Galaxy Tab S10 Plus Hands-on Preview: Redefining what a “minor refresh” truly is – Ultra-Sim

Well, Samsung’s newest Galaxy Tab S10 series is now here, and it’s shaping up to be nothing more than a simple refresh of last year’s excellent Galaxy Tab S9 series. There’s an asterisk here somewhere––Samsung has dropped the most compact 11-inch tablet from the latest refresh. This means we only get a comically large Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra and a Galaxy Tab S10 Plus.

Galaxy Tab S10 Plus Design and Display

Can you spot the differences?

Let’s tackle the proverbial elephant in the room first––the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus and Galaxy Tab S9 Plus look entirely identical, to the point where you can’t tell one from the other at a quick glance. 

While that’s essentially true for most mobile devices these days, that’s literally the case here. Save for a minuscule 0.1mm thinner body and a 10-gram difference, Samsung’s two tablets are indistinguishable from one another. 

And in real life, the difference between the two tablets is non-existent. However, the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus almost looks compact when propped up next to the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra.

Samsung once again relies on its Armor Aluminum for the tablet’s body, which keeps the weight down to very bearable levels: the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus weighs some 571 grams, which is nothing given its large dimensions. 

The premium looks are kept intact here, and the new omnidirectional magnetic strip at the rear that allows you to attach and charge the supplied S Pen in any direction is also present. 

Just like its predecessor, the new tablet keeps the minimalistic camera lens cutouts at the rear, as well as the pretty useful IP68 water- and dust-resistance, making it more versatile to use beyond the comfort of your sofa. 

Colors-wise, Samsung is keeping things mostly boring: we get the new Galaxy Tab S10 Plus in the rather dull Moonstone Gray and Platinum Silver colors, a pair of colors more suited for an office-cubicle or a hospital waiting room instead of a high-tech product.

When it comes to the display, Samsung is once again treating us to a large and massive 12.4-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen. Just as before, it can hit up to 120Hz of maximum refresh rate for a smooth viewing experience.

Finally, biometrics-wise, we get a built-in ultrasonic fingerprint scanner up front, which seems to be just as accurate and work just as quickly as the one on the previous generation. Nice!

Galaxy Tab S10 Plus Performance & Benchmarks

Samsung turns a new page

Say goodbye to Qualcomm’s Snapdragons for now, and wave to the MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ chip, which is the power plant inside the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus. Cost-cutting could be the main reason for this change of heart, as Qualcomm has raised the pricing of its top-end mobile chips?

Does this spell the doom and gloom of Samsung’s tablets? Of course not! 

In our brief time with the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus, you wouldn’t notice a significant difference with the previous Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 device. What’s more, Samsung even cites some exciting CPU and GPU gains over the Galaxy Tab S9 Plus, which makes us more than optimistic about the future of the Galaxy Tab S Plus lineup. 

One area in which the Dimensity 9300+ won’t be so well-versed is emulation, but could be that much more capable in everyday tasks. so have that in mind if you have a vast collection of ROMs that you might want to run on this slate. 

The tablet comes with 12GB of RAM in both the 256GB and 512GB versions, which is great to see. There’s also support for microSD cards on board for that extended storage capacity. 

The new Galaxy Tab S10 Plus comes with Samsung’s One UI running on top of Android 14, but Android 15 shouldn’t take too long to arrive on board. And, just like Samsung’s flagship phones, this one will come with seven years of software updates, which is great news!

And, of course, the new tablet comes fully equipped to tackle all of your AI needs. The Galaxy Tab S10 Plus comes with the full Galaxy AI experience, but also introduces some extra new functionalities.

The tablet’s large display and intuitive S Pen make note-taking easy, with automated transcriptions and summaries powered by Galaxy AI. The tablet also supports PDF overlay translation for translating PDFs directly on-screen, and Handwriting Help cleans up messy handwritten notes.

The Sketch to Image feature transforms rough sketches into refined images, aiding creativity. The mighty useful Circle to Search feature is here as well, enabling you to search for information, translate content, or solve math and physics problems without switching apps.

Lastly, the S Pen’s Air Command and Galaxy AI Key offer quick access to the on-device AI features, allowing users to toggle between Bixby and Google’s Gemini for a personalized AI experience.

Goodnotes, LumaFusion, Noteshelf3, Clip Studio Paint, PicsArt and Sketchbook are some of the premium third-party apps that can run well on the Galaxy Tab S10 series, and Samsung wants to make sure you’re aware of that.

Galaxy Tab S10 Plus Battery

Might be good, might be better

Just like its predecessor, the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus packs a large 10,900mAh battery. Currently, we don’t know what to expect in terms of battery life, as Samsung hasn’t outfitted a Galaxy tablet with a MediaTek chipset until now. 

We might get vastly superior or lower battery life in comparison with the Galaxy Tab S9 Plus, but the most logical outcome to assume is that the two will be mostly tied in terms of endurance. 

Should you buy it?

The Galaxy Tab S10 Plus shapes to be a pretty minor refresh, even by the standards established by other minor refreshes. That’s the trend these days, with most companies playing it extremely safe with intergenerational refreshes. 

However, we will reserve our final judgement for now.