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10.9-Inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE Announced Today – $449 Waterproof Tablet With S Pen Included

ByJim Miller

Samsung announced the 10.9-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE today, which is their new tablet for the mid-range section of Samsung's Android tablets. It's launching on October 10 with a starting price of $449:
Samsung: https://www.samsung.com/us/tablets/galaxy-tab-s9-fe/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Dust-Resistant-Powerful-Processor-Lightweight/dp/B0CCX11J

The 10.9-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE (SM-X510) is introduced alongside the larger 12.4-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE+, both of which are meant to be cheaper alternatives to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 tablets.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE

Because of that, the FE tablets have a couple of features that makes them better than a lot of other tablets in this range, such as an IP68 waterproofing.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE features a 10.9-inch LCD display with a tablet resolution of 2304 x 1440, and a 90 Hz refresh rate with (adjustable) automatic brightening of the darkest areas of the screen when used in very bright surroundings, like outdoors.

The processor is Samsung's own 2.4 GHz octa-core Exynos 1380 processor, with model options of 6GB RAM and 128GB storage for $449, or 8GB RAM and 256GB storage for $519. There's also a cellular option of 5G.

And the Samsung S Pen is included with the tablet. This is a stylus pen with 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity that charges wirelessly from the tablet without the need to worry about batteries, and it attaches to the tablet magnetically too. Samsung also has two different keyboards for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE, one of which has a touchpad on the front and kickstand on the back.

Typically a tablet has the largest resolution camera on the back. But now that people usually use the phone for taking pictures anyway, Samsung put the largest resolution camera on the front instead, where we find a 12MP ultra-wide angle camera which gives people the opportunity to walk around in a call, while the video resolution still stays sharp when centered on a person.

Personally I think this is a good solution. The rear camera has an 8MP resolution.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE battery life is best in class, and this may be one of the reasons why Samsung chose this Exynos processor, as the battery life from the 8000 mAh battery is 18 hours long. And not only that, but with support for Super Fast Charging the whole tablet can charge fully in just 90 minutes. So that makes it very user friendly.

The speakers are stereo AKG speakers with Dolby Atmos. As for other specifications, it has dual-band Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 so internet connectivity will be good. And it's equipped with a USB-C 2.0 port, facial recognition, a fingerprint reader, and a microSD card slot that supports microSD cards up to 1TB in size.

As we mentioned a few times before the launch, Samsung also has a few accessories for the S9 FE tablet, including an S Pen Creator Edition, a Book Cover Keyboard, a Book Cover Keyboard Slim, a Smart Book Cover, and an Outdoor Cover, pretty similar to the list of Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 accessories.

Samsung expects to sell a lot of these tablets, so the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE color options are gray, silver, mint, and lavender for all the Wi-Fi models, but gray only for the 5G model.

And weighing 523 grams and being just 6.5mm thick, this is a tablet that's easy to carry too, as it's slimmer than a lot of magazines.

Like a lot of Samsung's upper end tablets, especially those with a pen, it comes with several drawing and note taking features and apps, as well as some free third party apps, such as Goodnotes, Goodnotes Pro, and 6 months worth of free Clip Studio Paint.

– Jim Miller