Our Rating:
4.8
Samsung Galaxy Tab
S10 Ultra + S-Pen Review
Ranked #2 (Runner-up)
Best Tablet of 2025!
Authors: Anna N, Linh G, Kevin W, Danny N
Introduction
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is a breathtaking statement piece, a device that represents the absolute apex of the premium Android tablet experience. It’s an unapologetically ambitious machine, engineered with a clear focus on productivity and media immersion, pushing the boundaries of what a tablet can be. After weeks of integrating it into our daily workflow as our primary portable device, we were consistently impressed by its sheer power and versatility!
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In the final rankings for the best tablet of 2025, the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra fought a fierce battle for the crown, ultimately securing its position as the formidable runner-up. It is a spectacular device that excels in areas its chief rival simply can’t match. However, a few key compromises, particularly in battery endurance and accessory design, are what narrowly prevent it from capturing the #1 spot, cementing its status as an exceptionally talented and highly recommended second choice!
Design and Build Quality
The physical form of the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is a masterclass in iterative refinement, feeling both familiar and impressively elevated.
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Enhanced Aluminum Armor: The new chassis material is more than just a marketing term; it's a tangible improvement. Our hands-on time with the tablet immediately revealed a subtle but noticeable increase in rigidity and a reassuring heft that belies its incredible thinness. It feels less susceptible to flex and gives the impression that it can withstand the rigors of daily transport with greater confidence.
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Featherlight Profile: At just 5.4mm, calling this tablet thin feels like an understatement. It’s a razor-thin slab of glass and metal that is astonishingly light for its massive footprint. This makes slipping it into a backpack or tote bag an almost unnoticed addition, a remarkable feat of engineering for a device of this scale.
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IP68 Durability: Samsung continues to hold a clear advantage by including an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. This provides invaluable peace of mind, liberating you from the worry of an accidental spill or getting caught in a sudden downpour—a level of real-world durability that is still curiously absent from its top competitor.
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Ergonomic Challenges: While an engineering marvel, the tablet’s sheer size makes it a "behemoth" that can be tiresome to hold for extended periods. This is less of a "pick-up-and-go" tablet and more of a desk-based workstation or a propped-up media station. The strikingly narrow bezels, while beautiful, offer little room for your thumbs, leading to occasional accidental touches on the screen.
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Notch: A perplexing design choice that carries over from the previous generation is the camera notch on the long edge of the display. On a device with bezels that seem wide enough to house the camera array, this small cutout feels like an unnecessary and unsightly interruption on an otherwise pristine screen. While you learn to ignore it, it remains a minor but persistent aesthetic flaw.
Display
The screen is the undisputed crown jewel of the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, serving as a gorgeous canvas for everything from creative work to cinematic entertainment.
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Big Canvas: The expansive 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display is simply stunning. Colors are incredibly vibrant, blacks are perfectly deep, and the 120Hz adaptive refresh rate makes every scroll and animation feel buttery smooth. Its widescreen 16:10 aspect ratio is a dream for media consumption, virtually eliminating the distracting black bars that plague more squarish screens when watching movies.
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Anti-Reflection: The single greatest upgrade to the display is the new anti-reflection coating. In our daily use, this was an absolute game-changer, dramatically cutting down on glare and making the screen comfortably viewable even near a bright window or under harsh office lighting. It’s a practical innovation that significantly enhances real-world usability.
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Color Fidelity: While it may not win the war for sheer peak brightness, the Tab S10 Ultra's panel is a champion of color accuracy. Its phenomenal coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut makes it an ideal tool for photographers, video editors, and digital artists who demand true-to-life color representation. For creative professionals, this level of fidelity is often more critical than raw nits.
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Brightness Compromise: The display, while brilliant, does fall short of its main rival in terms of maximum SDR and HDR brightness. In direct sunlight, it can be slightly harder to see. However, the fantastic anti-glare coating does an admirable job of mitigating this, and for indoor use, its brightness is more than sufficient for a rich and punchy viewing experience.
Performance
Samsung’s strategic pivot to a new silicon partner pays off, delivering a level of performance that is exceptionally fast and fluid for any task you can throw at it.
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MediaTek: The MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ processor at the heart of this tablet is an absolute beast. Its aggressive "All-Big-Core" architecture translates to blazing-fast performance across the board. Apps launch instantly, and navigating the One UI interface is a completely lag-free experience.
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Real-World Fluidity: While it may not top the charts in synthetic benchmarks against desktop-class chips, that distinction is purely academic in day-to-day use. Our hands-on testing confirmed this; from juggling a dozen apps and browser tabs in DeX to playing graphically demanding titles like Genshin Impact, the tablet never missed a beat.
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Expandable Storage: In a move that power users and media creators will celebrate, Samsung has retained the microSD card slot. The ability to affordably expand storage up to 1.5TB is a massive practical advantage, offering a level of flexibility for managing large files that is completely absent from its walled-garden competitor.
Software & Galaxy AI
Samsung’s multi-layered software ecosystem transforms the Tab S10 Ultra from a simple tablet into a versatile productivity and creativity machine.
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Samsung DeX: The powerful DeX mode remains the tablet's secret weapon. With the press of a button, it converts the standard Android interface into a familiar, windowed desktop environment. This enables a level of true, flexible multitasking with overlapping, resizable windows that is still more powerful and less restrictive than what the competition offers, making it a genuine laptop replacement for complex workflows.
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Galaxy AI Suite: The integrated AI features feel genuinely useful rather than gimmicky. Note Assist is a lifesaver for summarizing long meetings, Sketch to Image is a fun and powerful tool for sparking creativity, and Circle to Search with the S Pen quickly becomes an indispensable way to look things up.
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Longevity: Samsung's commitment to eight years of major OS upgrades and security updates is an industry-leading promise. This incredible long-term support provides tremendous value and peace of mind, ensuring your premium investment will remain secure and feature-rich for nearly a decade.
S Pen & Accessories
The accessory ecosystem is an area of both triumphant strength and frustrating weakness, defining the tablet's best and most flawed attributes.
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S Pen Included: The fact that the superb S Pen comes right in the box is a massive value proposition. It offers incredibly low latency and precise pressure sensitivity, making writing and drawing feel natural and responsive. It is, without question, a professional-grade tool.
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Insecure by Design: The tablet's most aggravating design flaw is the S Pen's charging and storage mechanism. The weak magnetic strip on the back is simply not secure enough. We nearly lost the S Pen several times just by sliding the tablet into a backpack, a constant source of low-level anxiety that undermines the convenience of having an integrated stylus.
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Underwhelming Keyboard: The official Book Cover Keyboard is a profound disappointment. Its flimsy construction and lack of rigidity make it incredibly wobbly and unpleasant to use on anything other than a perfectly flat desk. For a device marketed as a productivity powerhouse, this failure to deliver a competent first-party keyboard is a significant misstep.
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Third-Party to the Rescue: Fortunately, because the tablet’s dimensions are nearly identical to its predecessor, there is already a mature market of excellent third-party cases and keyboards available. This is a saving grace, but it's disappointing that users have to look elsewhere to unlock the tablet's full potential.
Battery Life & Multimedia
This is a tale of two extremes: the Tab S10 Ultra is a world-class media device, but its battery endurance is a significant step backward.
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Cinematic Audio: The quad-speaker system, tuned by AKG, is simply superb. The speakers produce loud, rich, and detailed sound with a surprising amount of bass, easily filling a room and creating a truly immersive audio experience for movies and music. They sound significantly better than the speakers on most laptops.
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Battery Life Concerns: Here lies the tablet's Achilles' heel and the primary reason it couldn't claim the top spot. The battery life is merely adequate and a noticeable downgrade from its predecessor. During our testing, we averaged around 9 hours of continuous web surfing, which is respectable but falls several hours short of its main competitor. For us, we were consistently looking for a charger by late afternoon during heavy workdays, which compromises its utility as an all-day portable workstation.
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Competent Cameras: The front and rear cameras are perfectly capable for a tablet. The dual front cameras are particularly great for crisp, clear video calls with excellent features like auto-framing. While they won’t replace your flagship smartphone, they are more than good enough for document scanning and video conferencing.
Conclusion: The Runner Up
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is a device of brilliant and specific ambition. It doesn't try to be the best tablet for everyone; instead, it doubles down on its strengths to be the absolute best tablet for certain users. For digital artists who crave a massive, color-accurate canvas and media lovers who want an unparalleled cinematic experience, there is simply no better choice! Its stunning anti-glare display, the included S Pen, and the powerful DeX software create a combination of features that is unique and deeply compelling!
However, its journey to the top is cut short by a few critical stumbles. The disappointing battery life is a significant liability for mobile professionals, and the flawed design of its S Pen storage and official keyboard forces users to seek third-party solutions to fix fundamental problems. It is an extraordinary device that reaches for greatness and grasps most of it, but its fumbles are what allow a more well-rounded competitor to take the crown. The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is, in the end, the perfect runner-up: dazzling, innovative, and just one step shy of perfection! ✨✨✨