Samsung Galaxy Tab A11+ Review: Massive Flop Or Budget Champion? 

Here it is. The long awaited successor to the massively popular Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+. This is the Galaxy Tab A11+. It’s Samsung’s newest cheapest 11’’ tablet, and we expect it to sell for under $200 in a couple months. That’s a killer price, but it obviously can’t come without some cut corners. 

We’ve spent the last 2 weeks putting this tablet through rigorous testing to find out just what exactly Samsung had to sacrifice to make this tablet so affordable. And we’ve found one serious downside and a couple quality of life issues that might make it unusable for you. Let’s get into it. 

Display & Speakers

You’re going to spend all the time using the Tab A11+ looking at the display, so you’d really hope for it to be a good one. 

Unfortunately, it remains unchanged over the Galaxy Tab A9+’s. It’s an LCD panel with a smooth 90HZ refresh rate and a 16:10 aspect ratio. The peak brightness of 480 nits is enough for indoors use too. Those are great features. 

However, here’s the main problem. This 11’’ panel only has a 1200p resolution, so you can see individual pixels on closer inspection. The display lacks HDR capabilities, colours look less vibrant than on similarly priced competitors like the Honor Pad 10 or Lenovo Idea Tab. The viewing angles are also not the most stable. We think other tablets like the Lenovo Idea Tab are a better pick if you’re just after something for Netflix or YouTube. It’s definitely the biggest weakness of this tablet and sours the deal significantly.

Another massive issue is the lack of active stylus support. Unlike Samsung’s S-series tablets which are known for their S-Pens, this tablet doesn’t support an active stylus. At max, you can use a capacitive stylus which works the same as your finger for signatures. So make sure you know what you’re getting, and definitely spend more for a Galaxy Tab S10 Lite or S10 FE if you need an S-Pen. 

The quad speaker setup here is nothing special. Compared to the Galaxy Tab S10 Lite, the Tab A11+ sounds shallow and lacks bass and clarity. It’s fine for listening to a podcast, but we would stick to using a bluetooth speaker or headphones when watching movies. 

Performance & Specs

The most exciting aspect of the new Galaxy Tab A11+ is definitely the improved performance. This tablet is packing Mediatek’s 4nm Dimensity 7300 chip with a base 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage. And there’s even an 8GB RAM and 256 GB storage option. 

So, the base amount of storage space is double that of 2023’s Galaxy Tab A9+, and the RAM also went up by 2 GB. That’s significant. The new chip should also mean better power efficiency and performance since it went from the 6nm Snapdragon 695 to the 4nm Mediatek chip. We can confirm that the tablet feels faster for browsing and apps launch very quickly. However, having many apps open in the Samsung DeX desktop interface quickly brings it to its limits. Apps start freezing and sometimes the tablet gets unresponsive. 

So let’s take a look at the performance in benchmarks and compare it against competing tablets and the Tab A9+. 

The Geekbench 6 CPU benchmarks let us compare the speed of different tablets using a standardized test. In CPU single-core, the A11+ is only 10% faster than the tab A9+. That’s not a very meaningful improvement, but the CPU multi-core is 55% faster. That means multitasking with many apps open and intensive games should fare much better. For reference, the similarly priced Lenovo Idea Tab is 20% slower in single core, and the pricier Galaxy Tab S10 Lite is about the same speed in Geekbench. 

3D Mark’s Wildlife Extreme test measures GPU performance. Here, the Tab A11+ gets a healthy 150% lead over the Tab A9+ and matches the Galaxy Tab S10 Lite. That’s a huge improvement that should lead to much better gaming performance. However, if you can bump your budget up a bit, the Apple iPad 11’’ is almost 3x faster in the same test and will almost always provide a better gaming experience. 

Gaming

Fortnite is still a super demanding Android game even now, long since it first released on mobile. When we tested the Galaxy Tab A9+ in this game, it could barely produce a playable experience on low settings. The Tab A11+ offers a massive improvement here. You can expect between 45-55 FPS at low settings with high textures and max resolution, and 30FPS at high settings. It’s not the best experience, but it’s good for the price. 

Minecraft is another title that can be surprisingly demanding. With maxed out render distance and graphics settings, flying around quickly sinks the FPS to an average of 15. But set the game to performance mode, Minecraft will produce a smooth 60FPS with max render distance. 

Roblox isn’t the most demanding Android game by a long shot, but since it’s very popular, and some older tablets actually can’t run it well, we decided to give it a test. Well, we can happily say that Roblox runs flawlessly on the Galaxy Tab A11+, regardless of which settings and which game or map. It’s a good choice for that. 

So the Galaxy Tab A11+ is massively improved for gaming over its predecessor, and actually is a compelling gaming tablet if the price is under $200. Demanding games run acceptably, and lighter games aren’t an issue at all. Still, the OnePlus Pad 3 and Apple iPad 11’’ will always provide a better experience if you’re serious about gaming. They are much more expensive, though.

7 Years of Software Support

Our favourite feature of the Galaxy Tab A11+ is Samsung’s commitment to 7 years of full Android upgrades and security patches for the tablet. That’s way more than every other competitor offers for the price. Lenovo’s Idea Tab only gets 4 years of security patches, for example. We can’t stress this enough: there’s nothing at this price with such long support, which is crucial if you’re planning on using your tablet for sensitive apps – like banking – and don’t want a system vulnerability to leak all your info. 

The Tab A11+ ships with the newest, Android 16 based OneUI 8.0. There’s not many changes over OneUI 7.0, but we aren’t complaining about staying up to date. Otherwise, the software experience is slightly bloated, as is often the case with budget devices. Monopoly GO, Mahjong and Temu are preinstalled, just to name a few apps. Samsung also offers their own parallel default apps to Google’s preinstalled ones like the Gallery App and Samsung Internet. While these work well, it might get confusing for less tech-savvy users when having to choose between 3 apps to open a downloaded PDF. 

Samsung’s desktop mode for multitasking in floating windows mode is also here. It’s great for split-screen work. Unfortunately you’re limited to DeX on the tablet screen because you can’t connect to an external monitor. We recommend using a bluetooth keyboard and mouse if you’re planning on seriously working with DeX, though. 

Design: Largely Unchanged 

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” seems to be Samsung’s design philosophy this time around. The Tab A11+ looks basically the same as its predecessor. The frame is again mostly metal, with a small plastic strip near the top, and the buttons and ports are in the same places. That’s all fine, but the slightly pricier Galaxy Tab S10 Lite feels much higher quality in the hand. The physical dimensions are the same as the A9+, but the weight is slightly less at 482g. 

The back features a single camera ring and rounds off slightly to the sides, which makes the tablet very comfortable to hold over long periods. On the top edge you’ll find the power button and volume rocker. On the two sides, the four speaker openings, and the USB 2.0 port for charging and data transfer on the right. USB 3.0 would be better. 

You’ll also notice at the very bottom that Samsung removed the 3 pogo-pin connectors that the Tab A9+ used for connecting with the official keyboard cover. So it looks like Samsung isn’t going to sell a keyboard for the Tab A11+. That’s a major downside and nearly every other 11’’ tablet has one available. 

The most exciting features are probably the inclusion of a 3.5mm audio jack and even a Micro-SD card slot that allows storage expansion up to 2TB. These are a rarity in 2025 and both ports work great. 

Making our way to the front side, you’re greeted by the 11’’ display. The top bezel features the selfie camera. You can see that there’s no face scanner for high-security face unlock. Of course, basic face unlock is supported using the camera, but it’s not as safe as Apple’s FaceID or Windows Hello. 

That wouldn’t be an issue if the tablet had a fingerprint reader, but there isn’t one. So you’ll be best off sticking to a pin or password here. 

Cameras

Nowadays, nearly any tablet camera will make usable pictures. The 8MP rear camera and 5MP front camera are perfectly fine. Here are some example shots. 

The photos taken aren’t the sharpest, and video recording is limited to FHD at 30 FPS with both cameras. Videos look good enough, so making a zoom call with this tablet isn’t going to be an issue. Still, we’d much rather stick with a smartphone for taking photos. The tablet is better suited for scanning a document or QR-code. 

Battery Life

The battery is relatively small at 7040mAh. That’s the same as the predecessor, but it now charges at a faster 25 Watts instead of 15. 

The tablet lasts a solid 8 hours and 10 minutes streaming YouTube HD video at max brightness. That puts it 1,5 hours ahead of the A9+ and 1 hour and 10 minutes ahead of the Lenovo Idea Tab. It’s even beating the more premium Galaxy Tab S10 Lite by 10 Minutes here. That’s a pretty good result, and honestly you really don’t need much more in one sitting. That also means you can stretch the battery over a couple days if you’re only using it for short periods. 

Can We Recommend It? 

We’re really conflicted about the Galaxy Tab A11+. On one hand, it’s a significant performance and battery life upgrade over the Galaxy Tab A9+, and of course there’s that 7 years of Android updates. If it sells for under $200, it’s offering considerably better value than most competitors. But on the other hand, the display is subpar, especially compared to Samsung’s other products, and the lack of an official keyboard cover or even S-Pen support is disappointing.

We would advise you to carefully compare prices and really think about your priorities. If you’re after a tablet for streaming Netflix or YouTube or just for entertainment, you can forget about the A11+. If you’re after a business or school tablet, get one that has good accessories like the Galaxy Tab S10 Lite. The Galaxy Tab A11+ really only makes sense if you want to play games and also get the longest lifespan out of your device possible. But for that purpose, it’s nearly unbeatable. 

Before you make any decision, you have to check out our review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Lite. It costs just a bit more, but we think it’s worth the investment since it brings a lot more to the table.