Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra hands-on review: colossal creator

Introduction

Android fans may not be spoiled for choice when it comes to top-tier tablets, but that doesn’t mean Samsung has been resting on its laurels. The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is the Google-powered alternative to an iPad Pro, with a bigger screen and the sort of performance that’ll leave similarly sized laptops in the dust.

It doesn’t do anything in half measures, with a simply humungous 14.6in display, the same anti-reflective wizardry as the Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone, and a double-helping of Galaxy AI-infused apps. It also marks the first time Samsung has gone with a MediaTek CPU for its flagship slate, rather than a Qualcomm chip or one of its in-house Exynos efforts.

That means it isn’t short on power, but that performance comes at a price. The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra arrives at a considerable £1299, and climbs north of £1700 if you opt for the 5G-enabled headliner with 1TB of storage. And that’s before you buy the optional keyboard cover. But after some hands-on time ahead of the official launch, I can’t help but love how OTT it is.

Design & build: great slate

The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra does a convincing impression of its predecessor. It’s a little lighter, and a little slimmer, but you’d have to be paying very close attention to tell it apart from the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra. Both are simply giant slabs of glass and aluminium, here in your choice of Moonstone Gray or Platinum Silver colours.

Its still so heavy I wouldn’t really want to use it one-handed, even for reading, and still slimmer than virtually any smartphone at a mere 5.4mm. It doesn’t feel remotely flimsy, though, and IP68 resistance means it’ll survive a proper dunking – should you have a big enough sink or toilet bowl to drop it in. As before, the included S Pen’s party trick is underwater writing, though I can’t think when I’d actually need to do that.

The stylus magnetically docks and charges at the rear, next to the twin camera lenses. Pogo pins at the bottom edge play nicely with Samsung’s official Book Cover Keyboard, available in versions with or without a trackpad; the former will set you back a wince-inducing £339, though one is included with the tablet if you buy before the end of 2024.

I didn’t get to try out the under-display fingerprint sensor, but I’m not expecting it to be any slower than the Tab S9 Ultra’s speedy unit.

Screen & sound: super size me

Samsung might not have Apple beaten on panel tech now the latest iPad Pro has switched to OLED, but the Galaxy Tab Ultra still wins on sheer size. At 14.6in, this thing is gigantic. A 16:10 aspect ratio is ideal for working on two apps side-by-side, and coped well with 16:9 video content with less letterboxing than the Apple. The camera notch didn’t prove at all distracting, and the bezels are suitably svelte.

I didn’t have an iPad to hand for a side-by-side comparison, but the Galaxy hardly lets the side down with its wonderfully crisp 2960×1849 resolution panel. the 120Hz refresh rate ensured my S Pen sketches simply glided onto the screen as I drew, apps scrolled perfectly smoothly, and animations looked fluid.

Unsurprisingly the OLED tech delivered vibrant, dynamic colours, exceptional contrast and the sort of deep, inky blacks that’ll have you struggling to pull yourself away from your streaming service TV shows. It got fantastically bright during my demo, which was indoors but under harsh studio lighting, so I never struggled to see what was onscreen.

That was also thanks to the new anti-reflective coating, which worked wonders at minimising glare and meant I wasn’t staring at my own reflection whenever a dark scene came up in the YouTube demo reel I tested with. It didn’t seem to come with any penalty to contrast or viewing angles, either. If you spend a lot of time outdoors, or in brightly lit areas, this is definitely a reason to consider the Tab S10 Ultra.

I didn’t properly blast the quad stereo speakers, but with no claims from Samsung of improvements, I’m expecting they’ll put in a performance on par with the Tab S9 Ultra.

Cameras: double trouble

There haven’t been many changes to photography, with Samsung bringing back the same four snappers as last year. That means a 13MP main unit and an 8MP ultrawide at the rear, and a pair of 12MP sensors in the notch at the front. They’re all good for 4K video capture.

I took a few practice shots during my demo, but wasn’t able to take the pics away for closer inspection. Even with an extra year of image processing, I’m expecting quality to be very similar to the Tab S9 Ultra; that means decent rather than exceptional snaps in good light, but bested in pretty much all situations by a similarly-priced smartphone.

It’ll do just fine for document scanning, video calls and quick snaps when your phone is out of reach. I’ll need to spend more time with the Tab to decide if the ultrawide secondary cameras are actually bringing anything useful to the table, or are merely there because many shoppers still think “more equals better”.

Software experience: AI all the way

Arriving with the latest version of Samsung’s OneUI Android interface, the Tab S10 Ultra is the new figurehead for Galaxy AI on big-screen devices. Everything that first appeared on the Galaxy Z Fold6 foldable phone shows up here, including a generative image editor that can remove objects, create new ones, and fill in the gaps when resizing tightly cropped snaps.

Transcribing, translation and summarising can all be handed over to artificial intelligence, with the Notes app now offering a split-screen view to make digesting long blocks of text that little bit easier. It’ll record and transcribe within the app, too, so you don’t have to jump back and forth between it and the voice recorder.

Circle to Search also makes an appearance, which is easily done using the S Pen. I liked Sketch to Image the most; it turns basic line drawings into more fleshed-out pictures in your chosen graphical style, from pop art to cartoons. Portrait Studio can also turn your friends into animated avatars, which are great for social media and chat apps.

It’s not like the Tab S9 Ultra is completely devoid of AI improvements, though: many were added in a software update, and I’d expect the rest to be appearing in reasonably quick time.

Performance & battery life: next Dimensity

As the first Galaxy Tab with MediaTek internals, the S10 Ultra has a point to prove. The Dimensity 9300 Plus is about as fast as it gets in Android land, promising performance hikes of between 15 and 30% across NPU, CPU and GPU-based tasks compared to last year’s Snapdragon-powered Tab S9 Ultra.

A quick check on the Geekbench leaderboards suggests early reviewers are scoring in the 7000 point range, which is a significant leap over the OnePlus Pad 2 and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset – but still left in the dust by the M4-powered iPad Pro.

I can only speak for my short demo session, where the Tab S10 Ultra handled three app multitasking with zero complaints. Sketching and image editing felt perfectly responsive, and apps opened in a flash. Gaming shouldn’t be a struggle, either – even on graphics-heavy titles. It’ll be how well it copes with 4K video edits in LumaFusion that’ll show whether it can compete with an iPad for demanding creative pros.

Pick up the model with 256GB or 512GB storage and you’ll get 12GB of RAM; go for the 1TB model and memory gets boosted to 16GB. It’s a shame you’ve got to spend so much extra for more RAM, given microSD expansion lets you add extra capacity later – and for a lot less cash. All models get faster Wi-Fi 7 support, which is nice if you’ve got a compatible router.

Battery life remains a mystery right now. The 11,200mAh cell inside the Tab S10 Ultra sounds humungous, until you realise it has to power that behemoth of a screen. Last year’s effort lasted days at a time for casual use, and a full working day when truly put to task, so I’m expecting similar here.

It’ll refuel at 45W over USB-C, but only if you have a compatible charger; Samsung doesn’t include one in the box any more.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra initial verdict

Biggest doesn’t always also mean best, but after a brief demo I’d argue it most definitely does for the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra. Samsung’s flagship slate improves on its predecessor with more power, a reflection-busting screen and all of Samsung’s latest AI additions. A longer software update promise is most welcome, too. With no-one else competing at this end of the Android tablet spectrum, this is the de facto new yardstick.

There’ve only been minor gains from the Tab S9 Ultra, though, so owners won’t find much reason to upgrade. And while it undercuts a 13in iPad Pro, Apple’s tablet still has the lead in terms of third-party creative software. 

It’s a niche product, then – but on first inspection, Samsung has filled that niche very nicely indeed.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra technical specifications

Screen	14.6in, 2960×1848, 210Hz AMOLED
CPU	MediaTek Dimensity 9300 Plus
Memory	12/16GB
Cameras	13MP + 8MP rear, 12MP+12MP front
Storage	256GB/512GB/1TB, plus microSD expansion
Operating system	Android 14 w/ OneUI
Battery	11,200mAh w/ 45W wired charging
Dimensions	209x326x5.4mm, 718g