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The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7+ has been with me since November 2022, and its last moments came just a couple of weeks ago, in the most unfortunate way possible.

The Tab S7+ has been my daily tablet for about two and a half years. It handled just about anything I threw at it, which included taking notes in classes, watching videos, and although sub-optimally, playing rhythm games. Of course, the list doesn’t end there, but of everything that I did on this tablet, these were the main few that stood out the most to me.

So, what exactly happened?

Well, long story short, I flashed a custom ROM and bricked the tablet.

For those who don’t know what a custom ROM is, it is basically a custom operating system that you install onto your device. There are many reasons why someone might want to install a custom ROM onto their device, such as prolonged software updates, security and privacy, and extra features. My reason was the former, where I wanted to experience the latest version of Samsung’s OneUI software.

The Tab S7+ came out in August of 2020, and was guaranteed 3 major software updates. The Tab S7+ came out with OneUI 2.5 on top of Android 10, and got its last update in 2024 with OneUI 5.1.1 on top of Android 13. This tablet got its guaranteed 3 major software updates, but for how capable this tablet was, this was clearly not enough.

The 2018 iPad Pro came out just about eight years ago, and depsite how old it is now, it is still getting the latest iPadOS update. Comparing the iPad’s eight years of updates to the Tab S7+‘s four years of updates, you can see that the Samsung is severely behind when it comes to software updates.

So this is where I took matters into my own hands. A newly developed OneUI 7 ROM was being developed for the Tab S7+, and with it being two whole versions higher than the latest officially supported software on the Tab S7+, naturally I was excited to try it out.

The installation went surprisingly smooth. The device did show its age with it lagging a bit with system functions, but it was still very useable. I’d say the update was a net positive overall. It added a couple features, such as the new DeX mode, and Google’s Circle to Search, which I find incredibly useful. It also fixed a couple bugs, such as the physical keyboard language switching shortcut (Shift+Space), which drove me insane whenever I was typing and suddenly the keyboard would change. There were also a couple changes that I didn’t like. For example, OneUI 7 loses the ability to automatically unlock your device after entering your four digit PIN.

With everything that I’d experienced with the OneUI 7 ROM. I could very comfortably say that I would highly prefer the OneUI 7 software over the stock OneUI 5.1.1 software that the Tab S7+ was last supported with.

What happened next was probably what made my tablet throw in the towel.

A new update was developed for this custom ROM, and with a dirty flash in TWRP, I was able to update the ROM on my tablet. It worked fine for a couple hours, and it was mostly smooth sailing.

The more I continued using it though, the more it started lagging. It got to a point where the tablet would just stop responding completely, requiring me to force restart it to bring it back. It happened a couple times until suddenly, the tablet went dark.

It would not turn on anymore.

Nothing I did to it could bring it back. It went dark and stayed dark. Force restarting did little to help with the situation. Waiting a couple hours also did little to bring it back. At this point, I was panicking. I was out of a tablet, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Through all this troubleshooting, I came across a little discovery that confirmed the death of this tablet. Upon plugging in my tablet to my computer, I went into Device Manager and found a device under this name “QUSB_CID_BULK” along with some numbers. A quick search online mentions that if you have a device in this state, it means that the device is in its emergency download mode, and the only way to potentially fix this device was to bring it to Samsung where they have access to the files required to restore the device back to its original state.

Naturally, bringing this device to Samsung was not an option for me. Not only did I void the warranty (if I had one) by unlocking the bootloader and flashing custom software, but the cost to have Samsung restore this tablet for me would potentially be more than how much I bought this tablet for back in 2022. With this option ruled out, it was clear that this tab was bricked, and there would be no way for me to bring this device back.

It’s over. Unless anybody has a solution to this problem (contact me if you do), this tablet is effectively dead.

This near three year journey ended just like that. Had it not been for this tablet, my YouTube channel wouldn’t be as successful as it is today. I owe a lot to this tablet, even if I didn’t have the best words to say about it.

The main gripe I had with this tablet was its touch latency, where it would often fall considerably behind iPads. As a rhythm gamer, this made playing rhythm games on this tablet a little cumbersome, but despite that, because of how much I enjoyed using this tablet, I didn’t mind making that compromise ever now and then. Despite having an iPad Pro that is considerbly faster than this Tab S7+, I still found myself gravitating to the Tab due to its, in my opinion, considerably more useful operating system in Android.

So, what’s next?

Well, I’m going to need a new tablet. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I used my Galaxy Tab for taking notes in classes. Because I take all of my notes in Samsung Notes, I, unfortunately, have to stick with a Samsung tablet, as the Samsung Notes app is prorietary.

I actually already bought my next tablet, and as of writing this post, I would have been using it extensively for the past two weeks. I already have a couple thoughts about it, but I will be leaving that for a future post and YouTube video, so stay tuned for that.