Tabs design pattern, solving for "N" tabs

I've seen many design patterns that help solve different content presentation issues by leveraging "tabs".

Assuming I do want to display grouped content on a page (complex content or simple) and support multi-device experience.

Assuming I have "N" number of such groups.

Let's also assume, the amount of groups can not be drastically reduced by doing IA revamp

1. What are the pros and cons around the patterns I've listed below?


2. Are there any other design patterns that could offer better UX compared to what I listed below?

I have my own opinion and a list of pros and cons for each, however I wanted to ask here to broaden my knowledge.

Answer

Nice question - I am looking for other answers than mine as well!

@ Version 1:

Android introduced this as a more "standard" element for mobile apps (swiping screens that mimic "tabs"), when iOS still went for the segmented control as the only opportunity to go for tab-like structures. So Android wanted to have more complex architecture, while accepting complexity in usability.

Pro: Learned behavior on the most used mobile OS; Is able to contain very complex structures; Mobile friendly.

Con: For desktop, this is very uncommon behavior (scrolling right-left is harder than up-down); users can not see what is at the end of the tab list; probably not intuitive at all

@ Version 2:

I honestly never used this one. On first sight,

Pro: Visibility of most likely all the options possible (if we are talking about N tabs, this might not be the case)

Con: Position of tab content hardly predictable; Connection of tab to content hard, as soon as we have 2 rows of tabs; possibility of losing overview on responsive sight - can a user grasp all information if the boxes are not of the same width?; possibly inifitely complex

@ Version 3:

Pro: easily readable For european readers; Can be attached to a horizontal top nav; good for desktop usage (e.g. with mega menus that expand from top nav); Possible nice control with mouse wheel

Con: Hardly usable for phones (blocks too much horizontal space, is potentially getting infinitely long); Not all options are visible on first sight; Acroll all devices, vertical space is more limited than horizontal space, so possibly the amount of items visible is lower than horizontally ordered

@ Version 4:

Pro: Smallest space usage;

Con: Cannot contain content as tabs can(if we are not using another box to push the content to); The longer the list the worse the mobile usage;

So if I could, I would use horizontal tabs (again: Depending on context), since the vertical limit is smaller and it is learned Android behavior. If I co not have control over the amount of tab items, I would reconsider using tabs at all, since the flaw of "not having an overview" over all tabs destroys the tab's purpose (which I think is the major flaw of the Android approach).