Samsung SM-P200/P205 (Tab A with S-Pen, 2019)

One of the e-bay sellers (bq_shop) that added a premium! I also added a Square-Trade warrantee.

Ron

 

My use-case is a bit different than most. I use the device for note-taking on OneNote in projects, and the S-Pen/Wacom EMR and the handy size were the biggest selling points for me.

I tried the Huawei Mate 20X, and the size and battery life were great, and an excellent note-taker. The shortcoming for me was the M-Pen which requires charging.

The P205 speed does not seem to be a hindrance, but again, my use case is mainly e-mail, note-taking, and some web-browsing. The 4-G internet seems snappy, but that is purely subjective.

One thing of not for me is that it is smaller, thinner, and lighter that my old Galaxy Note 8.0 branded by AT&T. Additionally, the screen on the P205 is light-years better than the old 8.0.

One surprising thing for me was the dialer icon that showed up as standard. I've not seen that on an Android tablet before. Tried a few calls in the AT&T store, and it seems to work well.

Ron

 

I have to admit, once you get accustomed to a non-charging pen (Spen) or a pen with a relativity long battery life (Surface Pen), the constant need to charge does get kind of annoying. Case in point with my new iPad Mini 5.....now my Apple Pencil v1 I'm using with it is over 2 years old so the age may be playing a factor....but if I leave my Apple Pencil paired with my Mini 5.....and don't use the pencil at all.....it will be dead within 2-3 days. Just being connected via bluetooth drains it enough that if I forget to unpair it or disable the bluetooth, it will run out of power. Its an easy enough fix, just plug it back in for a few minutes....but it has gotten somewhat annoying since I only draw on it every other day or so....so its like everytime I start drawing with it....I get the 5% battery left notification, have to stop drawing and charge it. I guess this was probably the case with my old iPad Pro 9.7....which I used so infrequently I always assumed it would take longer to just drain the pen on standby.....but yeah...as much as I love my Mini 5....there are times when I wish it had EMR instead.

 

Samsung generally supports Android devices for two OS generations (so you usually get the generation it came out with (often one behind) and then two updates). They're also one of the slowest to offer the updates (but they do do so). The A series at least get this support, as my Tab A 9.7 (2015) eventually got 7.1.1 (about a year late...)

There's a setting for that. It's called "S Pen power saver", as having the digitiser always on uses more power. It's strange that yours shipped with it off, as most S pen devices with a built-in stylus ship with it on.

 

That's about right though Samsung has not been consistent on this. They are one of the slowest with updates though. They claim it's due to integration with Knox and their UI.

Also we have had Samsung tell us that S-Series devices have priority over A series devices and the rest of the line and they have only committed to two android versions upgrades on the s line (S-x series phones and Tab S tablets)

 

Thanks!

Ipad mini 5 with a case that has a pencil holder (hollowed out space)
vs
this Samsung tablet - what are your thoughts?

I do love toothpick EMR styluses actually, I like the feel of them. But I also like speed/resolution that the ipad mini 5 has so I'm torn

 

Thank you!

Wow! I guess maybe just a no charge pen is the best reason to get this device over the mini 5.

I just envisioned an odd idea of getting two pens + a pen charging station and then rotate out the pens but sadly these pens are 100 freaking bucks.

 

Yeah, I'm aware of that setting and the downside of disabling it, that's why I'm thinking with it disabled by default, maybe they found a way around the battery hit.

Know what? I just checked and there's no such setting to disable the digitizer when the S pen is docked on this device.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

If it’s like my Note 8 phone....The most recent OS update kind of changed a lot of things (for the worse in my opinion) and that was one of them. If I’m assuming correctly, the digitizer is now auto disabled when the pen is stowed....but to turn it on indefinitely....it’s now listed as “Use Multiple S-Pens”

 

Yeah, I have the Note 8 too, and your correct, it's been changed to "use multiple pens" but like I said, even that option is not available in the Tab A (2019), so there's no way to turn it on.

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