Portable, powerful and proficient — Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra tablet makes mastering the hybrid workday easy

Flexible working arrangements have revolutionised workplaces and many Australian businesses have stuck to their guns by continuing to let their employees split their working hours between the office and at home — or even to just work ‘remotely’, wherever that may be.

Research from Roy Morgan found that 6.7 million Australians, or 46% of employed Australians, work from home at least some of the time, with the remaining 54% working at the business address full time. That share varies slightly depending on location — working from the office is slightly more prevalent in Sydney (55%), while it’s a little less common in Melbourne (52%) and Canberra (51%).

Still, the overall numbers do indicate that there’s broad flexibility across the Australian business landscape — which is a strong argument for equipping yourself with a computing device that can easily adapt to various locations, either as your full-time work device or as a supplementary tool.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra, with its powerful hardware, productive AI tools, rich library of third-party apps and wide variety of optional accessories, might just be the perfect tool for Australian hybrid workers.

Is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra a good tablet for hybrid working?

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra combines powerful hardware that can rival some laptops — a MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset, up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage — with Samsung’s Galaxy AI Suite to create a supremely capable work tablet. It get you robust mobile multitasking prowess and access to a wealth of third-party apps that can keep up with the modern Australian hybrid worker.

Featuring an expansive and vibrant 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X Display in a tablet that’s just 5.1mm thin and weighs 692g (or 695g for the 5G model), it’s also portable enough to comfortably carry between home and office, or while travelling. The IP68 water- and dust-resistance rating, plus protection from the Armor Aluminium used in the chassis brings extra peace of mind that it can hold up in challenging physical environments, too.

As impressive as the hardware is, Samsung’s software is arguably where the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra really shines, that's thanks to the desktop-like Samsung DeX experience, three-split multi-window apps for multitasking, and practical Galaxy AI tools like Note Assist and Transcript Assist. The S Pen stylus is also included in the box, so you don’t have to spend more to add handwriting and drawing capabilities.

How does the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra adapt to suit working across various locations?

A 14.6-inch tablet may sound imposing to some, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra fits that in an ultra-slim build measuring at 5.1mm while weighing under 700g, making it easy to take with you during daily commutes, even with the optional Pro Keyboard (610g) or Book Cover Keyboard Slim (365g).

At the office, you can either set it up as a full workstation with Samsung DeX to provide a PC-like desktop experience (and you can even plug in an external monitor through the Tab S12 Ultra’s USB-C port), or it can operate as a secondary display for your work laptop or desktop.

Away from your desk, it’s likewise easy to bring the Tab S12 Ultra into meetings to use as a multifunctional note-taking slate, where you can handwrite in Samsung Notes with the included S Pen, while simultaneously reading a document and doing AI research at the same time thanks to the multi-window capabilities.

When you need to sneak in a bit of work on the train or bus ride home, the optional 5G capability will let you pick up from where you left off without having to hotspot the device to your phone. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra is also rated for IP68 water and dust resistance, meaning it can withstand a little unpredictable inclement weather in transit, or even the occasional spill.

When you’re working in a brightly illuminated living area at home (or perhaps even outdoors), the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra’s adaptive display has up to 1,600 nits peak brightness to remain visible under bright lights or even sunlight.

How does the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra help professionals stay productive when working remotely?

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra’s 14.6-inch display provides an expansive canvas for taking notes, reading documents and showing presentations, all enclosed in a thin, light and rugged tablet.

Its battery has the stamina to help you stay productive thanks to a 11,600mAh capacity that’s rated for up to 23 hours of video playback on a single charge.

The Samsung DeX desktop mode provides a familiar PC-style desktop interface featuring a taskbar, resizable windows, drag-and-drop support and up to four customisable workspaces. Multitasking is also a breeze, with the three-split multi-window feature letting you simultaneously run a virtual meeting in one window, take notes in Samsung Notes and researching with your AI assistant of choice.

Pairing the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra with the optional Pro Keyboard — which integrates premium features like an aluminium finish, glass trackpad and a dedicated Galaxy AI Key — or the Book Cover Keyboard Slim optimises it further for work and provides that familiar laptop feeling.

Already have a work-issued laptop? No sweat — the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra can serve as a portable secondary monitor for a Windows 11 PC without installing any third-party apps, and you can even continue to use touch input to interact with the S12 Ultra’s screen while doing so.

Can the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra replace a laptop for everyday office tasks?

If your work largely revolves around online cloud-based platforms and doesn’t rely on legacy Windows or macOS applications, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra paired with a Pro Keyboard or Book Cover Keyboard Slim can handily replace a laptop for most everyday office productivity and creative tasks.

Thanks to a desktop-like interface via Samsung DeX, laptop typing and input from the detachable keyboards and the underlying hardware for multitasking prowess, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra can match a laptop for many work tasks — and potentially even best one for content creation.

Its 11,600mAh battery is also rated for up to 23 hours of video playback, so you won’t be reaching for your charger too often, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset is powerful enough to offer smooth, consistent performance, even while multitasking.

What really helps the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra stand apart is the included S Pen, which will let you interact with your device in more ways like sketching, notetaking directly on the screen, highlighting documents and offering finer control in creative apps like Photoshop. Samsung’s Galaxy AI Suite also features useful tools like Note Assist for writing summaries, Writing Assist to help keep your formatting and tone consistent and Transcript Assist to help you stay on top of meetings and other administrative workflows.

And like a laptop, you’ll have access to standard workplace apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Word and Notion, alongside preloaded professional software like Adobe Photoshop, Notability and Goodnotes.

Is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra powerful enough for demanding work tasks?

While the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra isn’t designed or intended to replace all types of work computing devices (specialised graphics and video workstations, your jobs are safe… for now!), the tablet is built with flagship-tier processing hardware, advanced thermal cooling and an extensive suite of professional software to handle demanding tasks.

The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 3nm processor, which has an octa-core CPU clocking up to 4.21GHz. Compared to last year’s Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, the new tablet has better performance. It also offers up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of internal storage, plus there’s a microSD card slot supporting up to an extra 2TB of expandable storage — a rare sight in tablets at this price range.

Supporting all that power is a 3D vapour chamber that dissipates heat faster and more efficiently, so it can help maintain stable frame rates and processing speeds during prolonged, resource-intensive tasks like video editing, 3D rendering or heavy multitasking, without the processor’s speed slowing down to prevent overheating (also known as thermal throttling).

In fact, Samsung is confident enough in the Tab S12 Ultra’s performance that it has preloaded the device with tablet-optimised apps including Adobe Photoshop (with Adobe Firefly generative AI features), multi-track video editor LumaFusion, Clip Studio Paint, Notability, Goodnotes and ArcSite (which converts rough sketches into precise CAD drawings).

The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra includes over AU$539 of bonus value

To help new owners hit the ground running, Samsung has included more than AU$539 worth of extra value with every Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra purchase:

• Included S Pen valued at AU$129
• 6 months of Google AI Pro valued at AU$197.94
• 4 months of Adobe Photoshop valued at AU$143.96
• 6 months of Notability Plus valued at AU$69

For more information on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra, visit the Samsung Australia website.