It's been a long time coming, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is finally getting its Android 8.0 Oreo update in the U.S. Months after the Galaxy S9 launched on Oreo and the last-gen phones also received the update, Samsung's near-forgotten big tablet now has the latest software the company has to offer.
The update clocks in at 1.23GB, which is pretty large, and includes both Android 8.0 Oreo as a base and of course the latest Samsung Experience 9.0 updates on top to fall in line with the Galaxy S9 and Note 8. It also moved up to the April 1 security patch, which is an improvement but is just a couple days away from being two months behind now. Everything you'll find on the latest software here will be familiar if you've used any Samsung phone that has received Oreo, and that isn't a huge change over Nougat. Visually you'll just see some color and icon refreshes plus notification badges in the launcher. Under the hood there are a few neat additions with Oreo — new autofill APIs, better low-level system control over background processes, and notification channels. Lots of little tune-ups that are all nice to have.
The Galaxy Tab S3 may be getting a little old at this point, but given the relative stagnation of the Android tablet market it's still our top pick for the segment. If you need to have a large-screened tablet that can handle keyboard input, take a look around and see if you can find one on a discount.
