According to a small number of social media reports, Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab S5e is experiencing Wi-Fi disconnections whenever the top left corner of the device (or bottom left corner in landscape mode) is covered by a user’s hand, as reported by SamMobile.
One Galaxy Tab S5e user took to Instagram to demonstrate his device’s Wi-Fi dropout issue by posting the image below, with a couple of commenters chiming in that they had experienced similar issues.
It’s worth noting the user’s claim that it’s the second tablet he’s had and that both experienced the same disconnection problem.
Further testing
SamMobile tested the issue for themselves, and while the site was unable to completely disconnect from Wi-Fi through various attempts, the authors did report a 50% drop in signal strength.
Unfortunately for owners of the device, like with Apple’s iPhone 4 ‘antennagate’ scandal from 2010, it’s believed that a software update would be unable to fix the problem – the only real fix would require that particular section of the antenna to be moved elsewhere through a hardware revision.
At present, it’s unknown how far-reaching the Wi-Fi signal problem actually is. In the meantime, Galaxy Tab S5e owners can largely avoid the issue by rotating the tablet to the right when holding it in landscape mode. Samsung has yet to comment on the problem.