Samsung's putting a notch on a tablet just months after mocking Apple

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Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra Screenshot
Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra Screenshot (Image credit: Samsung)

What you need to know

  • Leaked images appear to show Samsung's next tablet has a notch.
  • Samsung has mocked Apple for its use of notches in recent years.
  • A new Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra has been outed by a Bixby support page.

An image on a Samsung support page might have outed its next tablet, dubbed the Galaxy S8 Ultra. And while we don't normally care too much about random Android tablets, this one is interesting for one reason alone — it has a notch.

The support page is for Samsung's Bixby, a digital assistant with limited usefulness, and explains how multiple devices can work together. An included image has a familiar Samsung phone as well as the aforementioned tablet. And while the notch is interesting in itself, its presence is even more notable when you consider how much Samsung has mocked Apple for its own notches — most recently on iPhone 13.

Samsung famously tweeted "Imagine still having a notch in 2021" pointing to the fact that its Galaxy Z Fold 3 device had no such notch but Apple's new flagship device did. How things have changed. Assuming the support page — first spotted by 91mobiles — is correct.

While Apple's very best iPhone still has a notch, it's difficult to say how much anyone really cares about Samsung's own notch-laden device. And that's probably the funniest thing about this whole situation.

It's odd to see a tablet with a notch at all, too. Apple's iPads don't have a notch and instead put the cameras in the bezel, preferring to keep it wide enough to enable users to comfortably hold it. Samsung, it seems, is going the other route and doing away with as much bezel as possible — hence that notch.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.