The Galaxy Tab S9 (flagship) series was launched in the Philippines in August 2023, last year. The starting price for the lowest model was PHP 47,990 which was for the 8GB + 128GB variant. It was almost always never available though - as in the first few months you got a storage upgrade to 12 + 256. But after the few months, the variant never became available and all you could buy was the higher storage variant at PHP 54,990, making it even more prohibitively expensive for people who wanted a good tablet deal.
But this is the story of how we got one for only PHP 26,570. Can you get one too? Here's the story.
In a weird twist, sometime in late August 2024 Samsung Official Store in Shopee posted an extremely affordable version of the Galaxy Tab S9 which they called the "E Edition," priced around PHP 30k. Nobody knew what it was, it claimed to have an unusual 12GB + 128GB Storage option which never existed in the lineup. And most people thought it was a weird rebranding of the Galaxy Tab S9 FE, which launched this year and came with much lower specs. (Exynos 1380, 90Hz LCD, 6GB RAM, etc.)
What was this mystery "E Edition?" We went digging. No mention of it anywhere from official Samsung outlets, or international tech communities. It was solely a Shopee Philippines thing. We checked the stocks if we needed to act fast - there were 25 units available. We can wait. Redditors started discussing, and after several days, two redditors came back saying they received the flagship Tab S9 with 8GB + 128GB. Exactly the same as the original one, graphite colored and all. (Which is also weird because the Shopee listing already had the 128GB Graphite edition in the listing!)
"Wow," we thought. Is this legit? Do we trust redditors? Is this a mistake? Samsung has never brought the price down for a flagship tablet this much. We waited for more confirmable info. But on the night of August 31, 2024, the price went even lower!
The new price was phenomenal - PHP 27,570! It was barely PHP 600 more than a Tab S9 FE, which is insane. That meant you can buy a flagship tablet for the price of their midranger! We had to give it a shot. Personally, I've always wanted one myself. I wanted the IP68 ingress protection and OLED display of the S9. But also, I wanted to see so I can tell people if its a good deal or not. I ordered a unit on the early morning of Sept 1, 2024. There were 16 units remaining in the product listing.
I used a Shopee Mega Voucher to give me an extra PHP 1,000 discount, bringing my total to only PHP 26,570. If I got the tablet and it is the flagship, we're golden. I just have to wait, because someone could still make a mistake on Shopee's side or they could cancel it or the delivery gets botched.
The package arrived on the late afternoon of Sept 2. I hastily opened it on my front porch straight after the courier gave it to me. If it was a fake, I would know right away. But, it was the real deal.
We got exactly what the redditors said - a Graphite, flagship S9 with 8GB + 128GB of storage. For only PHP 26,570. That kind of price is phenomenal - about 45% off the Suggested Retail Price. That price you would still find if you went to the mall and asked - it might even be higher. This was pretty much a steal. I'm very much over the moon about it.
And what about that weird 12GB claim the listing had? Well, I never believed it in the first place. The S9 comes with either 8+128 or 12+256. The S9 FE only comes with 6GB. Neither fit the description of 12+128. My conclusion is that the listing is wrong. Likely, the person who listed the E Edition included 4GB of "RAM Plus" (a feature on most devices these days that adds more RAM by using the included storage as virtual RAM) in the listing as an addition to the 8GB of physical RAM.
In fact, many companies put up product listings that mislead buyers by inflating their RAM numbers with the virtual RAM feature. You'll see a lot of budget phones nowadays claiming 8GB when its actually just 4GB + 4GB of virtual RAM. But we digress. We believe the person who listed the E Edition put 8GB physical + 4GB virtual RAM in the title and called it the E Edition 12+128.
Later on, they fixed it by changing the listing to the proper 8GB + 128GB.
But now it comes to the sad news for you, dear reader. When my tablet arrived, there were no more stocks remaining. Even if I found an amazing deal, I couldn't tell people to rush and buy it now. All I have is a great story. But maybe - just maybe - we'll see this deal come back with more units for sale. And if it does, make sure you're ready to nab it. So for now, click this link to see the listing and make sure you Heart/Like it so you can keep tabs on it.
We understand that the Tab S9 series is a year old at this point, and the Tab S10 series is rumored to be announced in October. But even then, the prices are still quite high. Even the Tab S8 is still listed for over PHP 50,000 from the official store. Even gray market units are also above PHP 40,000. None of them come even close to the E Edition discount at all. Even in Amazon US, the price roughly converted to PHP 37,000. This is definitely a crazy deal, not just for us Filipinos with bloated gadget prices, but for even the world.
So as we said before, keep an eye out for the listing on Shopee. We hope you can get one as well!
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 "E Edition" - PHP 27,570 / PHP 29,962 / PHP 47,990
- Announced August 2023
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (overclocked for Galaxy)
- 11.0" 2560x1600 Dynamic AMOLED 2x, 120Hz, HDR10+ Display
- Corning Gorilla Glass
- Android 13, with up to 4 major Android updates One UI 6
- currently updated to Android 14 + One UI 6.1
- 13MP Main Camera
- 12MP Ultrawide Selfie Camera
- 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM + MicroSD
- 8,400 mAh Battery with 45W Fast Charging
- Quad Speakers
- IP68 Dust and Water Resistant
- In Display Fingerprint Scanner
- Included S Pen with 2.8ms latency with Bluetooth and Gyro features
- USB Type C 3.2 with Display Out
- Wireless and Wired Samsung Dex Mode