The Galaxy Tab S10+ is a great tablet if you need an Android multitasking powerhouse, though its Galaxy AI features are mostly underwhelming.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Easily handles app multitasking | Priced like a laptop, not a tablet |
| S-Pen included | Galaxy AI features aren’t that enticing |
| Excellent battery endurance | BYO charger feels a little rude at this price |
Score: 3.5/5
 |
Buy The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+! | Buy On Amazon |
In this review
Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ Specifications
Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ Design
Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ Performance
Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ Conclusion
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Design
As part of its Galaxy Tab S lineup, there’s little surprise that the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ is built with a premium aesthetic that very closely mirrors what Samsung’s done with its Galaxy S phones in recent years.
Indeed, with an asking price that starts at $1,799, goes all the way up to $2,249 for the full-storage 5G capable model, or an even more wallet-straining $3,049 for the 5G/1TB even larger Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, you would absolutely want to see a premium design every single second you spend staring at your new pricey pro-grade tablet.
Straight away of course that does present a problem for some, because if all you want is a basic consumer-grade tablet device, this isn’t it – but then Samsung would argue that this is precisely what its Galaxy Tab A lineup is for.
The model Samsung sent my way for review was the Galaxy Tab S10+ Wi-Fi 256GB, the entry level model of the Tab S10 range… and, oddly of the entire lineup.
Where previously Samsung offered up a basic Tab S model, which you would think would be the Galaxy Tab S10 this year, it’s cut that down to just the Plus and Ultra choices, which could be an annoyance if you were after a slightly cheaper, slightly smaller pro-grade Android tablet.
Start guessing who this is meant to be. Answer below. Keep reading.
In display terms, the Galaxy Tab S10+ features a 12.4 inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x display with support for up to 120Hz refresh rates, though Samsung only gives you the choice between fixed 60Hz or an adaptive rate of up to 120Hz; you can’t force it to be 120Hz all the time.
It’s a bright and very enjoyable screen for viewing content on (though this isn’t the point), but that would also make it a quite suitable canvas for digital image or video editing work on the fly as well. For those who fuss about such things (not me!), the Galaxy Tab S10+ does have rather prominent bezels around the screen. For a tablet I reckon that’s not an issue, but I know some people do fuss about how much of what they’re holding is accessible screen and how much isn’t.
Samsung continues its tradition of offering an S-Pen stylus in with its Galaxy Tab S lines, and it’s a nice magnetically attaching model that’ll sit quite well on either the back or top/right hand side (depending on orientation).
The Galaxy Tab S10+ is a large tablet to hold in the hand, and I’d totally advise buying some kind of case for it pronto if you’re dropping this kind of money. Samsung naturally has a range of these to sell you, including simpler book covers, keyboard covers and even an outdoor cover.
Here in Australia you can buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ in a finish that Samsung calls “Moonstone Gray”. It does have a professional feel to it, but I do have to point out that in other markets there’s also a secondary colour, Platinum Silver on offer. Here in Australia, that's not even an option, which is annoying.
Also read
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Review
Performance
Nobody is – or should be – buying a tablet with pricing like this and not have some kind of professional workflow in mind, because it’s rather stupidly easy to spend a lot less on more content consumption centric tablets in either the Android or iPadOS spaces.
As such, it’s slightly surprising to see that Samsung shifted from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors found in the prior generation Tab S9 models over to rival Mediatek, specifically with the Mediatek Dimensity 9300+ processor, matched up with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of onboard storage on the model reviewed.
For the Galaxy Tab S10+, you can bump that up to 512GB, while the larger Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra has an even larger 1TB variant in play if your wallet can accommodate it. One nice touch here is that all models allow for the use of microSD storage for expansion, which means even if you do buy the smaller storage model, you can upgrade its capacity down the track in a relatively affordable way.
The Dimensity 9300+ is a new one by me, so I was keen to see how it would benchmark, even though standard Android benchmarks are typically best suited to smartphones rather than tablets.
Its Geekbench 6 scores of 7144/2117 (Multi-Core/Single Core) are solid; if this was a smartphone it would in fact beat out Samsung’s own Galaxy S24 Ultra for base line performance.
It’s not, however, but the reality here is that a tablet with a screen this size is actually better positioned to take advantage of the power of a high end mobile processor than most phones, simply because it’s so much easier to run multiple apps at once and truly push the processor that bit harder.
On this score, the Galaxy Tab S10+ really did impress me, whether it was using Samsung’s OneUI launcher to have multiple windows open at once, or via Samsung’s DeX launcher, though I did have some teething issues getting it to play nicely with an external monitor hooked up through a USB hub.
The S-Pen stylus is a nice inclusion for sure, though I’m not a digital artist. Here Samsung’s pitch is that I don’t need to be, because like every other Galaxy product this year, the Galaxy Tab S10+ includes access to Samsung’s Galaxy AI suite of features for free – or at least for free through until the end of 2025. Samsung is being quite noncommittal about what happens after that in terms of fees for Galaxy AI services.
My take here is much what it’s been for every other set of AI services in 2024… which is to say that I wouldn’t be rushing to buy just about anything “AI” enhanced just yet, because the functional delivery of most of those promises leaves me wanting.
Maybe my own handwriting really is that horrible – OK, OK, it totally is – but what the Galaxy Tab S10+ made of my handwriting very quickly made me realise that this wasn’t going to work out for me for turning my jotted throughts into legible text.
I can appreciate that Galaxy AI’s Sketch to Image functionality can do a better job of making my idle scribbles into something resembling an actual picture, but just as I don’t like the fact that a lot of written content is being auto-smooshed into existence via AI with some pretty poor quality, I can’t be comfortable with AI mimicking art styles either – and it all too often produces some really weird results anyway.
I do like Godzilla, but I cannot draw Godzilla.
I think I'd rather get a human artist to illustrate my Godzilla children's book, however.
You also get features like Portrait Studio, also found on the Galaxy S and Galaxy Z phones this year, but this feels like a really weird inclusion on a Pro-grade tablet.
This is apparently me. Why does Portrait Studio think I want an image where it appears I've just broken wind?
It’s not that professionals can’t have fun every now and then, but with results that are really quite artificial and odd at best, I suspect these are features that will be glanced at once and then quickly forgotten about.
Battery
I draw cars about as well as a five year old. It is what it is.
I’ve made the comment on many Android phone reviews this year that 5,000mAh batteries were the new standard, because so many Android phones at nearly every price point ship with that level of battery capacity.
Having a 12.4 inch screen to hide behind gives you a lot more space to pack in batteries, and Samsung has taken it, providing a 10,090mAh battery pack inside the Galaxy Tab S10+.
That’s effectively two of nearly any Android phone stuck together, and the results in terms of battery life are, not surprisingly, truly impressive.
Earl, of ToeJam & Earl fame, appears to be driving the Galaxy AI version of my car.
While I have not used the Galaxy Tab S10+ as my full daily computer – you could, but other working pressures have made that infeasible during my review period – I have used it a lot on a day-to-day basis, and it’s kept charge really nicely across a wide array of app uses.
The model that Samsung sent me was just literally the tablet and the S-Pen stylus, but even if you do buy the full retail model, you won’t get a charger included with it, which means your recharge times will vary a lot depending on what you plug it into.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+: Alex’s Verdict
This is apparently me. Maybe it's me if I ever appeared in a truly weird version of Guess Who..?
There’s definitely a space for pro-grade tablets out there, and for the most part a lot of the focus there tends to fall on Apple’s iPad Pro lines and Microsoft’s Surface Pro as the competitors in this space. Yes, there are powerful Android tablets out there, but few companies have really pushed the productivity angle hard to make them a working and workable category.
Few companies outside of Samsung, that is.
The Galaxy Tab S10+ absolutely isn’t for everybody, and that’s even more true for the truly gigantic Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra.
To justify it, you would absolutely need to have a work case for its specific Android approach, but that’s helped a lot by the way Samsung’s done some serious software work to make Android a lot more flexible around screens of this size.
While I did still hit some Android apps that were a little quirky at larger sizes, that was a few-and-far-between issue on the Galaxy Tab S10+. Match that up with some really impressive battery life, and you’ve got a solid working tool.
Mind you, I do also still fall back to the position that for the kind of money you’re spending on the Galaxy Tab S10+, you could score yourself a pretty decent working laptop too.
Samsung isn’t particularly offering any of its laptops in the Australian market right now – though it has dabbled with that over the years – but given the serious prices that the Tab S10+ and Tab S10 Ultra command, it’s worth considering your precise needs before making your purchasing decision.
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Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+: Pricing and availability
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ retails in Australia with pricing starting at $1,799.
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Buy The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+! | Buy On Amazon |
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