Sprint has announced that it will start offering an LTE version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 on Friday, September 12th. The carrier is only willing to let go of the tablet for customers who can pay $27.09 a month for two years or drop down $649.99 in cold hard cash right on the counter. Either way, buyers aren't walking out without a service plan, but if they didn't want one, then they were better off buying the Wi-Fi version for $100 less anyway.

The Galaxy Tab S 10.5 is one of the best 10-inch slates on the market today. It has a gorgeous AMOLED 2560 by 1600 display, is only 6.6mm thick, oozes power, and comes with comfortable faux leather backing. Sprint's variant is Spark compatible, so even though the carrier's speeds aren't known for being the fastest, this hardware is equipped to pick up the best connections in the markets where tri-band LTE is available. Sprint's tablet data plans begin at 1GB of data for $14.99 a month and go up to 30GB for $109.99.

Ultrathin Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 Featuring Sprint Spark Available Sept. 12

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), September 04, 2014 - Beginning on Friday, Sept. 12, Sprint (NYSE: S) will bring to life the ultimate entertainment experience with the ultrathin 6.6mm Samsung Galaxy Tab® S 10.5, featuring a high-resolution Super AMOLED™ display with the high-speed network data capabilities of Sprint Spark™ enhanced LTE, where available.

Available in Titanium Bronze, Galaxy Tab S will be available in Sprint direct ship sales channels, including Sprint Stores, Web Sales, Telesales at 1-800-SPRINT1 and Sprint Business Sales. With Sprint Easy Pay, well-qualified buyers can purchase Galaxy Tab S with $0 down (plus tax) and 24 monthly payments of $27.09 (SRP: $649.99; excluding taxes) and requires a service plan.

Galaxy Tab S can be activated on the Sprint Family Share Pack, a new shared-data plan that offers double the high-speed data1 at the same price as AT&T and Verizon Wireless. For a limited time only, Sprint is offering a promotion for the Sprint Family Share Pack that offers a family with up to 10 lines 20GB of shared data and unlimited talk & text for only $100 a month through 2015 – and, as an added bonus, customers will get an additional 2GB per line for up to 10 lines.2 For a family of four, that’s a savings of $60 per month better than AT&T’s and Verizon’s current pricing through 2015.

Galaxy Tab S can also be activated on one of the Sprint individual tablet data plans, including a special limited-time offer featuring 100MB of data for $10. Other tablet data plans include 1GB for $14.99; 3GB for $34.99; 6GB for $49.99; 12GB for $79.99; and 30GB for $109.99 (all pricing excludes taxes and surcharges).3 Customers are able to view their data usage by logging into My Sprint at www.sprint.com.

“Samsung Galaxy Tab S is the ultimate entertainment device and its premium video experience is enhanced with access to high-speed data through Sprint Spark,” said David Owens, senior vice president-Product Development, Sprint. “Business customers will also appreciate the Galaxy Tab S productivity tools and how easily it slips into a briefcase.”

This device benefits from Sprint Spark with the added capacity to greatly improve the performance of video and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Available now in 27 cities, Sprint Spark is designed to support a new generation of online gaming, virtual reality, advanced cloud services and other applications requiring very high bandwidth.

Sprint plans to reach 100 million Americans by year-end with Sprint Spark. Sprint 4G LTE is available in 488 cities covering more than 255 million people.

Amazing Viewing Experience

Galaxy Tab S delivers a beautiful viewing experience with its WQXGA Super AMOLED display with 100,000:1 contrast ratio, which offers a wider color range, deeper contrast and truer blacks. It also features adaptive display technology that provides excellent viewing in any environment by intelligently adjusting gamma, saturation and sharpness based on the content, viewing environment and ambient lighting. Preset AMOLED Cinema and AMOLED Photo modes also let users manually adjust the display settings for bright, dynamic results for both video and photo content.

Built on Android™ 4.4.2, KitKat, Galaxy Tab S features a 2.3GHz quad-core processor and a 7,900mAh lithium-ion battery to power the tablet. Galaxy Tab S also has an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with flash, 4x digital zoom and video capture to document life’s most important moments, as well as a 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat.

Galaxy Tab S users can enjoy Netflix in high definition. Kids Mode on Galaxy Tab S allows easy access to kid-friendly content and offers parental controls to limit content accessed and length of use.

Created with businesses in mind, Galaxy Tab S also includes all the tools necessary for mobile professionals to get work done, including:

  • Multi Window™4 allows users to open up to two windows at once
  • Remote PC for quick access to the office from anywhere
  • Quick Connect, which identifies the best way to share content with nearby people and devices and allows screen-sharing and device control with Wi-Fi Direct
  • Wi-Fi Miracast® to wirelessly mirror a smartphone or tablet display
  • Hancom Office Hwp 2014 preloaded, allowing users to edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files from anywhere
  • 3G/4G LTE mobile hotspot capability supporting up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices simultaneously5
  • Fingerprint6 sensor for easy and secure multi-user access of up to eight different profiles with personalized settings, apps and more

For businesses that want business-critical security and the ability to protect sensitive data, Galaxy Tab S supports Samsung Knox™7, which provides enhanced platform security, application security and mobile device management.

For those interested in a more eco-friendly meeting, Galaxy Tab S features Samsung e-meeting, a personal organizer that allows users to share data simultaneously on multiple devices allowing users to take notes, edit the same file and share file revisions.