Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Review: My Honest Opinion After 30 Days

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra made me throw away my laptop for nearly 2 weeks. I used this massive slab for work, streaming videos and even gaming. This thing has insane performance, is super light and even has a desktop mode for external monitors. But it’s not perfect, and is even a letdown in some ways. 

We can’t recommend it to everyone, especially given its $1,200 price. Here’s why.

Massive AMOLED Display and Powerful Speakers

Let’s first talk about the highlight: This 14.6’’ monster AMOLED display is something straight out of another world. The bezels are super thin, the contrast is great and it has a sharp 1848 x 2960 pixel resolution. Watching movies on this tablet beats the average flatscreen TV or laptop by a long shot.

You can easily use this tablet under the sun thanks to its 1000 nits of SDR brightness and Samsung’s anti-reflection coating, which actually reduces reflections effectively. That’s also much brighter than last year’s 600 nits. Animations and games also look super smooth with its 120hz refresh rate. It’s hard to find another tablet display like this one.

There’s an under-display optical fingerprint scanner for unlocking the tablet. The reader works well, but it isn’t the fastest.

The speakers are equally exceptional. They’re loud, sound very clear and have good bass. Dolby Atmos is also supported. 

Usually when cooking, I use my tablet with a bluetooth speaker to play music and check a recipe, but with the Tab S11 Ultra, I completely forgot about my speaker. Yes, it’s that good.  

S-Pen Stylus

Where the Tab S11 Ultra really stands out from the competition is the stylus. It ships with the redesigned S-Pen included. The new stylus drops air gestures and other wireless features, but works without ever charging and feels even better to hold than before with the pencil-shape. 

Taking notes and sketching feels natural. Of course, you have access to the Samsung Notes app with the S11 Ultra, which we find to be one of the best Android notetaking apps. 

We tested drawing using the Sketchbook. It’s a solid app and we can recommend it. The S-Pen works wonderfully here. Tilt-detection and pressure sensitivity are accurate, there’s zero delay and there’s never any lag or freezing. 

Still, it’s a bit of a shame that there’s no inbuilt gyroscope for detecting rotations while drawing shapes or using certain brushes with the S-Pen. That’s something that the Apple Pencil Pro does better. iPads also support more professional drawing apps like Procreate, making them a better choice for serious artists. 

Keyboard Cover

The official Samsung keyboard cover also received a redesign, and it means that the Tab S11 Ultra is no longer compatible with older Samsung Tab Ultra keyboard accessories. We aren’t fans of this change, and the new keyboard cover doesn’t feel like a real upgrade over the previously working design. 

Samsung expects you to dish out another $200 for the Book Keyboard Cover Slim. There’s also no official keyboard with a trackpad yet. Still, the typing feeling is pretty good and the connection is secure using pogo pins. We just wish it was cheaper.

Hardware & Performance

The S11 Ultra comes with the flagship 3nm Mediatek Dymensity 9400+ SoC, which is a decent upgrade over the S10 Ultra’s Dimensity 9300. Storage options start at 12GB RAM and 256GB UFS storage but go all the way up to 16GB RAM and 1TB storage. You can also get it with 5G by the way.

It flies through lighter tasks and even multitasking with Samsung DeX doesn’t slow it down. Editing a 50 megapixel RAW photo in Adobe Lightroom is no problem; Effects are applied nearly instantly, and the export is fast as well. It almost never gets warm, which is nice.

Geekbench Single- and Multi-core benchmarks give a good idea of how the S11 Ultra handles apps starting and running in parallel. In CPU single-core tests, the S11 Ultra is only 10% slower than the OnePlus Pad 3, which is the fastest Android tablet out right now.

In the 3DMark graphics testing, the S11 Ultra’s iGPU actually beats the OnePlus Pad 3’s Adreno GPU by 7% in Wildlife Extreme. Only Apple’s iPad Pro M4 and iPad Air are ahead. That means gaming performance should be excellent. 

Excellent Gaming Performance

Despite the powerful hardware and strong benchmarked results, the Tab S11 Ultra is hard to use for gaming due to its size. It’s fatiguing to hold over longer periods so a controller is almost mandatory. 

Fortnite can be played at either 120 FPS at low settings or at 60FPS at Epic settings. The S11 Ultra has no problem hitting its max refresh rate at low, offering a smooth and stutter free 120FPS gaming experience. Sadly, many developers don’t optimise games for Mediatek chips like they do for Qualcomm ones, hence the 60FPS cap at epic settings. The tablet doesn’t even really warm up while hitting the limit. The OnePlus Pad 3 can do 120FPS at epic settings, for reference. 

War Thunder takes a toll when you enable ray tracing and dial up every setting. But the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra completely crushes it. You can play aerial battles with a smooth, constant 120FPS. And the tablet barely heats up at all. 

Minecraft can be surprisingly demanding at maxed out fancy graphics settings. After flying around in creative mode for just 10 minutes, the framerate drops to 20 FPS. Although that sounds bad, it’s actually one of the best results we’ve gotten on any device so far. If you can live with slightly lower settings, the S11 Ultra is perfect for this title.

In general, the Tab S11 Ultra seems like a good gaming tablet, and the OLED display makes visuals look superb. But similarly capable tablets can be found for much cheaper, and make more sense for serious gamers, at least if you can live with an LCD.

DeX Isn’t Perfect

I tried using the inbuilt desktop mode, Samsung DeX, to replace my Windows PC for work for a while. There are a couple of issues that made me go back to Windows. 

DeX has solid multitasking but misses some quality of life features. Things like double clicking to select text, automatic window snapping or playing 2 audio tracks at the same time just often don’t work properly. And that’s not to mention app inconsistencies, mouse scrolling issues and other smaller, but annoying quirks.

I tried writing this review in the Google Docs app but found many features missing. File management over Google Drive is also a step down from the browser version. In the end, I did everything using the Chrome browser, since that’s one of the few apps that work flawlessly and feel like an actual desktop. 

For me, one of the best features of Samsung DeX is using the stylus in Samsung Notes while having a separate desktop open on an external monitor. This lets you take notes while having a video play or pull up a PDF. It’s great for students or even artists who want to draw with a reference image. 

Honestly, I can’t recommend replacing your work laptop fully with the S11 Ultra, but using it as a workstation when travelling is actually fine. 

Long Battery Life

There’s no need to worry about battery life here. The capacity is slightly higher than the S10 Ultra at 11600 mAh, and it charges at 45 Watts. 

In our standardised YouTube HD video streaming test, the Tab S11 Ultra lasts an impressive 14.2 hours at max brightness before running out of battery. That’s even longer than the S10 Ultra’s 13 hours, and much better than competitors. You can easily get 2 to 3 days of use out of this tablet if you need to. 

Design & Build Quality

Design wise, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is nearly identical to the Tab S10 Ultra besides being 0.3mm thinner. It’s got the same massive 14.6’’ display and weighs a bit less at 692grams.

Out of the Box, you only get the tablet, the reworked S-Pen and a charging cable. The official Samsung charger and keyboard cover will cost extra.  

There’s a little semicircular cutout for the selfie camera on the front. The screen bezels are ultra-thin, which gives you the feeling that you’re holding a slab of glass. Despite that, the S11 Ultra is still durable. It’s IP68 water and dust resistant, and the entire body is made of aluminium, aside from the 5G model which has antenna lines for signal reception. 

Besides the power button and volume rocker, there’s a SIM and Micro-SD card slot for storage expansion up to 2TB.

The USB 3.2 port sits on the right side of the tablet and supports charging and display output. 

Cameras: Nothing Special

Unlike last year’s dual camera setup, there’s only a single front ultrawide camera for selfies with 12MP. It’s good enough for video calls but isn’t anything special. There are 2 rear cameras; one 8MP ultrawide sensor and a 13MP main sensor. Again, they’re fine in a pinch but won’t replace your smartphone. 

You can record video with 4K resolution at 30FPS. The quality is fine overall, but the cameras struggle a bit in dark environments. 

Software: 7 Years Years of Support

The Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra ships with OneUI 8, which is based on the newest Android 16. Samsung promises 7 years of OS and security updates, which is much longer than most other manufacturers. iPads usually also get support for 7 years. 

There’s a good amount of preinstalled but mostly useful apps. Samsung Notes, Notion, LumaFusion and Goodnotes as well as the standard Android Google apps are present. And of course you have access to some basic AI image generation and editing tools, as well as Google’s Gemini. That’s standard on nearly all Android tablets nowadays. 

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Review: Final Verdict

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is without a doubt the best Android tablet overall. The display is arguably one of the best, the speakers are powerful and it’s thin chassis really stands out. And of course you have the S-Pen, which beats any other Android tablet stylus. If you’re looking for the ultimate entertainment tablet, the best Android pen tablet or just want a massive AMOLED display, this is the one. We can recommend it as the best Android tablet available.

However, we feel that serious professionals who need drawing, image or video editing software are better off with an iPad Pro or iPad Air.

And if you’re looking for a gaming tablet, you have to check out our review of the OnePlus Pad 3. Yes, it’s missing some premium features but it has a fantastic performance and is much, much cheaper.