Samsung's Galaxy Tab S10 Arrives with MediaTek SoC and Tons of AI
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Following a series of leaks and rumors, Samsung has officially announced the Galaxy Tab S10, succeeding the Galaxy Tab S9 that was launched more than a year ago. But instead of arriving in a trio of models, this year's flagship Galaxy Tab series only consists of the Plus and Ultra. The duo brings several upgrades while being the first tablets to debut with Galaxy AI out-of-the-box.
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The Galaxy Tab S10+ and S10 Ultra retain their AMOLED display sizes at 12.4-inch and 14.6-inch, respectively, along with a 120 Hz refresh rate. However, these panels gain an anti-reflective coating that reduces glare and reflection, providing better clarity when the tablets are under bright lights or sunlight.
Like last year's Galaxy Tab S9, the Tab S10 is rated with IP68 dust and water resistance. This applies to the S Pen, which is bundled here so you won't need to spend another Benjamin on acquiring a third-party active stylus.
While the Tab S10+ and Tab S10 Ultra carry over the slab design and armor aluminum build, they are both a hair thinner and almost a third of an ounce lighter than their respective predecessors. They will come in moonstone gray and silver finishes.
We also get the same notch in the Tab S10 Ultra, which houses dual 12 MP front-facing snappers. The Plus variant gets a single 12 MP sensor, but it shares the same 13 MP wide and an 8 MP ultrawide camera at the back. Both modules can record up to 4K video.
Samsung switches to MediaTek chipset for its flagship tablets
It was rumored that Samsung is fitting the Galaxy Tab S10 with a MediaTek SoC and that is confirmed to be true here. Instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Tab S10 and Tab S10 Ultra run on a Dimensity 9300+ platform, breaking the company's tradition in the past years of adopting a Qualcomm chip on its flagship tablets.
Samsung touts improvements of 17 percent in CPU and 30 percent in GPU in the Galaxy Tab S10 than the Galaxy Tab S9 series. And compared to the more recent Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, the Dimensity 9300+ has an octa-core processor and graphics unit that offer slightly higher clock speed. However, we doubt there will be noticeable differences in real-world usage.
Moreover, many benchmarks seem to favor the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC when it comes to stability and heat management over the Dimensity 9300+ chip, so it's interesting to see what system measures Samsung has placed to manage the chip.
Memory configurations in the Tab S10+ and Tab S10 Ultra are unchanged as base models of both are getting 256/512 GB expandable storage and 12 GB of RAM. The Ultra is the only option that you can get with 1 TB storage paired with a bigger 16 GB RAM, plus it has a faster Wi-Fi 7 on board.
Similarly, the battery capacities and charging speed here are not receiving any increase. The Tab S10+ is equipped with 10,090 mAh cells and 11,200 mAh in the Ultra while both have 45 watts charging.
AI features in the Galaxy Tab S10 (Ultra)
With AI becoming everything this year, it's no surprise that the Galaxy AI here is one of the big highlights of the Galaxy Tab S10. The tablets boot on Android 14 with generative AI integrated with select apps, including in notes through Note assist for formatting text, PDF translation, summarization, and more. Meanwhile, users can better leverage the S Pen for drawing through Sketch to Image in Penup and Gallery.
New official accessories are launching alongside the Galaxy Tab S10 as well. The new Galaxy Book6 Cover keyboard, which is sold separately, will get a dedicated Galaxy AI button.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ and Tab S10 Ultra pricing
Pre-orders for the Galaxy Tab S10 will begin today with the first shipment to arrive on October 4. The Wi-Fi base variant of the Galaxy Tab 10 is priced at $999 while the Tab S10 Ultra in the same configuration starts at $1199.
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