Samsung Tab S10 Fe vs 11-inch iPad A16: What Works Better for Online Teaching Videos (Tested by a Homeschool Co-op Teacher)
It’s 7:12 a.m. last month, my coffee’s gone lukewarm, there’s oatmeal crumb stuck to the bottom of my lesson plan, and I’m staring at two brand new tablets propped on my wobbly kitchen tripod. My old 8-year-old iPad died mid-watercolor lesson the week before, cutting off my 12 co-op fourth graders mid-explanation of how to blend sky blue, so I borrowed both the Samsung Tab S10 Fe and 11-inch iPad with the A16 chip from a friend who works at a local electronics shop to test which one would work for my weekly pre-recorded teaching videos and monthly live check-ins. My 7-year-old son tugs on my jeans asking for a second peanut butter cracker, I tell him five more minutes, he climbs onto the counter to inspect the tablets, asks if he can play Minecraft on whichever one I don’t pick.
I spent the first week with the Tab S10 Fe, testing it on my exact daily routine. I film all my lessons by the kitchen window—it’s the only spot in my small house with enough space for my easel—and the first thing I noticed was the matte screen. That first day was overcast, which is standard around here in the Pacific Northwest, and the playback showed the exact hue of my cobalt blue and cadmium yellow paint, no glare from the gray natural light. The S Pen came included in the box, no extra purchase required, so I could pull it out mid-video to circle the horizon line on my sample painting, no lag, no waiting for it to connect to the device. By the end of the day, I’d filmed three 20-minute videos, done a 25-minute one-on-one check-in with a student who was struggling with perspective, and I still had 42% battery left. I didn’t even need to plug it in overnight if I’d forgotten.
The downsides popped up when I went to upload my first finished video to Seesaw, the platform I use to share lessons with kids who miss class. The annotation I’d added to the corner of the video pointing out a common blending mistake got cut off. It turns out a lot of common education apps aren’t optimized for the Samsung’s screen size, so I had to adjust my workflow: I now export finished videos to Google Drive first, then upload them from my old laptop. It adds about two minutes to my process, which isn’t a big deal, but it’s an extra step I didn’t have before. I also noticed that after a 30-minute 4K recording session, the back of the Tab got warm enough that I could feel it through my tripod mount, though it never glitched or shut down on me.
The next week I swapped it out for the 11-inch iPad A16, and the difference was immediately obvious. Every single one of my teaching apps opened perfectly, no weird cropping, no cut-off text or annotations. The A16 chip is fast, so I edited a 22-minute video right on the iPad while my son napped, cutting out the part where my cat walked across my easel and adding text labels for paint colors, no lag at all. The microphones are also noticeably better: one day I recorded while standing a foot back from the tablet to hold up a finished painting for the camera, and the playback was just as clear as when I was leaning right into it, no muffled sound or echo off my kitchen tiles. It never got warm even after an hour of live teaching, which was a huge plus.
But for me, the downsides were hard to ignore. First, there’s no stylus included. To get the Apple Pencil I need to draw on the screen mid-lesson, that’s another $129 on top of the already $150 higher price tag for the iPad, which put it way outside my $350 total tech budget for the year. Battery life was also noticeably shorter: on the same schedule of three pre-recorded videos and one live check-in, I was down to 18% by 4 p.m., and once I had to pause a live Q&A to grab a charger when it hit 10% mid-session. The glossy screen also gave me constant trouble on bright sunny days: I had to pull the curtains closed to cut down on the reflection of my overhead light, which made the paint colors look darker and murkier on the final video.
After two weeks of testing, I realized most tech reviews don’t talk about what actually matters for people making online teaching videos from their kitchen, not full-time content creators with fancy home studios. If you’re a parent homeschooling your kids and recording lessons to share with a small co-op, or a part-time remote teacher working with a limited stipend, the Tab S10 Fe checks almost every box. The included S Pen alone saves you hundreds of dollars before you even start, the matte screen is perfect for anyone filming in a regular home space near a window, and the battery lasts a full day of teaching without you panicking about finding an outlet. The two-minute extra step for uploading is a tiny price to pay for the lower cost.
If you’re a full-time online teacher doing multiple live sessions a day, you already use other Apple devices that sync seamlessly, and you can swing the extra cost, the iPad 11 A16 is worth it. The more reliable audio and seamless app integration mean you don’t have to deal with small glitches mid-class, which saves you time and stress over the long run.
Right now, my new Tab S10 Fe is sitting on the counter next to my half-empty coffee mug and my set of half-used watercolor pans, the S Pen clipped to its side. I’m using it tomorrow to film a lesson on painting fluffy clouds, and so far it’s worked perfectly for what I need. I don’t regret not splurging on the iPad, but I also get why a teacher who does live classes four days a week would pick it. There’s no universal perfect pick, it just comes down to what fits your budget and your daily routine, not what the top tech gift list says you should buy. Next month I’m testing a new portable tripod for outdoor lessons, so we’ll see how that goes.
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