the pre-installed apps can be uninstalled or at least deactivated. That even worked with some Samsung apps. Initially there were around 60 apps preinstalled, of which we uninstalled 10 and deactivated 8. Apps that cannot be removed can at least be hidden. However, we didn't notice any major speed differences afterwards.

Battery lasts all day

The battery is permanently installed and has a power capacity of 7040 mAh. With medium display brightness and mixed use (Netflix, music, internet, writing, file manager), we used up about 50 percent battery power in 5 hours. According to this, the battery would last for about 10 hours if used continuously. However, this can vary greatly depending on the type of use. In any case, the battery lasts well over a day if you are not constantly looking at streaming providers. The tablet supports 15W fast charging, which is not particularly fast when compared to smartphones. We were able to fully charge the empty battery within 4 hours.

Camera is average

The main camera on the back has a resolution of 3,264 x 2,448 pixels. The front camera has 2,576 x 1,932 pixels. The video resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels at 30 frames per second. The quality of the images is sufficient, but nothing special, since the level of detail is lacking. But it is enough for snapshots. Enclosed you can see various sample pictures in our picture gallery.

Nice sound on Netflix, Amazon Video and Co

Samsung installs two speakers in the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite - at the top and bottom on the short edges. We found the sound output to be surprisingly good. So you don't necessarily need headphones to enjoy Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or other streaming providers. Incidentally, picture-in-picture mode works in Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. That means you can play the video in the small window while you run other apps on the tablet.

Technical specifications

Here you can see the technical data of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Tab Lite compared to the Galaxy Tab S6:

Galaxy Tab S6 Lite	Galaxy Tab S6
- display -
10.5 inch (26.67 cm) TFT-LCD 2000 x 1200 pixel 224 ppi	10.4 inches (26.42 cm) Super AMOLED 2560 x 1600 pixels 288 ppi
- processor -
Samsung Exynos 9 Octa 9611 (Mid-Range) Octacore (2.3 GHz Quadcore Cortex A73 + 1.7 GHz Quadcore Cortex A53)	Snapdragon 855 (Highend) Octacore (2.84 GHz Singlecore Kryo 485 + 2.42 GHz Tricore Kryo 485 + 1.7 GHz Quadcore Kryo 485)
- Random access memory -
4 GB	6/8 GB
- Internal memory -
64 GB (48 GB available)	128 GB (105 GB available)
- microSD slot -
yes - max. 1 TB (cannot be formatted as internal storage)	yes - max. 1 TB (cannot be formatted as internal storage)
- cameras -
Rear: 5 MP Rear: 8 MP (HDR, panorama)	Front: 5 MP Rear: 13 MP (HDR, panorama)
- Operating system -
Android 10	Android 9.0 Pie
- Battery pack -
7040 mAh (permanently installed)	7040 mAh (permanently installed)
- connectivity -
WLAN-ac (2.4 and 5 GHz) Bluetooth 5.0 A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO USB 3.1 Type-C microphone integrated 3.5mm headphone jack	WLAN-ac (2.4 and 5 GHz) Bluetooth 5.0 A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO USB 3.1 Type-C microphone integrated
- Particularities -
3.5mm headphone connector Fast Charging (15 W) Including S-Pen	Fingerprint sensor CMOS image sensor Quick-Charging Including S-Pen
- Colours -
Oxford Gray, Angora Blue, Chiffon Pink	Mountain Gray, Cloud Blue, Rose Blush
- Mass weight -
244.5 mm x 154.3 mm x 7 mm 467 g	244.5 mm x 195.5 mm x 5.7 mm 420 g
- Price in euro) -
at Amazon 64 GB, Wifi: 379.00 euros 64 GB, LTE: 429.00 euros	at Amazon 128 GB, Wifi: 639.00 euros 128 GB, LTE: 769.00 euros

Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite: what are the alternatives?

For 415 euros there is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e T720 with similar equipment. You have a fingerprint sensor here, but no headphone jack. The resolution is slightly higher and there is a Super AMOLED display.

If you generally use many Amazon services such as Amazon Prime Video, Kindle books and Audible audiobooks, you can also buy a significantly cheaper Amazon tablet Fire HD 10 in the 64 GB version for around 190 euros (with "special offers" = advertising on lock screen). However, the processing and display quality is not as good as that of Samsung. A Google Play Store or an alternative user interface can also only be installed indirectly.

What do you say about the Samsung Galaxy S6 Lite? Are you buying it or not? Please write us your reasons in the comments.