After a quiet announcement earlier this summer, Samsung gave us our first look at its latest high-end tablets, the Galaxy Tab 2 series at its "London Unpacked" event in the UK. The latest in a long line of Samsung tablets, the Tab S2 builds on the Korean giant's 2014 efforts with high-end Android slates positioned at two key screen sizes — 8.0 and 9.7 inches.

The biggest change from last year's Tab S has to do with the aspect ratio of the new tablets' screens. Samsung has switched up to a 4:3 display on both models, while adjusting down to a screen resolution of 2048x1536 pixels, matching the iPad. On paper that's fewer pixels than last year, though both displays look spectacular — easily as good as competing high-end tablets, including Apple's. Verizon is offering the Pixel 4a for just $10/mo on new Unlimited lines Samsung's also keen to point out that the new aspect ratio makes its new tablets ideal for reading and web browsing. That's no great revelation five years on from the iPad's arrival, but it's true all the same. And now that more apps are optimized for a display of this shape — thanks to Lollipop and the Nexus 9 — it's easier to ship a 4:3 Android tablet.

MORE: Galaxy Tab S2 specs On the inside there's a curious collection of hardware — an octa-core Exynos processor, but not the most up-to-date chip included in the Galaxy S6 and Note 5. Instead it's the year-old SoC powering the Note 4 in some markets. That's not a huge problem, though — both Tab S2 models performed admirably in our brief time with them, moving around the Android UI with ease, scrolling through image-heavy web pages quickly and easily managing multiple apps through Samsung's Multi window feature. That's backed up by an ample 3GB of RAM and 32 or 64GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD. On the software side, Samsung's TouchWiz UI sits atop Lollipop, resulting in a user experience that'll be familiar to anyone using one of the company's latest Android phones. Same icons, same clock widget, same apps, same color scheme.

Multi window is the killer app for a big Samsung tablet. Fortunately system performance was smooth throughout, with none of the intermittent lag we've seen from some of Samsung's current handsets. We'll have to see how that changes over time, however. Multi window, which we've enjoyed on Samsung phones for a few years now, really comes into its own on a larger display — particularly one with a 4:3 aspect ratio. The recent apps UI makes it easy to split the screen between two apps, and supported apps can also be minimized down to a floating window by swiping in from one of the top corners. While you're still limited to a small subset of apps, this is probably the closest thing the Tab S2 has to a killer app. It's taken Samsung a while to work out a decent UI for its multitasking setup, but what it's arrived at is pretty solid, and it works really well on a big screen.