Galaxy Tab S7 vs iPad Pro: Which tablet is best?

The Galaxy Tab S7 isn’t in our hands yet, but when inspecting its specifications, it’s quite clear that it’s the perfect competition for the phenomenal iPad Pro. With gorgeous, vivid 11-inch displays, they possess excellent practicality for students, artists, and other professionals. Both tablets are compact, easy to use and similarly sized. The Galaxy Tab S7 starts at $649 while the iPad Pro starts at $799, so it's easy to see how these two compete for the same space.

The iPad Pro is definitely the tablet to beat, as it’s one of the best we’ve ever tested. The Galaxy Tab S6 was also excellent, and if we can expect the S7 to improve upon it in every way, it could potentially begin a clash of the titans.

Read on for a detailed comparison between these two tablets, and advice on which one you should buy depending on how you intend to use the device.

iPad Pro (11-inch) vs Galaxy Tab S7: Specs compared

Value and configuration

The 11-inch iPad Pro (2020) starts at $799 with a A12Z Bionic processor, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Increasing its storage will cost you $899 for 256GB, $1,099 for 512GB and $1,299 for 1TB. Additionally, you can spend an additional $150 to include 4G LTE capabilities.

The Galaxy Tab S7 starts at $649 with a Snapdragon 865+, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD. It can then be upgraded to 8GB of RAM with 256GB of SSD. Samsung will also offer a version with 5G capabilities. However, we don't know how much either of these additions cost yet.

Winner: Galaxy Tab S7. While the 11-inch iPad Pro (2020) has more room for additional storage, the Galaxy Tab S7 comes with superior specs at a cheaper price. 

Design 

The iPad Pro boasts its typical style choices with either the Silver or Space Gray color scheme. These colors look fine, but they’re a bit bland and look far too flat. Still, I can’t deny there’s an appealing shininess to the Space Gray design.

As for the Galaxy Tab S7, I’m personally not the biggest fan of this series stepping away from the colorful Cloud Blue and Rose Blush exteriors of the Tab S6. However, these new Mystic Black, Mystic Silver and Mystic Bronze designs look undeniably slick. Mystic Bronze is a soothing pastel with a layer of enchanting shininess. Even the Mystic Black design looks far more sleek and smooth than any other black exterior has a right to be. 

I also prefer the placement of the camera on the Galaxy Tab S7, as it's far less invasive and not as big. The giant square on the top left of the iPad Pro looks ugly and the way its thick borders protrudes out is unappealing. Additionally, compared to the iPad Pro’s 1.41 pound, 9.7 x 7 x 0.2-inch frame, the Galaxy Tab S7’s 1.1 pound, 10 x 6.5 x 0.3-inch chassis is thinner, making it easier to hold.

Winner: Galaxy Tab S7. Not only does the Galaxy Tab S7 come with far prettier colors, but its size and design are both satisfying to use and look at it. 

Ports

The iPad Pro and Galaxy Tab S7 both have a single USB-C charging port at the bottom but only the Samsung tablet has a microSD card slot for expandable storage.

Winner: Galaxy Tab S7

Display 

The iPad Pro (2020) boasts an incredible 11-inch 2388 x 1668 display with a wonderfully bright panel that highlights a gorgeous array of vivid colors throughout every inch of the screen. At 572 nits of brightness, this display is beautiful, allowing for nearly every color represented on the screen to pop.

The Galaxy Tab S7’s 11-inch 2560 x 1600-resolution display comes in at a higher resolution than the iPad Pro. We currently don’t know how bright the display will be, but the S6 came in at 473 nits. 

Winner: iPad Pro (2020): For the Galaxy Tab S7 to beat the iPad Pro, it’s going to need to up its game by a little less than one hundred nits compared to the S6. 

Keyboard & Touchpad 

The Galaxy Tab S7 can be ordered with a new keyboard boasting a larger touchpad with multi-touch gestures. Additionally, the Delete key, Fn, Enter and Shift buttons are now all full-sized. While these new features are exciting (and necessary), the accessory will have to really step up its game because the S6’s BookCover Keyboard was a bit of a mixed bag. Its biggest issue was how cramped it felt to those with larger hands. But now that some keys are growing in size, the keyboard could feel more natural to use.

Where the S6’s BookCover Keyboard cost $179, the iPad Pro’s Magic Keyboard starts at $299. That’s a big price hike, but it might just be worth it. The keys feel responsive and satisfying to click with 1 millimeter of key travel, which makes for a more comfortable typing experience. Finally, the Magic Keyboard is all wrapped up in an incredibly stylish design with a floating hinge that allows for far more effective viewing angles akin to what you’d see on a laptop. Still, it’s incredibly expensive.

Winner: iPad Pro (2020): Even though it’s far more expensive, the S7’s keyboard is going to have to greatly step up its game to compete with the Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro.

Stylus 

The Galaxy Tab S7 comes bundled with an upgraded S Pen. That’s great news considering how great the S6’s stylus was. The lightweight stylus was impressive thanks to its side buttons which could connect to the tablet through a Bluetooth connection and allow the user to map these buttons to different commands. This pen also had Air actions, which could allow the user to do something like swipe upward while pressing the pen’s function button to increase the game’s volume. The new S7 stylus boasts an impressive 9ms response time and has a thicker design which should make it more comfortable to use.

However, the Apple Pencil is nothing to scoff at. This is easily one of the best stylii ever made, making it an excellent investment for artists and designers. However, it’s also incredibly expensive, coming in at $129. The Pencil can magnetically attach to the iPad Pro and begin charging. This is quite a convenient feature and it’s undeniably satisfying to use.

Winner: Galaxy Tab S7. While both stylii are great, this will be an easy win for the Galaxy Tab S7 considering it comes with the product. 

Audio 

The iPad Pro’s quad speakers surpass competing slates. It’s even better than those we’ve seen in larger and more expensive laptops. Seriously, we had to keep the volume between 60-80% before the volume became overwhelming. This sound system will fill your room, apartment or home with weighty drums and dynamic sound that let the listener hear the most minute details. 

The Galaxy Tab S7 also features quad-speakers, and if they’re anything like the S6, they’re going to give the iPad Pro a run for its money. The S6’s speakers are very powerful and can fill the room with clear sound. We expect the S7 to improve upon these already great speakers and continue to raise the bar for tablets.

Winner: Draw. While the Galaxy Tab S6 also boasted a phenomenal set of quad-speakers, the S7 is going to have to step up its game to come even close to the iPad Pro. 

Performance 

The iPad Pro is equipped with a phenomenal A12Z Bionic SoC processor, which provides an incredible amount of power beyond what you’d expect in a tablet. It even surpasses many laptops we’ve tested, and with its GPU cores, it can provide an impressive graphic performance. Unsurprisingly, this ridiculous tablet crushed our tests, with the iPad Pro achieving 17,878 on Geekbench 4, an overall performance benchmark. The average tablet typically scores 5,387 on this test, which is nowhere near the power we see in this iPad Pro.

The Galaxy Tab S7 will be equipped with a Snapdragon 865+, and while we can expect that it’ll be faster than the S6’s Snapdragon 855, we’re unsure just how much. The S6 scored a 10,387 on the Geekbench 4 overall performance benchmark, which is respectable,, but nowhere near the iPad Pro.

Winner: iPad Pro. Unless the Galaxy Tab S7 suddenly doubles the processing power of its Snapdragon series, it’s hard to imagine that the iPad Pro will come out of this fight defeated. 

Battery Life 

The iPad Pro possesses incredible performance, and it doesn't come at the cost of its battery life. On the Laptop Mag battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness, the iPad Pro lasted 10 hours and 16 minutes.

The Galaxy Tab S7 might not do any better if it’s predecessor is anything to go by. The S6 lasted for 8 hours and 58 minutes on our Laptop Mag Battery test. Not only is this worse than the iPad Pro, but it’s also below the tablet average (9:11).

Winner: iPad Pro. While it’s possible the Galaxy Tab S7 could surpass the iPad Pro, its predecessor is a whole hour behind. 

Camera 

The Galaxy Tab S7 possesses similar camera specs compared to its predecessor, which is 13 megapixel and 5MP dual lenses on the back with 8MP on the front. If we can expect them to have similar image quality, the S7’s primary back lens will capture highly detailed photos with a vivid and accurate color range. Its ultrawide lens is also capable of fitting an entire building in the frame, even at the risk of a lower resolution. And the 8MP front camera, photos appear incredibly detailed and the smallest hair strands are visible.

The iPad Pro’s primary camera captures photos at 12-megapixels while its 10MP ultra-wide lens doubles that of the Galaxy Tab S7’s 5MP. This allows for stunning photos with vibrant colors and sharp details. The front-facing camera is 7MP and has no problem capturing complex detail. Additionally, the rear camera possesses a lidar sensor, which allows the iPad to create a spatial map of the environment for augmented reality apps. Users can accurately measure objects just by pointing the camera at them. While we didn’t find these estimations to be perfectly accurate, they’re close enough to provide a general idea.

Winner: Galaxy Tab S7. While the iPad Pro has a far more powerful ultrawide lens and impressive lidar sensor, the Galaxy Tab S7’s 13MP rear camera and 8MP front camera will likely be more useful to the average user. 

Overall Winner: Galaxy Tab S7 

The iPad Pro is a phenomenal tablet, but the Galaxy Tab S7 just barely manages to push ahead in this race. Not only is the Galaxy Tab S7 cheaper, but it comes in far prettier colors with a size and design both satisfying to use and look at it. However, the iPad Pro boasts a bright display and its A12Z Bionic SoC most likely demolishes the Galaxy Tab S7 when it comes to performance. 

To make this competition even more difficult is the fact that the Galaxy Tab S7 comes pre-packaged with its S Pen while consumers would have to cough up $129 for the Apple Pencil. Additionally, the Galaxy Tab S7 has a camera that potentially snaps higher-quality photos, even though the iPad Pro comes with a neat LiDARsensor and a better ultrawide lens. To give the iPad Pro more credit, it also has better battery life and a set of quad-speakers that the Galaxy Tab S7 can’t compete with.

Even with everything the iPad Pro does well, it just barely falls behind the Galaxy Tab S7. Of course, this is only a preview between these tablets. Check back in with us after we've reviewed the Galaxy Tab S7 for finalized scores.