Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra review: A multi-tasking tablet

Call it slim pickings or an undisputed king of the hill, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S series have been the go-to for tablet buyers looking for a premium Android offering. And much like the S Ultra flagship smartphones, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra ( ₹1,08,999 for Wi-Fi and ₹1,22,999 for a 5G version) represents the best of what Samsung has to offer.

Samsung hasn’t veered from the design language used by the Tab S9 Ultra, so you get the same flat-edged design with rounded corners in Moonstone Grey and Platinum Silver avatars, albeit 0.1mm slimmer at 5.4mm and a few grams lighter at 718g or 723g, depending on whether you pick up the Wi-Fi variant or the version with a 5G SIM slot. The sleek dimensions make it easy to carry around one-handed despite its large footprint, but you’re going to want to put it down after a few minutes of holding it up.

It’s plenty durable, utilizing Samsung’s ‘Armor Aluminum’ for better scratch and ding resistance, though I wouldn’t recommend drop tests. Last year’s marquee IP68 water resistance and the S Pen’s party trick (writing underwater) make a return, so you can continue to use this from the bathtub for media consumption or note-taking…whatever floats your boat!

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You get pogo pins at the bottom edge to connect to the Book Cover Keyboard ( ₹26,999), and the impressively low-latency (2.8ms) S Pen stylus magnetically docks and charges via a dedicated groove on the rear. That it is included in the retail box is a welcome move, particularly when you compare it to the extra Apple charges for the Apple Pencil/Pencil Pro.

It’s the screen that’s the real star here, with its massive 14.6-inch size, 2960 x 1848-pixel resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio that’s perfect for watching HDR movies, sans the letterboxing you see on iPads. Pair it with a keyboard and mouse and the expansive display comfortably fits in two apps side-by-side for legitimate, desktop-style multi-tasking. As I type this story late into the night on the S10 Ultra, I have an eye on my X feed while music streams over Apple Music in the background, and the extra space will be even more appreciated by creatives who would want the extra canvas for drawing and sketching.

Expectedly, Samsung’s OLED screen delivers strongly, with vibrant colours, excellent contrast and the deep, inky blacks that bring dimly lit scenes alive on the screen. Size aside, the screen’s LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh rate allows it to drop down to as little as 1Hz to conserve battery life, crucial when you’re dealing with this much screen real estate.

Powering the slick, buttery smooth animations and multitasking prowess of the Tab S10 Ultra is the top-shelf MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ mobile chipset, paired with 12GB of fast LPDDR5X memory and up to 512GB of snappy UFS4.0 storage, with further storage expansion of up to 1TB via a microSD slot. It has the latest in connectivity—Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.3— as well as optional 5G connectivity.

While the chipset does well even on demanding workloads like image/video editing apps like LumaFusion or running games like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty: Mobile. Apple’s desktop-class M4 chip may edge ahead on the iPad Pro, but performance wise, as Android tablets go, the Tab S10 Ultra is the champ (for now, at least). Cameras are the only basic part of the setup, with a 13-megapixel main camera paired with an 8-megapixel ultrawide sensor on the rear and dual 12MP wide and ultra-wide lenses on the front—good enough for quick snaps, document scanning and video calls but nothing exceptional when placed alongside Samsung’s own Galaxy S smartphones.

Pushed to the hilt, you should be able to eke out 7-8 hours of heavy use from its 11,200mAh battery, with gaming and video editing thrown in for good measure, although the tablet will last a full 10–11-hour workday of ‘productivity’ use —writing, browsing, streaming video. There’s support for 45W fast charging, which takes nearly two hours to fully top up the large battery, plus you’ll have to shop for a compatible charger—there’s none in the box.

Samsung has packed in all the AI tricks you’d expect—real-time translation, transcription and summarization, along with generative AI tools (including the eerily good ‘Sketch to Image’ and ‘Circle to Search’, both of which work seamlessly thanks to the S Pen). Samsung’s One UI 6.1 on top of Android 14 works well on the big screen with toolbars and shortcuts for quick multi-tasking and the ever handy DeX mode, which transforms the tablet into a desktop-like interface when you’ve paired it with an external monitor and a keyboard/mouse.

Verdict

This is a device you need to walk into a store and try on for size—it will either feel too large for your use or just right, depending on how much of a big screen person you are. It checks the boxes on performance, the reflection-deflecting screen is a joy to use, and the S Pen is a much appreciated inclusion. For most folks, this can be the do-it-all device—a laptop and media consumption device rolled into one—just as long as you can stomach the well-north-of-1-lakh price.

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