As well as the standard suite of Google Apps, it has Samsung apps such as ChatON, S Suggest, S Voice, S Translator, S Planner, WatchON, Smart Stay, Multi-Window, Group Play, All Share Play, Samsung Magazine, Professional pack, Multi-user mode, SideSync 3.0, and Gear/Gear Fit manager.

The LTE model comes either with a Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400 on top of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset (version for Sprint and Verizon) or with the Exynos octa-core CPU.

[9] As of April 6, 2015, only Canada and France have received the OTA (Over the Air) Update, exclusive to the WiFi only model.

Reasons for the two countries getting the update first, could include the high sales of the Tab S tablets in both countries, and the fact 5.0.2 adds additional French language support, a language predominantly spoken fluently by some 60 Million French and 10 Million Canadians.

[12] The Verge praised the AMOLED display, liked that it is thinner than the iPad Air, and found the Multi-Window software feature useful.

However, The Verge did not like the plastic body, numerous confusing software features and the hard to use fingerprint sensor.