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elizaviento · 6 years ago

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Assimilation (part 12/23)

Note: Some more smutty goodness for ya along with a healthy dose of angst. Enjoy!

NSFW -- 3150 words

(FYI: Additional chapters of Assimilation can be found in the Rick Fic Masterpost link in my blog description. Or, you can click the #assimilation tag in this post, within my blog, to access all additional chapters.)

*****

After I left the garage, I spent the remainder of the night lying on the trundle bed – staring at the ceiling while a steady stream of tears leaked from my eyes, down the sides of my face to soak into my hair. Every now and again, I would wipe them away but mostly I let them fall. I could hear the sounds of my family moving about in the house but I couldn’t bring myself to get up and join them. As much as I tried to comfort Morty earlier, I wasn’t very good at doing so with myself.

I felt guilty. How could I have tried to completely erase Chris from my life? It wasn’t possible; a fool’s errand. And, that’s exactly what I was – a fool. No one had ever loved me as much as he did and I doubted anyone ever would. And, what did I do? I betrayed his memory. I only hoped that my counterpart appreciated her husband more than I did mine. I’d find out sooner or later, though, once I got my hands on those goggles.

My life had become one giant cluster fuck made worse by the fact that I allowed myself to fall into an affair with someone I had no business even entertaining the possibility with. Was I strong enough to tell Rick that this couldn’t continue? Could I resist him if he came on to me again? No, probably not. Why did I ask him to recount our time on Unity’s planet? What exactly was my end game with that little request? I obviously hadn’t recovered all of the memories of my assimilation but what did I gain by learning the rest from Rick’s point of view? Most likely, he’d give me a watered down version; downplay any expectations he had or advances he’d made. I couldn’t even blame him because that’s exactly what I would do if the tables were turned. He had no clue I wasn’t myself so the humiliation he probably felt upon discovering otherwise must have been intense. Not to mention, the betrayal associated with such manipulation.

I was so deep inside my own head that I was startled by the knock on my ‘bed room’ door. It was Morty, wondering if I was okay. I lied to him, of course.

“I told Mom and – and Dad that you’re – that y-y-you aren’t feeling well,” he informed, his voice muffled as it carried through the pressed wood. I thanked him and told him to go enjoy his evening. I’d be fine, really.

At about 2:30 am, I got up to use the toilet and when I returned, I found the inter-dimensional goggles hanging from the door knob with a sticky note attached that simply read “D-79”. Feeling my heart rate increase, I snatched them up and locked the door behind me even though there was absolutely no movement in the house. I felt like a teenager about to sneak watch porn; like I was about to do something dirty. Perhaps it was dirty to spy on someone else’s life. However, as I had told Rick earlier – I didn’t give a shit.

Luckily, the controls on the goggles were pretty self-explanatory. There was a power button, a select button, a play button, a fast forward button, and a rewind button. A rewind button? The idea that I could rewind the life of my counterpart was almost unbelievable. Almost, because the idea of inter-dimensional goggles was unbelievable in the first place, yet here they were in my hands. After taking a deep breath, I pressed the power button and slipped them over my head.

I assumed that I would have to locate the dimension I needed since Rick made sure to indicate it on the sticky note, but it was already queued up – based on the tiny display at the bottom – and was playing live, right in front of my eyes. Well, it would have been if my counterpart wasn’t obviously asleep. All I could see in this moment was the back of her eyelids. Of course, she’d be sleeping at 2:30 in the morning. I felt like a moron – until I remembered the rewind button.

Without removing the goggles, I ran my hand along the outside until my fingers felt the indentation of the two backward facing arrows and pressed. Images began to flash in front of my eyes at lighting speed and I made myself wait for twenty seconds before locating and pressing the play button. It seemed like those twenty seconds sent me back to about mid-day in dimension D-79. As the images began to play back at normal speed, I was amazed at how it seemed like I had assumed my counterpart’s body instead of just watching through a pair of goggles. She was at work; the same place I had worked before moving away which surprised me, for some reason. Regardless, this wasn’t what I wanted to see, so I pressed the fast forward button for about five seconds and pressed play once more.

----------

I walk through the front door of my house and immediately kick my shoes off, sending them flying across the foyer. It was a long day at work and I just want to peel the rest of my work clothes off and drink wine until I fall asleep on the couch watching MSNBC. I hear my phone chirp and pull it from my bag to see a new voicemail from Chris. He never leaves me voicemail — preferring instead to text — so I know it has to be something important.

“Hey, babe. I’m leaving for my shift now. I don’t know if you still plan to go over to Beth and Jerry’s for dinner tonight but I’ll try to call you when I have a break. Something weird happened today that I need to tell you about.”

Shit, I forgot it was Wednesday. No wine and MSNBC for me after all. We always eat at Beth and Jerry’s on Wednesday but I’ll make sure to let them know I’m expecting a call from Chris so Jerry doesn’t get pissy if I step away from table to take it. Especially since Chris doesn’t usually work the night shifts but has been recently to fill in for a co-worker out on leave. Truth be told, I’m still paranoid of Chris working nights after that guy stabbed him. He nearly died and was in the hospital for a month. I really don’t think I could live through something like that again.

It’s 5:30 pm now so I should make my way over so I can help Beth. I wonder what weird thing happened that Chris felt the need to call me about. My gut twists at what I hope he doesn’t say when I hear from him later tonight. Trying to forget about it, I change into my favorite jeans and a t-shirt before making my way next door. I let myself in and say hi to Jerry and the kids as I head to the kitchen, where I know I’ll find Beth.

“Hello, Bethany, my love. What do you need help with?” I notice that the door leading to the garage is open so I peak my head inside and also say hi to Rick. He’s sitting at his work station with his back to me and doesn’t turn around but raises one hand in the air to greet me, which is typical.

“Can you set the table?” Beth asks before adding, “Chris still working nights?”

“Yes, for a little while longer.” I see Rick turn around on his stool from the corner of my eye.

“I – uh – I’ll come help ya, Chicken,” Rick says as he makes his way into the kitchen.

“Aw, thanks, Dad” Beth says, placing a hand on his shoulder as he passes by her and saddles up next to me as I’m pulling dishes from the cabinets. He doesn’t need to stand this close to get to the silverware drawer and I throw him a glance. He smirks and but doesn’t move away. When I have all the dishes I need, I make my way to the dining room with Rick on my heels.

The kids are already sitting at the table. Summer is tapping away on her phone, as usual, and Morty is reading a book that was assigned to him in his English class. There is a jacket cover on the book so I ask, “Lord of the Flies?”

“1984,” he replies, placing the book on the table with a sigh.

“Also good,” I confirm, placing glasses and plates at each sitting. Rick is close behind with the cutlery.

“I-I-I can’t pay attention – concentrate on it long enough to know w-w-what’s going on,” he says, sighing again. He look so dejected.

“I can explain it to you, kiddo.”

“No, he needs to read it and understand it on his own,” Jerry interjects as he enters the dining room and takes his place at the table.

“Don’t pretend she didn’t have to read – explain it to you, Jerry,” Rick spits. I throw him another glace as I’m really not in the mood to hear them bicker throughout dinner.

“Jer, I may need to step away and answer a call from Chris while we’re eating. He said he needs to tell me about something weird that happened today.”

“Oh, y-y-you mean when he was practically fuckin’ – dry humping an alternate version of you in the driveway?” Rick mentions, his tone casual.

“Excuse me?” I ask with a laugh before the expression on his face confirms that he’s not joking. “Wait… what?”

“That – t-t-that’s not what happened, Rick,” Morty says, rolling his eyes. “Some other Rick and Morty showed up here, probably to s-steal from us like we were doing.”

“And, they had an alternate version of me with them?”

“Yeah,” Morty says. “It was weird though ‘cause she was hugging Chris.”

I glace at Rick and he shrugs his shoulders. “I ran – chased them off. You’re welcome.”

I take Morty’s lead and roll my eyes. Rick can be such an ass.

Dinner is uneventful, thank god. I check my phone a few times but Chris doesn’t call. I do get a text from him right before I’m about to leave that says, “No time to talk. Not a big deal though. See you in the morning.”

It’s 8:00 pm now and I’m exhausted but I can still enjoy some wine and catch the remainder of my favorite political shows, which excites me. I then realize how boring I must be to become excited over cheap wine and politics. Suddenly, I hear the whirl of a portal opening behind me and I turn to catch Rick as he steps through before it pops out of existence. I don’t have time to open my mouth to speak before he closes the distance between us, places his large hand on my mouth and shoves me against the wall. He’s already hard and I wonder for how long as he places a gentle love bite to the junction between my neck and shoulder.

“Mmm, I-I-I know you want this cock, baby,” he says, grinding it against my thigh.

Then, he removes his hand so I can reply. “What took you so long?”

Now, positioning both hands on the small of my back, he glides them down to cup my ass before hoisting me up. I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck as he carries me down the hall to the master bedroom. When we reach the bed, he gently sits me down on the edge. As he straightens, I’m already unbuckling his belt, my mouth is watering. It takes mere seconds to get his pants and briefs around his ankles and my mouth around his cock.

“Ah, fuuuck. T-t-that’s nice, sweetheart.”

He rakes his fingers through my hair before gripping at the scalp. I flick my eyes up to meet his and hold contact as I blow him, taking him as far down my throat as possible – just how he likes.

“Christ, you know how to suck a dick,” he encourages as he uses the grip on my scalp to bob my head on his length. I let my mouth fill with saliva as he fucks my face and it begins to slip out and roll down my chin to the expensive Persian rug below. I paid way too much for that rug but can’t give a fuck about it now.

Far too soon for my liking, Rick pulls his dick from my mouth to command, “Strip. Bend over. Palms flat on the mattress.”

Of course, I comply – pulling my clothes off as fast as I can – and soon, he’s rubbing the head of his cock up and down my slick cunt. I moan and fist my hands into the comforter when I feel him slowly press his way inside. But, suddenly he stops and pulls back.

“What the fuck?” I whine, looking over my shoulder at him. I guess he’s decided to be a tease.

“I wanna put – stick it in your ass tonight, sweet girl. Pound t-t-that ass ‘til you cry. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yesss,” I hiss, turning to face forward again, lying my upper body on the mattress while he retrieves the lube from the night stand beside my bed. I watch as he strips the remainder of his clothing while he’s on his way back to his position behind me and a moment later, I feel the cool substance drip down the crack of my ass. It makes me shiver and giggle.

“Shit, you – y-you’re fucking sexy,” he growls, rubbing his callused palms down the curve of my ass before spreading my cheeks wide. When he gently presses a thumb over and inside my puckered entrance, I groan at the intrusion but I know it’s nothing compared to what he has in store for me. He then removes his thumb and replaces it with an index finger, then a middle finger. The stretch is amazing and now I’m panting, dying for his cock. Of course, he takes notice and chuckles.

“You’re ready now, huh?”

He doesn’t wait for my reply before positioning his cock and pressing forward. I cry out and press my face to the mattress when he breaches the ring of muscle and pops inside. Then, he stops to rubs his hands up my ass cheeks until he reaches my waist and continues forward slowly toward my tits, his cock sliding deeper inside. When he finally reaches my nipples – rolling them between his fingers – he’s fully seated inside my ass and my pussy is already aching.

With his chest resting against my back, he whisper in my ear, “Don’t y-y-you dare touch your clit until I say so.” Then, he straightens, grips my hips, slowly pulls nearly all the way out and then presses all the way back in even slower. He continues at this pace for what seems like an eternity – until I’m losing my mind and begging him to speed up.

“Oh god, Rick, please!”

“Please what, baby?” he asks while slowly pressing back in. Yes, tonight he’s going to tease.

“Go faster! Please! Just fuck me already!”

“Mmm, you – you sure?” Slowly dragging out.

Too overwhelmed to reply with words, I sob and press my face to the mattress once more. He has apparently decided he’s teased me enough, however, because the next thing I know, he’s quickening his pace. I cry out in gratitude; sparks of pain and pleasure radiate through my lower half and my pussy is clenching, dying to be filled.

“Rick,” I groan, “Please… fuck my pussy with your fingers.”

“Is she – is she feelin’ lonely, huh?” he asks, sliding them up my slit. “Fuck, you’re dripping.” Finally relenting, he pushes them inside, hooking to effortlessly locate my g-spot and press rhythmically, in time with his thrusts.

“Oh my god…” I continue to sob as tears prick my eyes. He’s going to make me cry, just like he promised.

“Who makes you feel this good, sweet girl?”

“Oh fuck! Just you!”

“Rub that clit for me. I w-wanna feel it – feel you squeeze my dick and my fingers. Do it, baby.”

I snake an arm down my body and the moment the pads of my fingers make contact with my swollen clit, I cum. It’s so sudden and intense and I can feel my entire body tremble with the force of it; my cunt and ass clinch in time as Rick sings my praise –

“Oh fuuuck – oh Christ, that’s it baby you – you’re g-g-gonna make me fuckin’ cum!”

He leans over again to grip my shoulders, ramming my entire body back, impaling me on his dick. Then he groans and collapses on top of me as he fills me up.

Soon, I feel him going flaccid inside me and my stomach rolls with guilt. The afterglow is always so short.

“You should leave now,” I say, feeling desperate to get him off and out of me.

He doesn’t reply. As he peels his body from mine, I feel him slip from my ass along with what feels like a gallon of his cum. My stomach rolls again. I rise from the bed and stand, pulling my robe from the back of the closet door and watch as he hastily gets dressed. A moment later, he’s shooting a portal at my bedroom wall.

“Yeah. See ya,” he says, stepping through.

----------

I removed the goggles with shaky hands. Holy shit. She was fucking Rick and obviously had been for a while. She was cheating on Chris and didn’t even have the decency to use one of the guest bedrooms. Was that the life I would be living right now if my Chris hadn’t been killed? Would I have Chris but not appreciate him to the point that I’d have an affair with Rick? My entire life, I thought I was a good person; that I tried my best to do the right things. It had all been bullshit.

The thought occurred to me that there are multiple versions of me who are currently banging a Rick. I could scan through dimensions and find out how many of my counterparts are so fucking ungrateful of their loving husbands that they willingly fall into the arms of Rick Sanchez. I could torture myself with it all night long. All week long. All year long. Until the day I fucking croak.

Rick had warned me that this was a bad idea. Did he know? What an idiotic question. Of course – of course – he knew.

To be continued…

P.S. A huge thank you to @porkchop-ao3 for letting me borrow her inter-dimensional goggle technology tweaks from her amazing story Someone Else’s Shoes, which you can find under her Ao3 account username PorkChop.

#rick and morty #rick sanchez x reader #rick sanchez #fanfiction #assimilation #sister smith series

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t-baba · 5 years ago

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The WHATWG and W3C to collaborate on single HTML and DOM specifications

#393 — May 29, 2019

Read on the Web

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The State of Fluid Web Typography — This detailed summary seeks to answer the question of whether fluid typography is ready to be used on the web today. Highlights how fluid type can improve the reading experience, explores potential scaling problems and raises some accessibility considerations.

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Build Fast, Accurate, Customized Maps With Mapbox — Whether you’re designing an app from scratch or looking to improve your UX, Mapbox has the tools and solutions for you. Built by and for developers, Mapbox is used by 1.2M developers today. Sign up for free.

Mapbox sponsor

Accessible Icon Buttons — An icon button is, simply, a button that’s merely an icon (with no text). They’re very popular in webapps in particular, but are they accessible? They can be, with Sara’s great tips.

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Pixi.js 5.0: Create Beautiful 2D Web Experiences — Boasts the ‘fastest, most flexible 2D WebGL renderer’ to let you take advantage of hardware acceleration without getting involved in WebGL or 3D concerns. Check out demos for what the code looks like and what you’d use it for. There’s also a Pixi Playground for quickly crafting your own experiments.

PixiJS

Firefox Brings You Smooth Video Playback with the World’s Fastest AV1 Decoder — Last week’s release of Firefox 67 added support for the “high performance, royalty free AV1 video decoder called 'dav1d'”, which is now enabled by default on all desktop platforms.

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📋 A little FYI: The 2019 Frontend Tooling survey closes this week. If you're yet to fill it out, you've got until Friday.

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💡 Tip of the Week

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How to identify which font is being rendered

Any browsers dev tools can display the font stack for a selected DOM element, but some can also highlight which font from that stack is actually being rendered on screen. Handy for when you want to know excatly what font you're looking at.

Chrome (and the new Chromium-powered Edge) show this information at the bottom of the Computed tab:

Whereas in Firefox the rendered font will be shown inline, by way of an underline in the style inspector panel:

Safari has a similar behaviour to Firefox, but highlights the font, instead of underlining it.

As a bonus, Dean Hume explains here how in Chrome you can also see what the full character set of a selected font looks like.

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Zdog: A Pseudo-3D Engine for Canvas and SVG — A JavaScript engine for designing and rendering simple 3D models on the Web. Geometries exist in 3D space, but are rendered here as flat shapes, which helps keeps things small. Here’s the repo.

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JSNation, June 5-7 — Amsterdam, the Netherlands — A 2-day event focusing exclusively on JavaScript development.

Front Utah 2019, June 6-7 — Salt Lake City — Two days of learning better ways to work together with your team and be inspired to grow your career in UX or product management.

Pixel Pioneers, June 7 — Bristol, UK — A one-day conference of practical design and frontend talks, featuring eight speakers (preceded by a workshop day).

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by via Frontend Focus http://bit.ly/2YOQEKm

#HTML5 Branding #HTML5 Weekly

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jtappersmc · 6 years ago

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A Post from All Learners about introducing problems - FYI

The Problem Introduction Protocol

The title, Problem Introduction Protocol sounds a bit pretentious. “The way we introduce problems to provide access to everyone” was a mouthful, so we went with PIP.

The Problem Introduction Protocol was a joint effort among all the coaches at the first All Learners convening. We were searching for a way to provide access to problems being used during Main Lesson. Often, students who had trouble would raise their hands almost immediately to declare, “I don’t get it.” We observed that there was something fundamentally amiss when a student couldn’t even begin a problem. As a result, we created an approach for introducing problems that, we thought, would provide an opportunity for everyone to take a stab at the problem. The original version was launched more than a year ago. After gathering some (admittedly thin) data from practitioners, we’ve come up with the version below.

The Ongoing Cohort of ALN is going to be testing this protocol this fall. We’ll report on the results in December. In the meantime, if any educators use what we describe in the blog below, please let us know what your experience was. You can start a conversation or add to an existing one here:

https://alllearnersnetwork.com/community/

Problem Introduction Protocol

• Read the problem chorally.

• Ask, “What are we trying to figure out?”

• Ask, “What would an answer to that look like?”

• Brainstorm strategies

Read the problem chorally

We do this to accommodate students who might have difficulty with reading and those whose first language is not English. Older kids fuss a bit about reading chorally, but I make them do it anyway. It’s important that students get a chance to hear a clear reading of the problem.

In the first few iterations of this approach we had the teacher read the problem to students before the choral reading. I wouldn’t discourage this, particularly in one-on-one settings. In general, though, people reported that this was overkill.

Ask, “What are we trying to figure out?”

Step 2 involves determining what kind of answer we’re looking for. Many teachers write a statement on the board to summarize student thinking. Some teachers have students write a statement on the paper where they’re going to solve. Some (teachers of younger children) will write it on the board and ask students to copy it onto their papers.

Whether you write it or not, students should all be able to articulate what the goal of the problem or task is.

Ask, “What would an answer to that look like?”

This step was a contribution from our Maryland colleagues. It’s really helpful. We don’t use this step exactly as written. In other words, we don’t ask students this question. Instead, we ask about two elements of the problem:

What units will the answer have?

What’s a ballpark estimate for the answer?

The estimate is usually the result of a teacher question about extreme (and unreasonable) answers. Teachers will ask questions like, “Could it be 1? Could it be 100?” By eliminating unreasonable answers we’re helping kids narrow their thinking a bit.

So when you’re done with this step, kids should know what the units for the answer will be and what a reasonable solution might look like.

Brainstorm Strategies

When I introduce this to teachers I have the habit of saying, “This piece should come with a Surgeon General’s Warning: Do Not Narrow the List of Strategies”. As students suggest strategies (addition, making a list, drawing a picture, multiplication, etc.) teachers simply respond by saying, “We might be able to use that strategy.”

An example of what doesn’t work is when teachers say that one strategy is the “right” one: “Yes, this is a division problem.” We want to leave the possibility open for children to use whatever makes the most sense to them, even if (right now) it’s not the most efficient approach.

One added piece to the brainstorming that seems to work well is to record the strategies on the board. As students are getting started they can refer to these.

What about highlighting important information?

This is a step that we originally included, and one that is recommended by several texts on supporting struggling learners. While we want children to get the important information from the problem, the practice of highlighting or underlining numbers or important facts often translates into students pulling numbers out of the problem and doing some (often inappropriate) arithmetic. The result is a “How Old is the Shepherd?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kibaFBgaPx4) outcome. For this reason we don’t use this step in the protocol. It doesn’t mean, of course, that you can’t. But if you have students find important information, be sure they have a strategy that makes sense to them and makes sense mathematically.

The Problem Introduction Protocol, then, facilitates reading of the problem, focuses on what the answer is trying to find, gives a decent estimate for a solution, and provides a variety of strategies for getting started. So far it has provided greater access for students to get started with problem solving. As always, we’re interested in your experience with this technique. Please let us know how it worked for you.

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thecanadiantechie · 7 years ago

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The tablet is market is in a weird place right now, they’re not flying off the shelves like they did back in 2011 but somehow, Apple still manages to sell millions of iPads each year.

Part of the reason, why people aren’t buying as many tablets any more, is because everyone already has at least one tablet in their household. So there is no need to buy a second one, or even to replace your first one, because tablets don’t have the same lifecycle as a smartphone, which is about 2-3 years.

The other reason is that phones are getting larger each year, phones that were once referred to as phablets are now the new normal. It was just a few years ago, where any phone with a 5-inch screen would be considered huge. Now we’re seeing phones like the Galaxy S8 & S8+ with 5.8 and 6.2-inch screens and even the iPhones have larger screen that are almost half the size of an iPad Mini’s screen.

But companies like Samsung and Apple are still trying push hard to get their tablets onto more people. They’re adding things like high-quality speakers and screens and in Samsung’s case are including their S-Pen to push people to use it more (and to also compete with the iPad Pro which does not include the Apple Pencil).

I remember getting the Nexus 7 back in 2012 and it was the best thing ever and back then, I was using the Galaxy Nexus as primary phone and that only had a 4.65-inch display but now I’m using a Google Pixel XL (which has a 5.5-inch screen) alongside my Nexus 6 which has a 5.96-inch screen and I don’t see the need for me to buy another tablet, especially since I replaced my original Nexus 7 with the newer Nexus 7 (2013) and that crapped out on me.

I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 and it’s easily become one of my favourite Android tablets in recent years, apart from a few minor annoyances.

Design & Hardware

The most prominent feature on the Galaxy Tab S3 is the display which is a 9.7-inch Super AMOLED QXGA screen with a resolution of 2049 x 1536. It’s a beautiful display to look at and videos especially look great on it. The display on the Tab S3 also has support for HDR video, so it’s basically futureproof in the display department.

The design of the tablet reflects some of Samsung’s new design language for their Galaxy S phones with an all-metal and glass body. On the front of the device, below the screen is the fingerprint sensor which for the most part, worked well but there was a few times when it would not recognize my finger.

One thing to point out is that the tablet was designed to be used in portrait mode and when looking at the device head-on, it looks like stretched out Galaxy S7, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

The left side of the device, is where you’ll find the connectors for the optional keyboard case. On the right side, you’ll find the power/lock button along with the volume rocker and the microSD card slot (which supports up to 256GB).

The bottom of the device is where you’ll find the headphone jack and the USB Type-C port (which supports Samsung’s fast charging) which is not centred like on other Samsung device.

The Tab S3 is the first Samsung tablet with quad-stereo speakers that were tuned by AKG by Harman. The speakers do sound great on the Tab S3, especially when watching videos.

Inside the Tab S3, it’s being powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor (the same that was used in the Galaxy S7 last year). I had no issues with performance on the Tab S3, it could easily keep up, especially with having multiple apps open or even having two apps open at the same time. You’ll also find 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage plus a microSD card slot.

The tablet has a 6,000mAh battery and in my testing, the Tab S3 was able to last all-day on single charge. My typical day consisted of watching a few YouTube videos, some drawing and reading the news.

The Tab S3 also comes with a refined S-Pen which has a 0.7mm tip and increased pressure sensitivity. The S-Pen is probably my favourite feature of this device because I’m one of those people who like to draw and drawing digitally on a tablet like the Tab S3, makes it so much easier to share my drawings when I’m done.

My only gripe, is that I wish there was an easier way to carry the S-Pen with the Tab S3, there’s not slot for it to go into, like on the Galaxy Note lineup and there are magnets on the left side of the device but they’re not strong enough to hold the S-Pen.

I was also able to test out the keyboard case for the Tab S3 and while it was an easy way to keep the tablet protected and a place to keep the S-Pen, the actual keyboard was only average. The keys had good travel but it was very cramped and uncomfortable to type on. There are some keys that aren’t really necessary, like the Language button.

The Tab S3 keyboard cover also makes a great stand for the tablet, even if you don’t use the keyboard portion that often. The cover only had one angle to put that table at but I wish there was at least one more.

All of this comes at a cost, the Tab S3 retails for $799 CAD and is available in two colours, black and silver and each will come with S-Pen that matches the colour of the device (and FYI, only the back of the tablet is a different colour, the front is black). The keyboard case for the Tab S3 costs an additional $130 CAD. The Tab S3 can be purchased from Best Buy, Walmart, Costco and Staples.

Software

The Tab S3 is running Android 7.0 Nougat with Samsung’s TouchWiz. There are some material design-esque elements this latest version of TouchWiz but they’re hardly noticeable. This version of TouchWiz is somewhat toned down but to the point that it’s basically a Nexus or what HTC has done with their latest version of Sense on the HTC 10.

And since the Tab S3 comes with an S-Pen, there are some software tweaks like Air Command which can do things like create a note, smart select items on-screen or even write on the screen or just add your favourite shortcut.

The Tab S3 also comes with a few pre-installed Samsung apps like Samsung Note, Galaxy Apps, Samsung Flow and their own Email and Internet apps. The device also has a few Microsoft apps pre-installed like Word, Excel and OneDrive. I didn’t find myself using any of the pre-installed apps other than Samsung Notes to test out the capabilities of the S-Pen.

The Samsung Notes app can be a great starting app for drawing with the S-Pen but I would recommend using an app called MediaBang Paint, which is like an Android version of Photoshop and Illustrator. You have access to different tools like multiple brushes (some of which are behind a pay wall) and the ability to layer. The app does have a few ads but nothing too intrusive.

These are some of the drawings I created using the Galaxy Tab S3 and the MediaBang Paint app.

Since Samsung designed the tablet to be used in portrait, it can be difficult when using it in landscape, like some apps (like Samsung’s pre-installed apps, would only work in portrait mode). Android has had a lack of tablet apps for a long time and now is no different. Apps do support tablets but there are some apps that will automatically turn to portrait even though the Tab S3 is meant to be in landscape.

By using the Samsung on-screen keyboard, you have the option to input text via writing it with the S-Pen, which can make it easier and difficult at the same time.

One feature that the Tab S3 has borrowed from the deceased Galaxy Note 7, is the ability to take Screen Off Memos, so you can quickly write down notes using the S-Pen.

It didn’t use this feature that often, partly because I was using the Tab S3 with keyboard cover and that encloses the tablet, so I would first need to open the cover, then take out the S-Pen out of its holder on the keyboard case, and then I would be able to take a Screen-Off memo.

Samsung has had split-screen multitasking on their devices since the days of the Galaxy Note series. You can have two windows open at once and they can be resized or swapped. Quite a few apps are supported and it’s not just the Samsung ones that are. And if an app doesn’t support split-screen multitasking, it will tell you.

Camera

The rear-facing camera on the Tab S3 is 13-megapixels and is able to record video up to 4K at 30fps. I’m not a big believer in using a tablet as a camera, the camera on the Tab S3 is good, but it’s not Google Pixel or Galaxy S8 camera quality. The front-facing camera is 5-megapixels and if you’re using the tablet for video calls, both camera will get the job done.

Just like other tablets, cameras on them aren’t that great and shouldn’t be used that often. You don’t want to be that guy who uses their tablet to take photos. Use your smartphone or a dedicated camera instead of using a tablet to take pictures.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a great Android tablet, which has a great screen, awesome speakers and a fun to use stylus, then look no further than the Galaxy Tab S3. But if you’re looking for something to do more than just tablet things like media consumption, then you should look somewhere else (like a Surface Pro or a laptop).

With the current state of the Canadian dollar, it has made the price of the Tab S3 much expensive, the tablet is $799 CAD. And that’s a lot for an Android tablet, especially if you already have a tablet or you own a smartphone that has a giant screen. I like that Samsung included their S-Pen but if you were to add on the keyboard case for another $130 CAD or even the Book Case cover for $90 CAD, you’re looking at almost $900 CAD plus taxes which could put it close to almost $1000 CAD.

The Tab S3 would be much more appealing if it was sold for a lower price (especially in Canada), if it was $500-600 CAD and if Android tablets weren’t on the decline, I would recommend it even more.

Pros

Beautiful display

Nice design

Solid performance

Great speakers

Fun and easy to use S-Pen

Excellent battery life

Cons

Expensive

Lack of proper tablet support for apps

TouchWiz issues

Fingerprint magnet

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 Review: Samsung’s best tablet yet The tablet is market is in a weird place right now, they’re not flying off the shelves like they did back in 2011 but somehow, Apple still manages to sell millions of iPads each year.

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