Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus review: Watch out iPad Pro

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus has arrived with little fanfare, which seems unfair given that it is the Android tablet world's best answer to the iPad Pro, for better or for worse.

While it's smaller than its sibling, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, this is still a big tablet with big specs, which is especially noticeable with its display. And although it's got a higher up-front cost than many tablets, the included S Pen stylus and guaranteed seven years of updates mean it's got more immediate and long-term benefits than its rivals.

All it asks for in return are regular visits to the charger and that you forgive it for not scoring as highly on benchmarks as its Apple-made competition.

Even setting the best iPads aside, we have other Android tablets we'd recommend ahead of the Tab S10 Plus for both typical and pro-level users. But maybe users who want to split the difference between power, size and price, and especially users who own a Galaxy phone, will find this as one of the best Android tablets by the end of this Galaxy Tab S10 Plus review.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus review: Specs

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus: Price and availability

Samsung put the Galaxy Tab S10 series up for sale at a $999/£999 start price for the standard 256GB Wi-Fi model. There's a 512GB option costing $1,199/£1,099 too, plus 5G versions for those who want built-in connectivity, which are another £150/$150 on top of the price of either storage option.

This is $200 less than the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra while offering most of the same functionality in a smaller package. Next to Apple's tablet range, the closest comparison is the iPad Pro M4, which begins at $999 for the 11-inch version and $1,299 for the larger 13-inch one.

Going for the Samsung gets you more tablet and more accessories for the money, but you don't have a size choice unless you want to pay the extra to get the cheapest 14.6-inch Tab S10 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus: Design and display

At 1.26 pounds, the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus is lighter than the smaller OnePlus Pad 2 and Apple's 13-inch Apple tablets. It's only a fraction of a millimeter thicker than the iPad Pro M4, too, showing that Samsung remains competitive even with the toughest of rivals.

That's just as well since the Tab S10 has the same design as the Galaxy Tab S9 series, featuring flat sides with power and volume buttons and a front-facing camera on the long side of the display. Ideal for horizontal use, which is how many tablet apps now expect you to use it.

The S Pen, an included accessory, has a home in a magnetic strip on the back of the tablet, in line with the dual rear cameras. Other than the antenna lines decorating the edges of the panel, the back of the Tab S10 Plus is as plain as the front.

The optical fingerprint scanner sits under the display on the right side of the tablet (when holding it horizontally), offering a speedy way to log into the tablet. But I'm not sure why the scanner doesn't prompt you to set it up by default. Seems like an obvious thing to do during the setup flow rather than having the user decide later on if they want it or not.

Colors are the typical limited bland options that premium tablets like to stick to. The Moonstone Gray of my test device looks fine, as does the brighter Platinum option. I'd love for there to be one more fun option, even if there isn't the rainbow of color options you see for cheaper tablets.

What the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus lacks in dramatic looks, it makes up for with durability. It features IP68 dust/water resistance to protect the tablet's insides from damage and Armor Aluminum for peace of mind in case you drop or scrape the edge of the Tab.

You can rely on a Samsung tablet to offer some exceptional screen technology. The 12.4-inch AMOLED screen, with its 120Hz maximum refresh rate, is delightfully smooth to navigate and eye-searingly bright at its highest levels.

When using the Galaxy Tab horizontally, as Samsung intends you to use it, it feels quite normal, even if I'd prefer a little more vertical space when trying to work from it laptop-style.

But when held vertically, the Tab feels quite narrow, though that could be because I'm used to using a much squarer iPad Pro. It makes a difference if I'm using the Galaxy Tab as a notepad, as I tend to run out of space quickly when writing, but it feels fine when using apps with regular taps and swipes.

In testing, the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus proved the best in terms of color gamut coverage, especially in its default Vivid color mode. It lags behind the competition in terms of brightness, though, especially compared to the Tandem OLED-powered screen of the iPad Pro.

Fortunately, the Tab S10 Plus' lower brightness is made up for by my favorite part of its display — its anti-reflective layer. It is easy to see it in action compared to any other screen you'll have to hand (unless you have a Galaxy S24 Ultra, which uses the same style of screen) as soon as you're outside your carefully-lit work environment.

Using the Galaxy Tab in outdoor or awkward indoor lighting, as is likely to happen when you're trying to use the device on the move, is far easier than other tablets when you combine the anti-glare with the bright OLED display.

And unlike the nanotexture display option offered on the iPad Pro M4, this coating comes as part of the basic price, is available on all storage options, and doesn't affect the smoothness of the screen either. That's good news for frequent stylus users.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus: Performance

Unlike previous Samsung Galaxy Tab S models, the Tab S10 series uses a Dimensity 9300+ chipset, rather than one built by Samsung or Qualcomm. But this is still a premium tablet despite the different silicon.

As the results below show, the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus outperforms the OnePlus Pad 2, currently our favorite Android tablet, on our three main tests. However, Apple's mighty M-series chips still leave the Tab S10 Plus in the dust, especially the latest M4 silicon powering the iPad Pro.

The Tab S10 series retains the vapor chamber cooling of the Tab S9 to keep its performance consistent over long periods of time. While playing Ex Astris, I didn't feel the Tab S10 Plus get warm at all, although with all settings set to Ultra and the frame rate at 60fps, the tablet's performance did stutter, even in sparsely populated areas.

Inside the Tab S10 is 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, or 512GB in its top-specced form. While that's likely enough room for most users, you can still expand the storage with up to a 1.5TB microSD card should you need to. That's not something you can do with the iPad Pro, even if you can get 1TB and 2TB onboard storage versions of that tablet.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus: Audio

The quad speakers within the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus certainly give any audio you play a lot of oomph, especially for low-end notes, making this an ideal tablet for bassheads.

Listening to the complex and chaotic "Transcendental Cha Cha Cha" by Tom Cardy, the synthy bass notes and drum beats anchoring the song came across best on the Samsung tablet, while my old iPad Pro helped emphasize the castanets, drum machine cymbals, guitar and Cardy's vocals.

Personally, the high-end frequency focus of the iPad Pro's speakers, which brings out more of a track's regular instruments and the percussion parts, is more to my taste. But I still enjoyed listening to music, watching videos and playing games on the Samsung tablet.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus: Battery and charging

The 10,090 mAh battery within the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus is pretty large, but the tablet only lasted 8 hours and 22 minutes on our custom TG battery test (constantly browsing the internet from 100% to 0% charge).

Compared to the incredible 14 hours and 8 minutes that the OnePlus Pad 2 lasted, or the similarly strong 13 hours and 13 minutes or 9 hours and 41 minutes that the iPad Pro M4 and iPad Air M3 (respectively) achieved, that's not particularly impressive.

Anecdotally, I got about 10 hours of screen-on time per charge, perhaps because most of my use wasn't as power-hungry as opening web pages non-stop. I imagine I'd still get more use between charges out of the other tablets we've mentioned, but you can still be confident in the Tab S10 Plus lasting a full day of work if you're nervous about the benchmark result above.

The Tab S10 Plus supports 45W wired charging, but you won't find a charger in the box. Fortunately, we have a compatible charger in our test lab, and we found that the Tab S10 Plus powers from 0% to 40% in 30 minutes. That's pretty good if you need a mid-day refuel, but it's a pity you'll be paying extra for the privilege of this speed.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus: Cameras

Samsung has stuck to including two cameras on the back Galaxy Tab S10 series, even while Apple's dropped the ultrawide from the back of the iPad Pro. The 13MP main and 12MP ultrawide sensors are identical between the Tab S10 Plus and Tab S10 Ultra, as is the 12MP front camera.

But the Ultra gets an additional 12MP ultrawide sensor in its camera notch, as befitting its higher status and price.

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Tablet cameras are not meant for hardcore photography, which is why it's not surprising to see these shots of a coffee plant and a selfie look a little grainy and dark, even for an indoor environment.

The cameras are more than passable for making video calls, though, which is by far the most common thing you'll be using them for on the Tab S10 Plus.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus: Accessories

The S Pen still comes with the Galaxy Tab by default, and is a smooth and low-latency stylus that I loved using.

It's very different from using an Apple Pencil Pro, with its mechanical button for accessing alternative tools and softer tip. But as someone who mostly uses styluses for taking notes and the odd doodle, I don't miss advanced features like Hover or Barrel Roll.

The other main accessory Samsung offers is the AI Book Cover Keyboard, which costs $229/£229 extra. As well as adding an adjustable stand to the tablet, the keyboard itself feels pretty nice to type on and can be used separately from the stand, depending on your needs. However, the trackpad can feel a bit wonky depending on the app you try to use it in.

This revised keyboard also features an AI key, which acts as a shortcut to either Bixby or Google Gemini, as you prefer. It doesn't activate any contextual Galaxy AI features sadly, which I feel would have been a better use of a dedicated key.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus: Software and AI

Samsung has brought its seven-year software support promise from its recent phones to the Galaxy Tab S10 series. That means the Tab S10 series will see full OS and security updates until the end of October 2031, which is the best guaranteed software support of any tablet.

Returning from previous Galaxy Tabs is DeX mode, which switches the standard Android interface to a more laptop-style one. You can open multiple windows and move them around freely or into up to four tiled spots, which offers a reasonable amount of freedom for work if your workflow can be translated into Android apps.

In my case, this was normally very easy since I'm usually writing in or referring to one Google Workspace app or another. However, when I would normally use a company-made Chrome extension to make adjustments to a document or go into Tom's Guide's back-end, it was normally wiser to lock the Tab S10 Plus and open up my laptop instead.

If you prefer to keep things traditional, split view for apps is back, letting you divide the screen between three apps. But this is the traditional style of cramming everything into the screen, rather than the smarter OnePlus Open Canvas system that lets you shift parts of the interface off-screen as required. But the 12.4-inch screen is still plenty large enough to work off an app running at a quarter of its regular size.

I wrote a large part of this review with Google Docs squished into the corner of the screen while my notes and Chrome were open at the same time. It's still not the same level of multitasking that a proper laptop can manage, but it's probably more than enough for most people.

Galaxy AI isn't new to the Galaxy Tab line, but the Tab S10 series is the first set of models to launch with Samsung's AI features included. Once you're settled into the tablet, you can try out features like transforming doodles into more polished versions with Sketch to Image, translating PDFs via an overlay, recording and transcription tools and equation-solving built into the Notes app. You also get the ability to reformat, translate or summarize text across the tablet's One UI interface.

And if that wasn't enough, Google Circle to Search is also available to help you learn about anything curious that appears on your travels.

Having a larger, split-screen canvas makes sense for many of these tools, even if they're no different in function from the version you'll get on a Galaxy S24 or Galaxy Z Fold 6.

Some abilities, like live translation or photo editing, still suit those smaller, more camera-focused devices. But in tablet terms, Samsung has a far more mature AI suite than the OnePlus Pad's OxygenOS or Apple's iPadOS, and makes up for any features it lacks compared to the Pixel Tablet by offering far superior hardware.

For me, the translation tools (which work without an internet connection if you've downloaded the languages needed already) plus the text formatting tools are well worth using.

Since I'm not much of an artist or photo editor, Sketch to Image doesn't have much to offer me beyond showing it to curious friends. And while I wish the audio transcription tools sounded amazing, these are still flummoxed by anyone reading at above-average pace with less-than-perfect enunciation.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus review: Verdict

While not Samsung's ultimate tablet, the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus seems a more well-rounded choice in terms of price and portability compared to the Tab S10 Ultra. And that applies to the competition too, since it roughly splits the difference between the 11-inch and 13-inch size of Apple's comparable iPads, while being no more expensive, especially when you consider the stylus is bundled in for free.

Tablet users, be it for work or play, will appreciate the Tab S10 Plus' brilliant screen and its generous software updates. The bevy of productivity and creativity features between regular software and Galaxy AI also makes this tablet handy for all kinds of users.

However, the weak battery life and middling performance perhaps mean this isn't as capable a laptop replacement as an iPad would be, although that changes depending on what other devices you're using.

Samsung has once again staked a claim on a spot on our best Android tablets list with the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus. The OnePlus Pad remains a far better value device, and could win you over with its battery life alone, but Samsung is the way to go if you seek the best and most complete experience for your Android tablet.