Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Review: Bigger is Better

Verdict

It may not look all that different to the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, but the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra makes minor but meaningful updates that help it keep pace with the premium tablet competition in 2024. The big question is whether it’s really worth more than an iPad Pro.

Introduction

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is here, and it looks like a very familiar device.

It sports the same stunningly large 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen as its predecessor, but it’s lighter, thinner, stronger and has new anti-reflective screen tech to further improve its impressive viewing experience. 

However, even with the top-end Dimensity 9300+ that easily bests the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-equipped OnePlus Pad 2 in benchmark testing, it still pales in comparison to its biggest competition; the equally premium iPad Pro, and its desktop-class M4 chipset.

So, the real question is, can the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra tempt users away from Apple’s pro-level iPad equivalent? I’ve spent the past few weeks using the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra as my main tablet, and here’s what I’ve found. 

Design

• Fairly thin and light for such a large device
• Improved durability compared to most tablets
• S Pen attaches to the back 

At a glance, you might not be able to tell the difference between the new Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra and its predecessor, the Tab S9 Ultra – and that’s because the two are very similar indeed.

Both sport the same overall design, complete with flat edges and rounded corners for a very iPad-esque aesthetic, though with a few key differences compared to Apple’s tablet collection; not only is the screen absolutely massive here, at 14.6 inches, but it sports a 16:10 aspect ratio that’s well suited for movie-watching. 

It’s 0.1mm slimmer than its predecessor at 5.4mm thick, and at 718g (or 723g if you go for the 5G variant), it’s a few grams lighter too – though it doesn’t come close to the 5.1mm and 579g of Apple’s top-end iPad Pro 13. 

Still, that makes the tablet pretty easy to carry one-handed, even with its large footprint, but it’s still something you’ll want to rest on your lap or a table after more than a few minutes of use. 

The frame is also more robust this time around, utilising Samsung’s new Enhanced Armor Aluminium that the company claims is 10% harder and, as a result, more resistant to scratches and dings. I will say that the tablet is still mark-free a couple of weeks into using it, though it has been on soft surfaces – sofas, in padded rucksacks – for much of that time. 

It also sports a slightly updated colour pallet, available in Moonstone Grey and Platinum Silver compared to the Tab S9 Ultra’s Beige or Graphite, though it’s still a world away from the vibrant colour options like Titanium Violet that you’ll find on Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra. 

The IP68 dust and water resistance first introduced on last year’s Tab S9 range also makes a comeback for the 10th-gen device, and it remains one of few high-end tablets to offer such protection. You won’t find anything like it on Apple’s iPad collection, nor is it present on tablets from manufacturers like OnePlus and Honor. 

The S Pen makes a return again this year, once again bundled in with the tablet at no extra cost. I’m a big fan of the S Pen in its various forms, mainly because of the impressively low 2.8ms latency of the pen that brings it closer to the natural writing experience than competing tablets – well, as natural as writing on a glossy screen can be anyway.

I just wish there was a better place to store the S Pen when not in use. Like previous tablets, the S Pen attaches to the rear of the Tab S10 Ultra for storage and charging purposes, and that means that it doesn’t lay completely flat on solid surfaces. It also occasionally gets knocked out of place in my rucksack, leaving me to fish it out from among my other accessories. 

I’m not sure what the alternative is, as even the side-mounted Apple Pencil on recent iPads suffer from the same issue, but I think Samsung’s placement is a tad more inconvenient. 

Screen

• 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen
• 16:10 aspect ratio is great for watching movies
• Anti-reflective display tech

The 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen is the reason to go for the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra over pretty much any competitor. 

Its large dimensions, complete with a 16:10 aspect ratio, make it well-suited to watching movies. The AMOLED tech delivers those gorgeously vibrant colours the screen tech is associated with, and with a peak brightness of 930nits that’s just shy of the 1000nits of the iPad Pro, it handles the boosted highlights and shadows of HDR10+ content fairly well too. 

It’s also just a joy to use apps like Instagram and TikTok on such a large panel, especially in the smartphone-first vertical orientation. App UI elements can sometimes look a little soft on apps without dedicated tablet support, but that’s something I come across less and less with the recent resurgence of Android tablets. 

Size aside, the LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh rate allows the screen to drop down to as little as 1Hz to save battery life – crucial for powering such a large screen – with the added benefit of making everything feel buttery smooth and responsive. 

It also uses the same anti-reflective tech as the top-end Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, something I applauded in my review of the smartphone at the time due to how much more legible it makes the screen in bright environments – and it seems to be very much the case here, reflecting just 2% of environmental light. 

It’s not quite as effective at negating reflections as a matte-finish display would be, with some clearly visible reflections in particularly bright environments, but I think this is a good middle-ground that retains the colour and detail of a glossy AMOLED screen while still providing better viewability than the likes of the OnePlus Pad 2 in outdoor environments. 

Cameras

• 13MP & 8MP cameras on the rear
• Dual 12MP selfie cameras
• Handy for video calls

Camera tech is never really a huge focus when it comes to tablets, as it’s much easier to take a photo from your smartphone – and that’s especially true of a tablet with a whopping 14.6-inch screen.

That said, there isn’t really anything new on the camera front compared to the Tab S9 Ultra, with the same combination of a 13MP primary and 8MP ultrawide on the rear, complete with a flash, and a higher-res combination of dual 12MP main and ultrawide snappers on the front of the device, housed within a small notch at the top of the screen.

It’s actually the selfie cameras that separate the Tab S10 Ultra from the rest of the Tab collection, with the Tab S10+ and Tab S9 both sporting a single 12MP selfie camera. This makes the Ultra model more well-suited to video calling, especially with multiple people, or if you intend on giving presentations. 

With that in mind, none of these cameras delivers shots close to what you’d get from even a relatively cheap smartphone in 2024, so aside from snapping photos of documents and using it for video calls, you likely won’t be using these all too often. 

Performance

• MediaTek Dimensity 9300+
• Powerful everyday use
• Can’t compete with iPad power

If there’s one area where I think the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra struggles to defend its £1200/$1200 price tag, it’s the processor department – though it’s not necessarily Samsung’s fault.

The top-end MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ used in the Tab S10 Ultra is certainly capable, and among the most powerful chips you’ll find on Android devices right now – but it can’t hold a candle to Apple’s desktop-class M4 chipset found on the similarly priced iPad Pro.

With multi-core Geekbench 6 scores of 7092, it’s head-and-shoulders above the 4953 of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-equipped OnePlus Pad, though it’s slightly behind the (much cheaper) RedMagic Nova’s 7139 and literally half of the M4-equipped iPad Pro’s 14,555, with similar results in the graphics department. 

However, I’ve not noticed a massive difference between it and the experience delivered by the iPad Pro in the few weeks that I’ve been using the Tab S10 Ultra – it remains lightning-fast no matter what I throw at it, and it’s more than capable enough of powering a high-end gaming experience without getting hot and sluggish.

Though I’m not much of a video editor myself, I imagine that the chipset, along with either 12- or 16GB of RAM, depending on the storage option you go for, will lend itself well to editing and exporting high-res video. It’s also able to run multiple apps on-screen at once without a hint of stutter – a key feature for DeX, but more on that in a bit.  

That all said, it’s hard to dispute that the competing M4 chipset from the similarly priced iPad Pro will offer that experience for much longer as OS and app processing demands continue to grow.  

Elsewhere, you’ve got plenty of storage options to choose from, starting at 256GB and going all the way up to 1TB – and that’s probably a good thing, considering there’s no microSD card slot to expand storage later down the line. It also offers the latest in connectivity including Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3, as well as optional 5G connectivity.

Software & AI

• Galaxy AI smarts
• DeX can run on-device
• Seven years of OS upgrades promised

One of the big additions to this year’s tablet is Galaxy AI. While the Tab S9 Ultra received a few Galaxy AI features earlier this year, the Tab S10 Ultra offers the full Galaxy AI suite, including all the tools like Portrait Studio that made their debut on the Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 in July. 

That means you’ve got handy GenAI-powered features at your fingertips including object removal tech, writing tools, the ability to transcribe and summarise voice recordings, edit your photos by sketching on them and much more. How often you’ll use these features is up for debate, but they do come in handy in niche use cases. 

Altogether handier, the Notes app has been overhauled for the Tab S10 Ultra to introduce split-screen support, recording and transcription in-app and, following an update in November, it’ll even be able to help you with math equations. 

There’s also Google’s Circle to Search, with S Pen support allowing you to outline things with your stylus. This is probably the feature I’ve used most during my time with the tablet, with the feature genuinely coming in handy when I spot something on social media that I want to buy.

Elsewhere, expect the same OneUI 6 experience we’ve seen from other Samsung devices in 2024, with a handful of tablet-focused features like split-screen multitasking. 

There’s also DeX support, though unlike other Samsung tech, you can actually run the DeX interface on the Tab S10 Ultra’s 14.6-inch screen. That essentially turns it into something akin to a true Android desktop – though you’ll need Samsung’s keyboard case to take advantage of this, and unfortunately, I wasn’t supplied with a sample for review. 

It’s a shame, too, as I suspect that the DeX + keyboard combo would truly give the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra the edge over most tablets, including Apple’s iPad collection, but I can’t say for sure. 

Samsung has also confirmed that, like the brand’s premium smartphones, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra will benefit from the same seven years of OS upgrades and security patches that’ll take it through to Android 21. That’s pretty much the longest software support you’ll find on a tablet right now, excluding Apple’s iPad collection. 

Battery Life

• 11,200mAh battery
• Little power consumption on standby
• 45W charging isn’t as fast as it sounds

When it comes to battery life, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra sports the same massive 11,200mAh battery and 45W wired charging as its predecessor – though, like last year’s effort, you won’t find a charger in the box.

Despite the massive dimensions of the screen, the battery seems to keep on going – Samsung claims for up to 18 hours on a charge. While I can’t comment on that exact use case, I’ve happily used it sporadically for scrolling, gaming and binge-watching Netflix for the past two weeks and only had to charge the tablet once, though your usage will likely depend on what exactly you’re up to.

For reference, the Tab S10 Ultra drained 8% from watching Netflix for an hour, a single percentage point more than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-equipped predecessor, suggesting that the newer MediaTek chipset’s ‘all big core’ design isn’t quite as power-efficient as the Snapdragon competition, but only marginally so.

The bigger problem is charge time; 45W fast charging may sound pretty fast, but with such a massive cell to charge, it really isn’t. 

Using a UGreen charger I had handy, it took the Tab S10 Ultra a whopping 61 minutes to hit the 50% mark, with a full charge taking just shy of two hours. Compared to the OnePlus Pad 2’s full charge in 55 minutes, that’s an absolute age.  

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