Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE Review: Almost Perfect – But THIS Ruins Everything

With the Galaxy Tab S10 FE and S10 FE+, Samsung has released two tablets that do almost everything right – and still fail dramatically in one crucial area. We worked with them in cafés, played Fortnite, drew, wrote – and in the end realized: these tablets are a really good deal for some – but a huge disappointment for others.

In this review, you’ll find out who should consider the S10 FE and when it’s better to go with an alternative. And there are plenty of them. We compared it with the Galaxy Tab S10+, Galaxy Tab S9, iPad 11, and Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro.

Design and Build Quality

When it comes to design and build, the S10 FE and S10 FE+ are definitely among the best tablets in their class. They’re IP68-certified against water and dust, which still isn’t offered by any other tablet manufacturer.

As is typical for Samsung, both have a high-quality aluminum body that feels well made. Both are only 6mm thin, and the S10 FE weighs 500g, while the larger S10 FE+ is a bit heavier at 668g.

The power button also works as a fingerprint sensor, which responded quickly and reliably in our test. Face recognition is also included, but it’s not very secure in this case since it only uses the webcam.

Both tablets have a USB-C 2.0 port. Unfortunately, we can’t connect external monitors. That’s a shame because Samsung DeX desktop mode is supported. If you often transfer large files, it’s also going to take a while. At least there’s a microSD card slot.

Display and Speakers

The Galaxy Tab S10 FE has a 10.9-inch LCD with a resolution of 2304 x 1440 pixels. The S10 FE+ offers a significantly larger 13.1-inch screen with 2880 x 1800 pixels. Both run at up to 90Hz and reach up to 800 nits of brightness.

Unlike the iPad 11, the displays here are fully laminated, which reduces reflections a bit and also feels better for using the S Pen. Compared to the S10+ and S10 Ultra, though, the screens are still quite reflective.

The colors look vibrant and the contrast is decent for LCDs. Of course, an AMOLED would have been nice, but Samsung saves those for its flagship models.

Watching videos on YouTube or Netflix is fun on both devices. The S10 FE+ stands out with especially high brightness in HDR content, even a bit more than the regular S10+. The latter, however, has better black levels and more contrast since it has an AMOLED panel.

The speakers offer good sound. Dolby Atmos provides a bit of spatial audio, and the volume is enough for louder environments. Compared to the iPad 11, the speakers perform better and sound more balanced than those of the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro. However, the S10+ clearly has the better sound.

S Pen

The included S Pen is one of the big highlights for us. We can attach it magnetically to the back or the edge. It never needs to be charged, since it doesn’t have a battery. That’s a big advantage over pens from Lenovo, Apple, and Xiaomi. Writing also feels great thanks to the very low latency and precise handwriting experience.

In Samsung Notes, we can take handwritten notes, create schedules, make sketches with automatic shape recognition, or annotate PDFs. The software is very refined and makes the tablets especially interesting for school, university, and creative tasks.

Compared to the Apple Pencil on the iPad 11, Samsung offers a better writing experience thanks to the laminated screen. Xiaomi also offers a good stylus, but the software isn’t as good as Samsung’s.

If you’re looking for mid-range tablets with a really good stylus, the S10 FE and S10 FE+ are an excellent choice. The S Pen performs almost as well as on the expensive S10 Ultra.

Hardware and Performance

Now we come to the biggest weakness of the Galaxy Tab S10 FE and Galaxy Tab S10 FE+: the internal hardware and performance.

Inside is Samsung’s new Exynos 1580 chipset, along with 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of internal storage. A 5G version is also available.

For everyday tasks like browsing, Office, YouTube, and multitasking, the Exynos chip’s performance is good enough. The tablets respond quickly, apps launch fast, and even split-screen multitasking works smoothly. We were also able to work well with Samsung DeX.

But compared to the competition, the benchmark results are terrible. In Geekbench 6, the performance is much better than in the S9 FE predecessors, but the cheaper iPad 11 and Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro score noticeably higher. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 is also significantly more powerful, even though it’s already a few years old. But it’s a flagship with AMOLED, and it now costs about the same as the S10 FE.

They also perform poorly in the 3D Mark Wild Life Extreme test. Here, they perform worse than the Lenovo Idea Tab Pro, iPad 11, and Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro. All of them are cheaper than the S10 FE and FE+.

Gaming

Let’s get to gaming. We tested Fortnite extensively and unfortunately, it wasn’t fun. It felt more like torture than play. Fortnite on “Epic” settings with full resolution is nearly unplayable. The framerate drops frequently, and the game stutters a lot. Even on medium settings with 75% 3D resolution, there are major performance drops.

It only gets better at 50% 3D resolution – then we can play Fortnite, but we have to make clear compromises in graphic quality. It works, but doesn’t look very nice anymore.

Call of Duty Warzone Mobile only runs at the lowest graphic settings and isn’t fun at all. The game is unfortunately unplayable.

With Genshin Impact on the “Very High” preset, we get about 35 FPS. That’s at least playable. More FPS isn’t possible even at lower graphic settings, because the CPU is the limiting factor here, not the GPU.

Sure, these are very demanding games, and if you only want to play something like Angry Birds, the performance is more than enough. For casual gamers, it’s fine. But if you play regularly, you won’t be happy with the Galaxy Tab S10 FE.

We clearly recommend the iPad 11 or Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro instead. They’re much better gaming tablets.

Software

Both tablets come with Android 15 and OneUI 7, and Samsung promises a full seven years of security and feature updates. That’s impressive, especially in the mid-range, and makes the tablets very long-lasting. Longer-lasting than typical Xiaomi and Lenovo devices, and roughly on par with Apple.

Overall, we really like the software because OneUI is very mature. Samsung DeX – the desktop mode – is especially useful with a keyboard cover. You can move windows freely, and multitasking is really fun.

As mentioned, it’s a shame that you can’t connect external monitors. That only works starting from the S9 and S10+. So with the FE series, you can’t replace a desktop computer. Mid-range tablets from Lenovo, Xiaomi, and Apple can be connected to external displays.

Keyboard Cover

Now let’s talk about the keyboard covers. There are two for each tablet. One is the Book Cover Keyboard, which we tested, and the other is the simplified Book Cover Keyboard Slim. This one doesn’t have a touchpad and the keyboard is fixed to the cover.

Typing on the large 13-inch model is especially comfortable. The keyboard offers nice key travel, a good layout, and a usable touchpad. It’s actually a pretty solid laptop alternative.

We can remove the keyboard and use the back of the cover as a stand. That works great and is handy for watching movies on a plane or train. Or in bed.

The keyboard for the S10 FE is just as good, just quite a bit smaller – which takes some getting used to. For us, that wasn’t a problem, because this is actually the keyboard I bought years ago for the Galaxy Tab S7. I’ve written on it for years. And yes, the S10 FE keyboard works with the S7, S8, S9, and S9 FE. Since the display on the S10 FE+ is larger than its predecessors, its keyboard is brand new.

Battery Life

Battery life is pretty good on both tablets. In our test, the S10 FE lasted 8.5 hours and the S10 FE+ managed 9 hours. For this test, we always run an HD YouTube video on a loop at maximum brightness.

Conclusion

The Galaxy Tab S10 FE and S10 FE+ are really good tablets in many areas. They’re a great choice if you want a tablet for handwriting with the S Pen, a good keyboard cover, Samsung DeX, and long software support. The displays are great, and the build quality is premium, including IP68 certification.

But there are two big “buts.” The first is performance. For gamers, the performance is clearly too weak. That’s really a shame, and we don’t understand why Samsung used such a weak processor. These tablets aren’t exactly cheap, and the iPad 11 costs just $349.

The second “but” is the price, especially for the Galaxy Tab S10 FE. The S10 FE+ is fairly unique with its large 13-inch display and has less competition. But instead of the S10 FE, you could just go for the Galaxy Tab S9. It currently costs about the same, also comes with an S Pen and IP68 certification – but on top of that, it has AMOLED, a faster USB-C port, and better performance.

If you’re looking for mid-range gaming tablets, we think the Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro and Apple iPad 11 are clearly much better choices.

The S10 FE and S10 FE+ could get really interesting if the prices drop by $100 or more. We bought them at full MSRP, but realistically, hardly anyone else will. And if prices come down a bit in the next few months, these Fan Edition tablets could be a great deal. Still, it’s a real shame that Samsung didn’t deliver more in terms of performance.