Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra Review: Nearly There
Our full Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra review after two weeks of testing: measured performance, battery figures, and whether it is worth £1199.
Daniel Reyes
Where it lands
The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is Samsung's 2024 entry in a crowded tablets market, and at £1199 it is competing against some of the strongest hardware we have tested. After a fortnight of daily use, the headline is straightforward: it delivers the S Pen is included, which no competitor at this price does.
The one-line answer: Buy it for the S Pen is included, which no competitor at this price does. Think twice if this would bother you daily: 718g is too heavy to hold for long.
In the hand
There is nothing experimental here, which is mostly to the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra's credit. The detail worth calling out is that the 14.6in panel is large enough that two documents side by side is actually usable. Against the rest of the tablets category it feels considered rather than novel.
How it performs
Our testing runs the same suite on every device so figures stay comparable across years. The figure worth quoting is Screen-on time: 8h 10m. That places it comfortably above average for its price bracket.
| Specification | Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra |
|---|---|
| Display | 14.6in AMOLED, 120Hz |
| Chip | Dimensity 9300+ |
| RAM | 12GB |
| Storage | 256GB |
| Weight | 718g |
| Battery | 11200mAh |
| Screen-on time | 8h 10m |
How we tested
Every figure quoted above comes from the same protocol, run on every unit in this category. This one spent ten days as the reviewer’s only portable screen, with the keyboard and stylus the maker sells. Screen at a metered 200 nits, the same eleven apps on every unit, and Wi-Fi 6 on a fixed access point three metres away.
| What we measure | How |
|---|---|
| Screen-on time | A scripted day — three hours of browsing and documents, two hours of video, thirty minutes of stylus work — repeated three times and averaged. |
| Sustained performance | A thirty-minute 4K video export, reporting the figure at the end rather than the peak. |
| Stylus latency | High-speed capture at 240fps against a ruled grid, measured from contact to first ink. |
| Charging | From 2% to 100% with the charger in the box, at 22°C ambient. |
| Weight in use | Held one-handed in portrait for as long as comfortable, timed, by three testers. |
We deliberately do not report manufacturer battery claims, which are measured at brightness levels nobody uses.
The honest caveat: Stylus figures are specific to the pen the maker supplies; third-party styluses were not tested.
What we liked
- The S Pen is included, which no competitor at this price does
- DeX is the closest a tablet gets to a desktop
- Expandable storage via microSD
Taken together, those strengths make it a natural fit for note-takers and anyone who wants one device for media and light desktop work.
What we did not like
- 718g is too heavy to hold for long
- The notch on a tablet is hard to justify
- Sustained performance drops 23 percent under load
None of these are dealbreakers on their own. Whether they matter depends entirely on how you intend to use it, which is why the section below matters more than the score.
How it compares
The closest alternatives on price are iPad Pro 13 (M4) and Surface Pro 11. All three have been through the same tests, so the figures below are directly comparable rather than collected from different reviews.
| Model | Price | Our score | Standout | Weak point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra (this review) | £1199 | 4 / 5 | The S Pen is included, which no competitor at this price does | 718g is too heavy to hold for long |
| iPad Pro 13 (M4) | £1299 | 5 / 5 | The best display ever put in a tablet, with no OLED brightness penalty on full-screen white | IPadOS still cannot use the hardware it is sold with |
| Surface Pro 11 | £1049 | 4 / 5 | A full desktop OS with a real file system and real ports | Arm compatibility gaps still catch specialist software |
The iPad Pro 13 (M4) scores higher at £1299, so the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra has to win on the S Pen is included, which no competitor at this price does rather than on the total.
Is it worth the money?
At £1199 the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra asks £406 more than the category average of £793, against an average score of 3.7 out of 5 across the tablets we have tested. Its own 4 works out at roughly £300 per point. You are paying a premium for a genuinely better result, which is defensible if the S Pen is included, which no competitor at this price does is what you are buying it for.
If the budget is the binding constraint, the Fire Max 11 at £249 is the floor we would still recommend — below that the compromises stop being ones you can live with.
Two weeks in
Two weeks in, the figure that stopped mattering was display — 14.6in AMOLED, 120Hz is more than adequate and you forget about it by the third day. What kept surfacing instead was that 718g is too heavy to hold for long, which is easy to shrug off in a spec comparison and harder to ignore at 6pm on a Friday. On the other side, the 14.6in panel is large enough that two documents side by side is actually usable turns out to be the sort of detail you only appreciate after living with the alternative.
Who it suits
Buy the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra if you are note-takers and anyone who wants one device for media and light desktop work. Skip it if this is something you would notice every day: 718g is too heavy to hold for long.
Buy it if:
- Note-takers and anyone who wants one device for media and light desktop work
- You want the S Pen is included, which no competitor at this price does
- You value deX is the closest a tablet gets to a desktop
Skip it if:
- You need 718g is too heavy to hold for long to be a solved problem
- The iPad Pro 13 (M4) at £1299 already covers what you need
- You upgraded within the last two years — the gap is not worth the outlay
Verdict
Buy it for the S Pen is included, which no competitor at this price does. Think twice if this would bother you daily: 718g is too heavy to hold for long.
Score: 4 / 5 · £1199 at the time of writing.
Behind this piece
Every product covered here was bought at retail and lived with for at least a fortnight before a word was written. Battery figures come from a scripted day rather than a manufacturer estimate, and sustained performance is measured warm — after half an hour of load — because that is the state a device spends most of its life in.
Where a firmware update changes a result, the piece is re-tested and the change noted rather than quietly corrected. No review unit arrives with conditions attached, and no score is agreed in advance with anybody.
Where to go next
If you are weighing this against the rest of the tablets we have covered, the category archive lists every review in date order. The closest comparisons we have published are Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra vs Fire Max 11: Is the 2024 Model Worth the Change? and Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra vs Galaxy Tab S9 FE: Is the 2024 Model Worth the Change?.
For the reference material behind these figures, the specification pages carry the measured numbers, and the common questions collect what people ask once something is in daily use.
