Samsung’s old Galaxy Tab S5e can still be a smart buy at this hefty discount

These bad boys are set to arrive a measly few months after the Tab S6 Lite, which is obviously not the world’s most powerful Android slate, following in the footsteps of the early 2019-released Tab S5e with mid-range specifications and a premium design of its own. 

But the older mid-end tablet can actually be a smarter purchase than its Lite-branded successor… as long as you know where to look and when to pull the trigger. Right now, Costco members can pay as little as 350 bucks for a 128GB storage configuration of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e bundled with a 128GB memory card.

This is not the entry-level variant, mind you, but rather one that normally costs $480 by itself with 6 gigs of RAM also on deck. In case you’re wondering, the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite is priced at $430 in a 128GB storage configuration only packing a 4GB memory count, and because that thing is still pretty new, hefty discounts like the one currently available at Costco are nowhere to be found.

Interestingly, the Tab S5e is both thinner and lighter than the Tab S6 Lite, at an incredible 5.5mm and 400 grams respectively, despite matching the 7,040mAh battery capacity of the newer slate. The mid-range oldie also sports a higher-quality and higher-resolution 10.5-inch Super AMOLED display while packing a Snapdragon 670 processor that’s probably not a lot slower than the Exynos 9611 powering the Tab S6 Lite.

The only thing that the older, cheaper, and sleeker Samsung tablet appears to be missing is a built-in S Pen, which could prove a major inconvenience for some people. You just have to decide for yourself if that’s a real problem, and if not, you should sign up for a Costco membership as soon as possible.