[Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Questions & Answers] Catmobile:
Update September 2 year 2019

Status: Solved

Final edit: Within 5 business days the replacement original Cover for the Tab S5e arrived, and I am happy to tell you it solved the problem. Evenmore, the second heat wave started 1 day later, and this replacement from another production day hold up strong without the issues mentioned below. The second heatwave reached 31 degrees Celsius (87.8 degrees Fahrenheit) inside my house, and it did not have the problem described lengthy below. Also now the weather has cooled down a lot and it is great it feels like dry rubber.

Solved by swapping with another production date

I removed the Serial number of this individual Cover Case for the Tab S5e since swapping it did solve the problem. Also for others to read, you can ask for a replacement in similar circumstances mentioned a different production date. This unit is produced at an entirely different date, more than weeks later. Since I tested it even with the second heatwave, and it is now much more cooler, climate change affects us all, here we never reached such high temperatures before recording of temperatures started. And I am happy to have tested the replacement works as wished.

The story I think might be appropriate is that Samsung might produce for different climates, I did produce for example different kind of Chocolate in the Chocolate factory for different countries with my fellows.

Final words about my individual situation, I did not see even the second heatwave coming, so the replacement unit was put too the test right on.

I have the original Samsung Tab S5e cover for my Tab S5e tablet. The good news is the tablet works great.

Status: SOLVED

Original mention of this situation below

But I have a problem with the Tab S5e Cover, some call it sticky rubber, but I read some about production of artificial rubber and real rubber, and I think it is a procedure known as ' Reversion '. This means what goes right during production of the (semi)synthetic fabric inverses the fabric. Reasons are due to for example Sunlight, Oxygen or normal Air with normal Humidity or just your hands and fingers.

The original Tab S5e Cover is probably mainly made of a Thermoplastic elastomer.

Thermoplastic elastomers (TPE), sometimes referred to as thermoplastic rubbers, are a class of copolymers or a physical mix of polymers (usually a plastic and a rubber) that consist of materials with both thermoplastic and elastomeric properties. While most elastomers are thermosets, thermoplastics are in contrast relatively easy to use in manufacturing, for example, by injection molding. Thermoplastic elastomers show advantages typical of both rubbery materials and plastic materials. The benefit of using thermoplastic elastomers is the ability to stretch to moderate elongations and return to its near original shape creating a longer life and better physical range than other materials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoplastic_elastomer

Since this cover is original and only a few months on the market, this natural process of Reversion should not happen at this product age. Products like this should for example show this only after many years or not at all.

The problem described in a practical situation, I take the tablet and open the Cover, I hold the tablet with the hands around the Cover. At first I notice nothing, but after an hour it is like as if the Rubber like Cover is melting and releasing some sort of glue, hence it at places where I touched it or hold it, feel like the backside of a poster sticker. These are products from fabrication probably reacting with even the small amount of heat and moisture that is continuously released from human hands.

The annoying thing mostly is after using the tablet my hands feel as if like under a glue sticky substance. I looked up what substances this could be and found after reading about Plastics and Elastomer this:

Plasticizers (UK: plasticisers) or dispersants are additives that increase the plasticity or decrease the viscosity of a material. These are the substances which are added in order to alter their physical properties. These are either liquids with low volatility or solids. They decrease the attraction between polymer chains to make them more flexible. Over the last 60 years more than 30,000 different substances have been evaluated for their plasticizing properties. Of these, only a small number – approximately 50 – are today in commercial use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticizer

This substance that sticks on your hands should be removed before you eat.

Since I searched on the internet if other people have this problem, I found people with Laptops, Computer Mice, Computer Keyboards having these kind of problems too. They give each other advice how to clean it, etcetera, but I concluded that I should not do this. I should return it, but now is the problem I face clear.

Does swapping the Original Tab S5e Samsung Cover result in just an identical which then has the same problem? If so swapping it by sending it back is not the answer to this problem.

I called Samsung and they told me to swap it. In return I told, if I swap it now ( It was 24th of July 2019 and 33 degrees Celsius inside, 40 degrees Celsius outside ), wouldn't I have it swapped with an original from the same batch having the same problem? And I explained my Note 2012 tablet Original Samsung Cover never had this problem, and no other phone cover I had has this problem. They told me it was unfortunate, but no clear answer. It is logical that if I at that time would return it, it would be swapped from a same batch and same production month era, I would probably end up with the same problem.

Anyway I have to return this Original Samsung Tab S5e Cover, but what do I have to do? Is this just unfortunate coincidence? Or do all production batches of this Cover have this problem? And also if this happened so fast already, what will it be like in next year?

At local language forums I cannot find others who bought the original cover except for product reviews at a few websites, I could find under 20 reviews, with 4 stars average I suppose. But this problem is too complicated to put in a review.

You can find many results by searching a search engine for ' Sticky Rubber ' and you will find for example this, beside many people complaining about their computer products having it at products like a mouse, a keyboard, or a laptop.

I have once in the past had this too with a Mouse which I replaced with a new one. ( But not the same type. ) It is also happening in a product range of many brands, like Logitech, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard.

Cleaning procedure is not an option, since it is new, and it should not happen within such a short time. Actually the Note 10.1 from 2012 tablet Cover I have original too, proves that it does not have to happen at all.

The problem I also see, is you actually need to use the Tab S5e Cover to make the problem appear. Just touching the Cover doesn't make it clear. So if I send it back they might say, we see nothing wrong, they touch it and return it e.g. But this original Samsung Tab S5e cover I have does slowly react within hours with your hands and fingers.

EDIT1 This is placed in the wrong section of XDA and will be probably moved. Since this is not about developing software but the Cover case.

EDIT2 This might indeed be about development of a manufacturer, but related to hardware supplementals, a Moderator was asked to give it the right TAG.

Appendix: This tablet really needs a case to give it weight and something to hold, I don't experience any Wifi problem since my Router the ASUS AC66U has Beamforming. I have the 6GB Ram 128GB storage version. Wifi range is similar like 2012 Note Tablet and only little less than Galaxy S8 at 5 GHz Wifi. Make sure to have your router to have Beamforming enabled. And MIMO 2x2.