Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Has a Wi-Fi Design Flaw

It looks as though Samsung's Galaxy Tab S5e has a design flaw that's hardware rather than software based, meaning the tablet probably can't be fixed with a software update.

As Sammobile reports, users of the $399 10.5-inch S5e tablet are finding it drops the Wi-Fi signal when held in a landscape orientation. Further investigation reveals the signal is dropped when a hand is gripping the lower-left corner of the tablet while the front-facing camera is on the left.

You can see the signal being dropped on Instagram as user David Waner recorded a video showing what happens to the available wireless networks when he grips the tablet. As you probably guessed, they all disappear from the list quite quickly.

Clearly, the internal design of the S5e placed the wireless signal receiver in the left corner, which means that when gripped in landscape mode any Wi-Fi signal is blocked from reaching the receiver. There is an easy user fix to this problem, though. Simply flip the tablet so it's in landscape with the front-facing camera on the right. Alternatively, don't grip the lower-left corner.

This is rather embarrassing for Samsung, but certainly doesn't render the tablet unusable. It simply requires a bit more thought by users when it comes to holding it. We also can't help but think of the iPhone 4's antennagate moment because Samsung has just repeated it in a different form for 2019.

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Samsung could end up redesigning the internals of the S5e to avoid this problem, or it could just rely on word-of-mouth and news coverage to tell people to hold the tablet differently. I suspect the company may take a wait-and-see approach to determine how bad the problem is, but for now, asking for your S5e to be replaced will simply result in you receiving another one with the same problem.

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