Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Review: Super Long Updates!

I used the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra a lot. I played Fortnite, used the S Pen to keep a kind of diary in Samsung Notes, connected an external monitor and wrote a lot with the keyboard cover. This review, among other things. We also compared it with the new iPad Pro, iPad Air and the Galaxy Tab S9 predecessors. I can tell you already that it’s the best Android tablet on the market.

But in some respects, the two times cheaper Honor MagicPad 2 and OnePlus Pad 2 are better. In this video you’ll learn when it’s worth it to spend 1200 Dollars on the S10 Ultra and when it might be better to pick the two time cheaper ones.

Hardware & Performance

An important new feature compared to its predecessor is the processor. While Samsung used a Qualcomm chip in the S9 Ultra, the S10 Ultra uses a MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ now. In addition, we get 12GB or 16GB of RAM and 256GB up to 1TB of internal storage. The microSD slot can fit up to 1.5TB cards.

You can also get it with built-in 5G.

My Geekbench 6 benchmark comparison is quite exciting. You can see here that the performance is significantly better than that of mid-range tablets. The difference to the S9 Ultra is also visible, but not too huge. The multi-core performance is better than that of the iPad 10 and even better than that of the OnePlus Pad 2, which has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. However, the graphics performance is actually better on the OnePlus Pad 2.

It also remains the case that the Apple M2 chipset of the iPad Air is significantly more powerful and the M4 is more powerful anyway.

In the 3D Mark benchmark, the graphics performance of the S10 Ultra is slightly better than that of the OnePlus Pad 2, and there is also a noticeable difference to the S9 Ultra. In real-world use, however, you won’t notice a difference.

If you want an Android tablet with the most powerful processor and graphics performance possible, you don’t have to go for the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra. The OnePlus Pad 2 is even more powerful in some cases. And if you have the S9 Ultra, it’s not worth upgrading.

Gaming Test

Nevertheless, the S10 Ultra is one of the fastest Android tablets on the market. I played a lot of Fortnite for my review and it runs very smoothly with epic graphics settings, 3D resolution at 100%, and the frame rate at 60. Most of the time it runs at 50 to 60fps, which is really nice and smooth.

I also played Zenless Zero, Age of Empires Mobile, and Diablo Immortal. All these games run very well and smoothly. But that’s no wonder. No Android developer will release a game that is too demanding for a flagship tablet like this.

Display with anti-reflection

Let’s move on to the display of the S10 Ultra, which at first glance looks exactly the same as on the S9 Ultra. We’re still getting a huge 14.6-inch AMOLED with a resolution of 2960 x 1848 pixels. What’s new is that Samsung has given it a special anti-reflective coating to reduce reflections.

I compared it to the Galaxy Tab S9+ and the S10 Ultra actually reflects a good deal less than the previous generation. The difference is clearly visible.

Otherwise, the display continues to look really good and is definitely one of the best out there. Thanks to the AMOLED, black is really black, colors are nicely saturated, viewing angles are stable, and thanks to a refresh rate of 120Hz, animations look smooth.

HDR is supported on YouTube and Netflix. It’s generally a very good, albeit very expensive entertainment tablet. The four speakers on the sides are loud and offer excellent sound quality. Really great for watching movies.

It gets up to 930 nits bright with HDR content. That is significantly less than the new iPad Pro, which can achieve up to 1600 nits. And in fact, the S10 Ultra is also darker than the 600 Dollar Honor MagicPad 2, which, like the iPad Pro, can achieve up to 1600 nits.

We compared the displays very carefully. And the result is really clear. Both the Honor and Apple tablets are brighter and they’re also OLEDs.

Speakers

We noticed something similar with its sound quality. The Samsung has four speakers that are loud and also sound very good. In a direct comparison, however, the iPad Pro has a stronger bass and the Honor is a bit louder.

So, if you are mainly looking for an entertainment tablet with a good display and good speakers, you can also use the MagicPad 2. Sure, the display is a bit smaller and it’s weaker in other respects, but as I said, it is three times cheaper.

S Pen

The S10 Ultra is significantly better than the Honor and OnePlus in terms of software and its stylus. We’ll start with the latter. The S Pen is included, so you don’t have to buy it separately. Just like the tablet, it is protected against water and dust according to the IP68 standard.

It can be charged by induction on the back of the tablet. However, it only needs to be charged for some gestures. For example, if you want to use it as a remote control in the camera app or in PowerPoint, which are cool features. However, you never have to charge the pen for writing and drawing.

This is an important difference compared to the Apple Pencil and many other pens, where you always have to worry about the battery.

Like its predecessor, the S Pen is very responsive and fun to write and draw with. It’s important to know that the pen works great not only in Samsung apps, but also in those from third-parties. With brands like Honor, OnePlus, Lenovo and Xiaomi, the pen often works very well in their own apps, but then lags in third-party ones.

Unlike the competition, however, you don’t have to use third-party apps with Samsung. I think that Samsung Notes is the best note-taking app for Android. Along with Goodnotes, which only works on Samsung and Apple tablets.

Samsung Notes is quite simple to use, but has many very good features and I really enjoy working with it. You can also use it to annotate PDFs.

There are some new AI features. For instance, it can automatically correct your handwriting and make it a bit more readable. You can also draw a sketch and then have it turned into a picture. If you are interested in these AI features, check out the last part of my unboxing video of this tablet. In that video I demonstrate all of the new AI features.

Software: 7 years of updates

Regarding software, Samsung is miles ahead of its Android competition. The S10 Ultra will receive major version and security updates for a full seven years, until October 2031. With Honor, Lenovo, OnePlus and others we’re lucky if we get one or two updates at all. But seven years is really great.

The tablet is currently running Android 14 with the latest version of OneUI, which is Samsung’s own interface. What’s nice about Samsung is that the software is pretty mature and most of it works exactly as it should. Some of the new AI features could be better, but that’s also still the case with ChatGPT. It takes time for all of this to work perfectly. As I said, I present all the AI features in the unboxing video.

The Samsung DeX desktop mode is supported, of course. With it, you can transform Android into a kind of desktop operating system. Since the taskbar of Android 12L, which Samsung also supports, I think it’s no longer that important.

And in fact, DeX is now a kind of DeX-Light, where you get a desktop with freely movable windows. This is super handy if you are working and playing Age of Empires on the side, where you have to wait from time to time.

But you can also activate traditional DeX, which then really looks like a desktop operating system. Of course, this only makes sense if you connect a mouse and keyboard. Like the official keyboard cover.

Samsung Keyboard Cover

Let’s move on to the keyboard cover. The most exciting is the Samsung Book Cover Keyboard, which I describe as a real keyboard dock. It consists of two parts, a back with a built-in folding stand, and then the keyboard part, which is magnetically connected to the tablet.

Since we have such a large 14.6-inch display here, the keyboard can also be quite large. It’s the same size as a normal laptop, which means you can use it to type almost the same way. It’s really nice and spacious with a function row. I think the keyboard is fantastic, even if you want to write a lot of long texts.

By the way, a new AI button lets you start Bixby or Gemini.

There is a touchpad under the keyboard that is also quite large for a tablet. And it works well.

Design & Build Quality

The body of the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra looks almost exactly like its predecessor and you can get it in Moonstone Gray and Platinum Silver. We get a very high-quality aluminum body that is only 5.4mm thin and weighs 718g. Compared to its predecessor, the frame is supposed to be more sturdy, so there is a slight difference here.

It’s protected against water and dust according to the IP68 standard, which continues to be a major advantage compared to most other tablets.

On the sides, we have a USB C 3.2 Gen 1 port that can also be used to connect external monitors. Together with a dock, you can turn the S10 Ultra into a pretty good desktop PC. As I said, especially with a mouse, keyboard and Samsung DeX. This works pretty well.

There are two front-facing cameras at the top, that’s right, two, each with a resolution of 12 megapixels. There is a wide-angle and an ultra-wide-angle camera. The photo and video quality of both cameras is solid.

On the back, there is a 13-megapixel main camera and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera. An LED flash sits next to it. The quality is good for a tablet. However, expensive smartphones take significantly better pictures.

You can unlock the tablet using facial recognition or the fingerprint scanner. The latter is located under the display and reacts quickly if you turn on the display first.

Battery life

In my battery test, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra achieved an excellent runtime of barely 13 hours. I always run an HD YouTube video at maximum brightness and 120Hz in an endless loop.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Test: My Final Verdict

I already said at the beginning that the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is currently the best Android tablet on the market. It offers a very large and beautiful 14.6-inch AMOLED display, very powerful hardware, an excellent S Pen and a good keyboard cover. The battery life is also quite good.

The software is particularly nice compared to the competition. It’s not only working great, but should be provided with updates for 7 years. So far, no other Android manufacturer can keep up with that.

But I mentioned alternatives. If processor performance is most important to you, you can get similar performance with the OnePlus Pad 2. However, it has a worse display, worse stylus and, above all, updates are uncertain.

If you don’t need all that power, but want a great display with good speakers, you can check out the Honor MagicPad 2. The Honor is really good in these respects, but it will hardly get any updates and the software and performance are weaker. As I said, the Honor and OnePlus cost half as much as the Samsung.

Overall, I think the S10 Ultra is the best Android tablet on the market. Because of the software, because of the complete package with great S Pen, the good keyboard cover, the good performance and the large pretty display. But it’s also clear that the differences to the S9 Ultra are only minor. If you own that one, it makes no sense to upgrade.