I keep seeing headlines about Samsung’s upcoming iPad Pro killer, the Galaxy Tab S7, and it makes me think, can it really kill the iPad Pro? So what I’m gonna do in this article, is take a look at all of the leaks and rumors surrounding Samsung’s Tab S7 and compare them to both Apple’s current iPad Pro and the specs of Apple’s rumored 2021 iPad Pro to see if Samsung can make a better tablet.
As far as the design, some leaked images of the Tab S7 show that it looks basically like the current iPad Pro, with the same flat edges instead of the rounded ones. 
Looking at the bottom, it’s got the same speaker and port layout as the iPad Pro. 
The leaked keyboard accessory now holds on using magnets, just like on the iPad Pro, and the keyboard portion of the accessory now has a trackpad, just like the Magic Keyboard, except it has the added benefit of being detachable. 
Looking at leaked images of the front of the S7, the display now has rounded corners, just like the iPad Pro. The only difference is that in landscape mode, the webcam is centered at the top of the display, giving you a better angle compared to the iPad Pro’s weird angle when using the Magic Keyboard.
There are rumored to be two models, an 11”, just like the iPad Pro, and a 12.4” size, half an inch smaller than the 12.9” iPad Pro. Just like last year, the S7 is rumored to pack a dual camera setup on the back. It should have an AMOLED display with 266 ppi, lower than the Tab S6 and slightly higher than the iPad Pro. And Samsung is expected to up the refresh rate of the display to between 90 and 120hz so it can compete with the iPad Pros 120hz refresh rate. And thanks to that change, we should expect improved S-pen responsiveness.
Leaks are also pointing to the in-display fingerprint scanner going away, being replaced by a power button fingerprint scanner, which probably means that they won’t be adding a Face ID-style infrared face scanner.
As far as the processor, it’s expected to come with the Snapdragon 865+ with 6 or 8GB of RAM. It should come with 128 or 256GB of storage with a microSD card reader, the choice of 4G or sub6 5G connectivity, and it’s expected to be priced at $700 to $750 dollars.
So now let’s compare all of those leaks specs to Apple’s current iPad Pro, starting with the performance of the expected Snapdragon 865+ chip.
According to qualcomm, it should give you a 10% increase in both processor and graphics performance over the regular Snapdragon 865. And the current best Geekbench 5 score for the Snapdragon 865 is 3319, so if we add 10%, the Tab S7 could have a score of up to around 3,651.
That’s still nowhere near even the old 2018 iPad Pro’s score of 4,606 points, so the iPad Pro wins there.
And then if we look at graphics performance, the highest graphics score I found on the Snapdragon 865 using Antutu is 218,000, so if we add 10%, the Tab S7 could have a score of up to around 240,323. 
And that’s still nowhere near even the 2018 iPad Pros score that we personally got of 386,242 points, let alone the 416,000 score we got on the 2020 model. So in reality, performance will still be drastically lower than the current iPad Pro.
And comparing all of the other Tab S7 leaks that we mentioned, it seems like Samsung is simply just trying to catch up to the iPad Pro instead of actually beating it. The only areas the leaks point to it killing the iPad Pro is in terms of being a better value in terms of storage and price, having a better display and better speakers, and having an available Sub-6 5G connectivity model. Other than that, the current 2020 iPad Pro is already beating the upcoming Tab S7.
Now let’s look at the leaks of the next iPad Pro, which rumors are pointing to a release date of the 1st half of 2021. The big changes include a new Mini-LED Display, which is similar to the tech that’s in Apple’s Pro Display XDR, which will allow it to have OLED-like contrast and colors, but having exceptional brightness, while still having an LCD panel that doesn’t suffer from burn-in issues. As far as the design and sizes, they should stay exactly the same as they currently are.
The major change includes the switch to the new A14X chip, which will be built on TSMC’s new 5nm process compared to the current 7nm process. Now there’s really no way to gauge how powerful it will be, but there were some leaked benchmarks of the regular A14 chip which is supposed to come in the iPhone 12, and that chip scored 4612 points, which is 36% faster than the current A13 chip.
So if we apply that same improvement to the current iPad Pro’s A12Z chip, that would give us a theoretical score of 6,291 for the A14X.
That’s 72% more powerful than the expected performance of the Galaxy Tab S7
but since that’s such a massive gap, I would expect Apple to probably tone down the performance and favor battery life instead since the performance is already overkill.
Other than that, the 2021 iPad Pro is expected to come with Qualcomm’s X55 modem, which will give the optional models both Sub6 and mmwave 5G connectivity, compared to only Sub6 expected on the Galaxy Tab S7. And those are the major changes that are expected to come with the 2021 iPad Pro, and those changes are the ones that matter the most to the customer, so the new iPad Pro should absolutely destroy the Tab S7.
And another big benefit of the iPad Pro is that Logitech just announced a new Folio Touch keyboard case for $160 for users who don’t want to spend a full $300 for the Magic keyboard case.
So based on all of that, is the Galaxy Tab S7 gonna be an iPad Pro killer? Honestly, I think the leaks of the design show that Samsung is still trying to catch up to even the 2018 iPad Pro, let alone the 2020 model, or even the upcoming early 2021 iPad Pro. But all of this will be clear when Samsung announced the Tab S7 at their upcoming August event. Hopefully this article was helpful.
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