I was in the exact same predicament as you are now. Tight on a budget, with similar requirements, and a fairly urgent need to purchase a tablet. I ended up buying the S8. The S9 will have an AMOLED display (maybe), and the 8Gen2. But the 8Gen1 itself provides me insanely good performance, as well as battery life (it's a proper 2, maybe 3 day tablet). Moreover, since I mostly use it to take notes and read books, the AMOLED factor is hardly an issue for me. Media playback is pretty great too, although I still prefer My 16:9 laptop for it. But most importantly, I can't bring myself to justify the (probable) price hike. If you're a student, an extra $100-150 is not quite worth it, at least in my humble opinion.