Leaked evidence so far indicates that Samsung is working on releasing the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 series sometime by the end of the summer, but by the time the sequel to last year’s Galaxy Tab S2 arrives, it appears that the Korean company may have already secretly released a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 refresh sporting a newer, more powerful Qualcomm SoC. The refreshed Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 and Tab S2 9.7 variants have been spotted on Cyberport.de, where the slates are accompanied by a starting price of €449.
Unlike last year’s Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 series which was powered by a proprietary Exynos 5433 chipset featuring an octa-core (4+4 cores) architecture, the refreshed models seem to be equipped with a newer, more powerful 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor. This also means that while the models released in 2015 have a Mali-T760 MP6 graphics chip, the refreshed variants sport an Adreno 510 GPU. The rest of the hardware specifications don’t seem to have been altered, so both the 8.0 and 9.7-inch models are equipped with the same Super AMOLED displays as last year, featuring a resolution of 1536 x 2048. The tablets should also be equipped with 3 GB of RAM, 32 or 64 GB of storage expandable via microSD by up to 128 GB, an 8-megapixel main camera complemented by a 2.1 MP front-facing sensor, Bluetooth 4.1, and a fingerprint recognition sensor. The overall design remains unchanged, and no new color options seem to have been added. However, the new slates arrive with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box.
According to the German online retailer, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 is available only with LTE connectivity on-board, and is priced at €479. On the other hand, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7 refresh is available in both Wi-Fi-only and LTE flavors. The former is accompanied by a price tag of €449, whereas the latter is priced at €549. At the moment there’s no official word regarding the refreshed models release, but with the duo now out and about in German e-stores, it’s only a matter of time before Samsung spills the beans and – hopefully – shares more details regarding availability in other regions. Otherwise, the rumored Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 series should be introduced in July this year.
