Another day, another Samsung design flaw.
Credit: Samsung
Several people have taken to social media sites to complain that their Galaxy Tab S5e devices are suffering from a design flaw that kills their Wi-Fi connectivity. The problem appears to happen when they hold their hands over the bottom-left corner of the tablet when they're holding it horizontally. It would appear that the hand is covering the corner and a Wi-Fi antenna sitting inside. Before long, Wi-Fi is disconnected.
According to those people, whose accounts SamMobile earlier reported on, Wi-Fi is restored when they move their hands off the corner. Indeed, the best solution to the problem is to not cover that one corner.
If all this sounds familiar, it's because Apple dealt with a similar problem several years ago in its iPhone 4. In that case, users were holding the iPhone in ways that covered a small gap in the device's spine that allowed for cellular connectivity. When they did so, they lost all cellular connectivity.
Apple acknowledged the problem and ultimately released a bumper case that created a small gap between the user's hand and the spine, allowing cellular connectivity to go on uninterrupted.
SamMobile tested the flaw in the Galaxy Tab S5e and said that it doesn't always cause a complete drop in signal. Instead, there are times when the signal strength will drop, but connectivity is still available. But even with a signal drop, you could still have a far less appealing Netflix experience when using the tablet.
So, what can actually be done to sidestep the problem? Unfortunately, not much.
If there is indeed a design flaw in the Galaxy Tab S5e, software won't fix the problem. At this point, the only fix users have come up with is to move their hands. It's not necessarily a big deal, of course, but it's an annoyance that Samsung will hopefully respond to at some point in the future.
Samsung did not immediately respond to a LAPTOP request for comment.
