In a surprise 30-minute event that could have been an email today, Samsung unveiled new additions to its device portfolio this year, including the Galaxy S24 FE and Galaxy Watch FE LTE. It should be the highlight of today’s news new Galaxy Tab S10 tabletsthough they’ve long been considered the best premium Android tablets around. The Galaxy Tab S10+ and Tab S10 Ultra start at $1,000 and $1,200, respectively (the same price as the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max), and are available for pre-order today ahead of retail sales on October 3.
With the Tab S10 series, Samsung announces that it is bringing Galaxy AI to the category, thus making AI accessible to all. Features it was introduced on the flagship S24 phones earlier this year Features like Circle to Search and Sketch to Image are now supported on tablets, and apps like S Pen-powered handwriting assistant and Note Assist are here on the S24 Ultra. I’ve spent some time with the new hardware, and while it’s too early to say whether these updates work well, I can still say that these will probably remain the best Android tablets around.
When I picked up the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra at Samsung’s event today, I was once again impressed by how thin and light it is, as I’ve experienced with all of Samsung’s previous tablets. Note that the Tab S10 Ultra has a 14.6-inch screen, while the Tab S10+ has a 12.4-inch screen. Both of these AMOLED panels have anti-reflective coatings and are IP68 rated for durability, even though the devices are quite slim. They feel like a knife you might use to slice very soft sponge cakes.
I was able to pick up the Tab S10 Ultra with very little effort or muscle strain, and while such a large screen is usually difficult to maneuver, the fact that I could easily control it with one hand made things easier.
Not much has changed compared to the Galaxy Tab S9, the S10 series uses MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300+ processors instead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips. I’m not sure if these chips have the power or energy efficiency to multitask or perform AI tasks efficiently, but that’s not something I can determine in a hands-on event.
Samsung’s AMOLED panels stay vibrant and bright, providing a perfect media consumption experience. It was difficult to gauge how effective the anti-reflection treatment was under the harsh lights set up for the event, but for the most part it was easy to see.
While I haven’t dwelled too much on any of the Galaxy AI features in the Tab S10 series, I can tell you that I had fun playing with the same tools on the S24 flagships we reviewed throughout the year. Let it be S24 Ultra with S Pen or Z layer 6 and Z Flip 6All of Samsung’s devices this year have received the Galaxy AI suite of writing and photo editing tools. We’ve had some time to think about how useful any of these things are in the real world, and overall, our impressions have been a resounding “meh.”
I was impressed by Sketch to Image’s ability to turn hideous animal drawings into realistic looking animals in photos, and Circle to Search is a Google tool that makes it easy to search for items by drawing a circle around them. Many of the other Galaxy AI features, like most generative AI tools today, are only moderately useful.
We’ll have to spend more time with the Tab S10 Ultra, Tab S10+, Galaxy S24 FE, and even the Galaxy Watch FE LTE to determine if it’s worth your money. But for now, I have to admit that it’s nice to see Samsung rolling out all the Galaxy AI features across its lineup, resulting in a sense of unity and parity even in the low-end offerings. Apple Intelligence, meanwhile, will require an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16, or iPhone 16 Pro, and won’t work if you only have an iPhone 15. Obviously, we’re in the age of generative artificial intelligence, and we’re not going to be able to do that. Avoid them more, especially now that they are more common in the Android ecosystem.
