The Galaxy Tab S9 FE is a great large-screen tablet for both work and play, and right now, it’s $136 off for Amazon’s Prime Day.
I’m not going to tell you it’s the greatest tablet since sliced bread. While it marks the return of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab FE line after a hiatus in 2022, the company’s mid-range tablets haven’t changed all that much, save for a few tweaks here and there to bring them up to 2024 standards. The S9 FE+ is a prime example of that, but despite being a boring update, it’s still a great option if you’re after a big screen with long battery life.
The screen is really what makes the Galaxy Tab S9 FE+. Samsung includes a 12.4-inch 16:10 IPS LCD that, to my eye, looks about as close as you can get to OLED without actually making the leap to OLED. Content looks pin-sharp thanks to the 2560 x 1600 resolution, while colors are vibrant and contrast is surprisingly adequate. I’ve enjoyed doing just about everything on this tablet, from watching movies to reading articles. It all looks superb, which is to be expected from a tablet from Samsung.
Is it as beautiful as a straight-up OLED panel? No, not really. It doesn’t help that there’s a gray tint whenever something super dark shows up on the screen (such as nighttime in a movie), but for this price, it’s forgivable.
The screen sits on the front of an aluminum chassis that Samsung offers in four colors: Silver, Gray, Lavender, and Mint (the one I got — and yeah, it’s definitely the best one). There’s no shortage of similarities between it and the other members of the Galaxy Tab series, with its flat sides, circular speaker grilles, and antenna stripes. This also makes it look a lot like Apple’s iPads, which you cannot unsee the moment you set them next to each other.
