54 T3 OCTOBER 2020Top tablets for every task
MEDIA STREAMING
One of the best reasons to treat yourself to a brand new
tablet is to sit back and enjoy some serious media
consumption on it. Bigger than your phone, more
portable than your television, a tablet can go anywhere
with you and give you instant access to everything on
Netflix, the iTunes Store, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube,
the main TV channels, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal,
Deezer and more – enough content to last you several
lifetimes, all available at the touch of a button.
When it comes to choosing a tablet for media
streaming, screen size is of course an important
consideration: you want a large, bright, sharp screen for
those movies and livestreams. Though bear in mind that
a bigger display means more bulk (and more draw on the
battery) – if you think you’re likely to drop your tablet on
your face when watching videos late at night in bed,
maybe don’t get something too huge.
Look out for mentions of HDR (or possibly sub-types
like HDR10+ or Dolby Vision) when you’re picking out a
tablet – this High Dynamic Range feature means details
won’t get lost in particularly dark or particularly light
areas of a picture, so you’ll still see all the stars twinkling
in a sky, for example. It’s usually offered on the higher
end tablets out there but not so much on the budget
models, and it can make a noticeable difference to video
quality in apps like Netflix.
Don’t forget audio either – if your tablet is going to be
your watch-anything, go-anywhere entertainment
station, then you want sound that’s a level above what
you’re able to pipe out from your phone. Look for tablets
with two or even four speakers for those times when you
don’t want to use headphones, especially if you’re
playing music at full blast.
The majority of tablets come with Wi-Fi as the only
connectivity, but some of the more expensive models
will have the option of 4G or 5G as well – pop in a data
SIM and you don’t need to worry about being without a
connection ever again (unless you really are in the
middle of nowhere, beyond the reach of the last cell
tower). 5G isn’t available on many tablets, but 4G will
usually be fine for streaming music and movies.
Just about all of the major music and movie streaming
services are on both Android and iPadOS, so you don’t
have to worry too much about picking a media streaming
tablet based on its operating system. The only exception
is the Apple TV app (and the iTunes Store), which isn’t
available on Android and isn’t likely to be anytime soon.
Apple Music is on both Android and iPadOS, however.1 SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB S6 LITE
Streaming audio and video doesn’t take up a huge amount
of processing power or memory, so you can get away with
components that aren’t quite best-in-class – and save
yourself some money at the same time. The Galaxy Tab
S6 Lite is a perfect example of this, combining an excellent
10.4-inch screen with a very affordable price.
From £399, samsung.com1