As the marketplace for tablets cools, the competition between devices in the marketplace has heated up. Here is how the iPad Air 2 from Apple compares to the Galaxy tab S 10.5 from Samsung.

Design

When it comes to design the iPad Air 2 has the upper hand as it has a metal unibody and the premium design that Apple's devices are famous for. As for the Tab S 10.5 it has a plastic body and dimples on its back panel which means it is easier to hold. Comparing the tablets size, both are extremely thin but the Tab S 10.5 is slightly thicker, and it is also taller and broader. When it comes to weight, the Tab S 10.5 weighs in at 465 grams compared to the 437 grams of the iPad Air 2. Both devices also have fingerprint sensors and keyboards can be purchased for them separately.

Display

The display on the Tab S 10.5 is bigger, and it comes with a super AMOLED screen that measures 10.5 inches, and it has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels and a density of 288 pixels per inch. As for the iPad Air 2 it comes with an IPS LCD screen measuring 9.7 inches with a resolution of 1536 x 2048 pixels and a density of 264 pixels per inch.

Specs

In terms of hardware both devices are neck and neck, as the iPad Air 2 has an Apple A8X chipset and a CPU with three cores clocked at 1.5 GHz. As for the Tab S 10.5 it has and Exynos 5 Octa 5420 chipset, an octa-core CPU with four Cortex-A15 cores clocked at 1.9 GHz and four Cortex-A7 cores clocked at 1.3 GHz, and a Mali-T628 MP6 GPU.

Memory

The iPad Air 2 does not have a memory slot while the version on the Tab S 10.5 allows for the addition of up to 128 GB of external storage. Comparing their RAM, the Tab S 10.5 has 3 GB while the iPad Air 2 has 2 GB.

Battery

The battery on the Tab S 10.5 is a 7,900mAh version while the iPad Air has a 7,340mAh venison.

Price

The 16 GB iPad Air 2 and the 16 GB Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 each costs $500.