Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra review: they ain’t getting bigger than this! – Ultra-Sim

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Intro

Samsung typically refreshes its tablets in about 18 months time, which is why we were a bit surprised when a couple of new Tab S10 models just appeared out of nowhere

The big guy — that door-sized Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra — is coming at the same starting price of $1,199.99 and still has the excellent S Pen in the box. But it is also powered by a MediaTek processor instead of a Qualcomm one, which is an interesting move! What else is there and is it worth your attention? We ran it though the tests!

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Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Specs

Top-tier Android tablet

Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Design and Display

Same thing, 3rd time in a row

Return of the huge screen (Image credit – PhoneArena)

OK, this is the 3rd time we are getting the same Galaxy Tab Ultra. No complaints here, Apple drags on the same iPad design for years, too. If it works, it works. But we do wish Samsung would’ve tried to at least shrink that display notch that houses the dual cameras, at least a little?

According to on-paper specs, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is ever-so-slightly thinner than the Tab S9 Ultra — 5.4 mm vs 5.5 mm — and slightly lighter too, at 718 g vs 730 g. But those differences are extremely miniscule, and not noticeable when holding both slates in hand. Looking at those two tablets invokes the “Corporate wants you to find the difference between those two pictures” meme. And the same goes with the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra.

There’s no change in the material used, but Samsung does state that it’s a 10% stronger aluminum build. That’s a welcome upgrade for a tablet that is so, so thin. No, no, we don’t do bend tests here.

It is SO thin! (Image credit – PhoneArena)

That’s fine, so what is new? The display!

The panel itself is still a huge 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X. That’s Samsung’s branding, which basically translates to “These have great peak brightness and a dynamic refresh rate up to 120 Hz”. That’s not new. What is new is the anti-reflective coating on top, which Samsung says only reflects less than 2% light.

Anti-reflective coating (Image credit – PhoneArena)

Looking at the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra screen, we can confirm — the reflections are reduced, and consuming content on that display is elevated, no matter the environment. Even when we are indoors — you’d be surprised how many reflections still hamper your experience!

And it helps a lot, because as you will see from our benchmarks, the display panel itself doesn’t push out a lot of brightness:

600 nits was OK before, but now it just feels much better with less reflections. Note, we don’t measure peak brightness, which is for HDR, but real-use fullscreen brightness.

The colors and sharpness are, of course, exceptional — as is typical with Samsung’s AMOLED panels.

As for biometrics, we still have an in-screen fingerprint scanner on those models, though a less-secure face unlock option is available. The fingerprint is fine and fast, but we admit — a bit awkward to use. You typically hold such a large tablet at a distance from yourself. Like, if it was a laptop, you probably have a fingerprint scanner on the keyboard. If it’s an iPad Pro, you just look at it and Face ID does the rest. So, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra feels weird where you have to reach out across your working space to unlock it. But that’s just minor — we thought it’s an interesting gripe to mention.

Dual cameras on front and back (Image credit – PhoneArena)

Cameras on tablets — the ever-contentious topic. Nobody is going to hold up a 14.6-inch tablet to take photos with when out on a hike or tour trip, obviously. But, if you are paying flagship money, you should at least be getting decent cameras.

The ones on the front are most important, when talking about tablets, as you typically find yourself using them for video calls. Samsung adjusted nothing here — we have the same 12 MP wide and 12 MP ultra-wide duo. And yes, the Samsung software does have a face-follow feature, so you can use that ultra-wide camera to move around and have it follow you while on the call.

A wild MediaTek has appeared (Image credit – PhoneArena)

In a weird turn of events, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra does not come with a Snapdragon processor. Instead, it’s powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9300+, built on a 3rd gen 4 nm process. This is weird, considering that Samsung has that partnership with Qualcomm, and the Samsung phones come with special, overtuned Snapdragons wearing the “Made for Galaxy” moniker with pride.

What’s going on here? We couldn’t find out. But Samsung does claim that this processor offers an 18% CPU speed increase and 36% GPU performance improvement over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that powered last year’s Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra. Let’s see:

Well yeah, that’s a huge improvement — good job by the Dimensity. In fairness, if you put both the Tab S10 Ultra and Tab S9 Ultra in our hands and asked us which one feels and works better, we’d be hard-pressed to answer, as Android and One UI only do so much with the power they have access to. But, presumably, the Dimensity 9300+ has more headroom for the future. And its extra power unlocks more or upcoming Galaxy AI features… again, presumably.

Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Software

It’s obvious that Samsung takes the software seriously, unfortunately pro app developers are still not entirely on board with Android. Yeah, the LumaFusion video editor did come to Android, but that was all thanks to Samsung getting into an actual partnership with the developer to make that happen. There are still plenty of audio apps, video editor, and even AAA games that are only on iPadOS. Which is one of the main reasons why a lot of people look at this $1,199 tablet from Samsung and say “It’s great, but what does it do?”

It’s 2024, everyone needs an AI key (Image credit – PhoneArena)

The new Book Cover Keyboards will also now feature an AI key to quickly open up Gemini or Bixby, depending on your choice. If you own a Book Cover Keyboard from a Tab S9 Ultra or Tab S8 Ultra — it’s still compatible with the new Tab S10 Ultra, we checked. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an improvement to how it feels, so it’s still a bit mushy and “not premium”-feeling.

Same tablet, same size, same 11,200 mAh battery. The difference in endurance here will come mainly from the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ processor, but we didn’t go into this expecting a huge differences in battery life. Well, here are our battery test results:

Well, that was a bit of a surprise. Apparently, the MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ has the power, but needs some extra tuning for efficiency. It does fantastic for prolonged 3D gaming, but seems to draw more power while doing more trivial tasks like web browsing and YouTube binging. To be fair, those times we got are still not bad. Full 9 hours of website loading and scrolling is plenty enough for a workday and more.

USB-C for charging

The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra tops up via a 45W charger — no crazy fast-charging here. It’ll take you a good 2+ hours to go from 0% to 100%. You can’t even get a good amount of juice if you are in a pinch — charging for 30 minutes will get you from 0% to 22%. So… plan ahead!

Audio quality and haptics

The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra has a quad speaker setup for full stereo. It’s a huge tablet, if a bit thin, so it has some room inside for acoustics. In general — it sounds great. Loud and meaty, great for media consumption.

And yes, it does have haptics, which feels… weird on a tablet. The motor itself is clicky and precise and that’s fine, but vibrations don’t travel very well across that huge aluminum body. Not to mention, you will have it propped up on a case or stand most of the time, so we are not sure why haptics were even needed here.

OK, so there’s a slight upgrade in performance here, and possibly more Galaxy AI features to come. Should you upgrade from a Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra or Tab S8 Ultra? These are expensive tablets, and for the time being, we don’t see a good enough reason to jump.