Would you buy a 14.6-inch Samsung tablet? That’s the question Samsung might be asking us soon, with rumors that the next edition of the Galaxy Tab series, expected to be the S8, will feature a mammoth 14.6-inch display.

The news:

• A South Korean survey was spotted that suggested Samsung might launch a 14.6-inch tablet in the near future.
• Codenamed “Basquiat 3,” and likely part of the Galaxy Tab S8 series (with other codenames Basquiat 1 and 2), the device would reportedly center around a 14.6-inch, 120Hz OLED screen that’s larger than the Tab S7 Plus’ 12.4-inch display.
• With the extra room comes more features too, including a second, 5MP ultra-wide camera to join the 8MP standard model, and an in-display fingerprint sensor.
• As the top-spec model (“Ultra”?), it’d also come equipped with 8/12GB of RAM and 128GB/512GB storage. Expect a max battery capacity of 12,000mAh, up from 10,090mAh in the current Tab S7 Plus.
• Then there’s the chipset, which is universal to all three models, and potentially something like a Snapdragon 888 Plus chipset.

Price problems:

• The survey also gave away or at least hinted at pricing, with Samsung possibly setting a starting price of about $1,320 for the 14-inch tablet in its home country. And that’s before LTE or 5G.
• A 128GB Galaxy Tab S7 Plus officially sells for about $850, so the additional premium on the big boy would be pretty massive.
• It might be great to have that much real-estate running Android apps, but the real issue is the lack of native support from many apps for larger size screens. It’s something our reviewers complain about with every Android tablet review.
• As a laptop replacement, you’d also want a keyboard stand or “Book Cover Keyboard”, adding another ~$150 or so.
• $1,500 for the Wi-Fi-only version, plus more for cell connectivity, would put it in a pretty specific niche echelon. Though if it’s running a 120Hz OLED screen it’d undoubtedly be big and beautiful, if not unwieldy in the hand.
• And I guess Samsung could market it as towering over the iPad Pro in size… but still, it’s not the hardware, it’s the apps that are the problem.

📉 Grab a chair,  both Intel and Acer say the global chip shortage could be with us for some years to come (Android Authority). 

👉 AMD announced Samsung phones will get ray tracing, variable rate shading with next Exynos with AMD GPU (Android Authority). 

🖊 Leak suggests Galaxy S21 Ultra with S Pen failed to meet Samsung’s expectations (Android Authority). 

⛔ Yesterday, LG reportedly stopped producing smartphones — a Vietnam factory used for phone production was turned into a household appliance factory (Android Authority).

💻 Alienware’s X series offers its thinnest ever gaming laptops, with 360Hz screens and “smarter” cooling (Android Authority).

🚄 Also, AMD announces the Radeon RX 6000M series, mobile GPUs with RDNA 2 architecture (The Verge).

🆚 Also, Nvidia announced the new RTX 3080 Ti with 12GB of VRAM, priced at $1,199 and launching June 3rd. Just a hair short of a RTX 3090, but $300 cheaper, although getting your hands on one might be tricky… (The Verge).

🦠 Bacteria get a fresh gig as art restorers in Italy (The Verge).

🚖 Uber and Lyft rides are pricier due to a lack of drivers, and the waits are longer, too, due to a surge in demand (Engadget).

😬 Autonomous drone attacked soldiers in Libya all on its own (CNET).

🔋 Why electric cars will take over sooner than you think (BBC).

🍏 Facebook pays for study that says Apple’s iOS 14 privacy changes are bad (iMore).

📺 Somehow, your family’s old CRT TV is now the hottest gaming tech (Wired).

🔴 Perseverance spends 100 Martian days on Mars (BBC).

😷 “Can the COVID-19 have enough variants where it would be considered something new/different, and not be detected by the current tests? How do the tests not detect other types of coronavirus?” (r/askscience).

I like this one, showing the shortest/quickest route along primary roadways to Washington D.C. from any point in the United States made using the ArcGIS Pro Network Analysis toolset (r/dataisbeautiful):

All the best,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor