I tried Samsung’s huge Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, and its disappointing chipset lets down an otherwise fantastic media and gaming machine

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review: Two-minute review

If you need a big tablet, you can’t go wrong with the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, which sports a gigantic 14.6-inch display that offers a 16:10 aspect ratio, which not only offers plenty of screen real estate compared to alternatives like iPads but also makes the S11 Ultra perfect for watching widescreen movies and shows. Of course, the large screen also lends itself well to productivity and gaming as well.

Staying true to Samsung’s other ‘Ultra’ devices, the Tab S11 Ultra brings all the bells and whistles to justify its high asking price. Like the Galaxy S26 Ultra, an S Pen stylus is included in the box, while the full Galaxy AI suite takes advantage of the larger display with features like screen sharing in Gemini Live and drawing tools like Creative Studio and Sketch to Image. It also retains the IP68 water- and dust-resistant rating from its predecessor, which is still rare for most modern tablets. Granted, these features are also available in the smaller (and cheaper) 11-inch Tab S11, so it’s hardly the reason why you would buy the much larger Ultra.

Otherwise, this is another iterative update from the Tab S10 Ultra, which was a disappointment in itself. Our tester wasn’t happy with the older tablet’s lackluster battery life and the MediaTek processor in our Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra review. The good news is that the Tab S11 Ultra has better CPU performance and the battery lasts 1.5-2 hours longer, but the bad news is that MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ doesn’t compare well with the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor in the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which is faster. And that makes me question Samsung’s decision to switch from Snapdragon CPUs in the Tab S9 series to MediaTek in the 10th- and 11th-generation slates.

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Admittedly, the MediaTek provides better graphics performance, and can also handle ray-tracing better than the Snapdragon to reinforce the Tab S11 Ultra’s gaming focus but, when compared to a similarly priced iPad Pro with an Apple M5 chip — a desktop-class CPU that is more powerful than many Windows laptops — the Tab S11 Ultra feels overpriced even for a top-of-the-line tablet.

The minor upgrades come with a price hike over the S10 Ultra, and you won’t be able to reuse the older cases and keyboards from the Tab S10 Ultra and Tab S9 Ultra because of the thinner chassis, so you’d have to shell out more cash for new ones.

If you want the biggest, best display to run Android apps and games on, and watch widescreen movies and shows, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is a great choice, but if you want to run pro-level software, you’re better off with a similarly priced iPad Pro.

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review: price and availability

• Available since September 2025
• Price starts at $1,299 / £1,269 / AU$2,099
• A 5G model is also available in the UK and Australia from £1,419 / AU$2,349

With a starting price of $1,299 / £1,269 / AU$2,099 for the base model featuring 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is Samsung’s biggest and most expensive tablet to date, comparable to the iPad Pro 13-inch that will set you back $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,199.

In some aspects that’s a win, given that the Samsung offers 65% more screen area with the 14.6-inch display, but the flip side to that is the OLED display on the iPad Pro is brighter and sharper.

An S Pen stylus is included in the box with the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, while an Apple Pencil is sold separately for $129 / £129 / AU$219. It’s a nice bonus, as is the fact that Samsung does multitasking better than Apple.

However — and this is the biggest issue I have with the S11 Ultra’s price — the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ chipset is a disappointment compared to Apple’s M5 silicon in the iPad Pro, and it doesn’t even top the Apple M4 in the iPad Air, which is $300 / £300 / AU$650 cheaper.

The larger screen makes the Tab S11 Ultra a good laptop replacement, but Samsung sells the accessories separately. You can pick up a slim keyboard and case combo for $199.99 / £189 / AU$399 or an aluminum Pro Keyboard that makes the Tab S11 Ultra work like a laptop for $349.99 / £329 / AU$599. That added cost makes that combination more expensive than more powerful laptops, including ones with discrete GPUs.

Unless you need a water-resistant tablet or if your games are only available on Android, it’s hard to justify the price tag for the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra. I think the older Tab S10 FE is a much better buy at $449 / £429 / AU$849.

• Value: 3/5

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review: specs

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review: display

• Massive 14.6-inch screen makes for a big and heavy device
• Samsung retains Wacom tech for the S Pen

Like its predecessor, I’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger and better display on an Android tablet than the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra’s huge 14.6-inch OLED screen. It’s even brighter than the S10 Ultra’s 930 nits (now 1600 nits), which is the same as the M5 iPad Pro.

The screen brightness is great indoors, which is a given for most tablets these days, but it was also bright enough to use outdoors. I watched an entire movie during a 3.5-hour bus ride while at a window seat and I didn’t have to draw the curtains in.

If you are considering a tablet as a laptop replacement, the Tab S11 Ultra gives you more screen space than a 14-inch Macbook Pro and outdoes its competition in the similarly priced iPad Pro. The latter, however, has a sharper OLED screen with a 264 pixel per inch density, compared to 239ppi on Samsung’s display.

Because it’s from Samsung, the Tab S11 Ultra has HDR10+ support, while iPad Pros favor Dolby Vision.

Samsung has also retained Wacom’s electromagnetic resonance (EMR) technology for its S Pen, meaning the stylus is passive and it doesn’t need a battery to write or draw with. That said, no battery means the S Pen doesn’t support Bluetooth anymore — just like the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s included S Pen.

• Display: 5/5

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review: design

• Water-resistant design
• Thinner and lighter than the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra

A tablet this size prioritizes the viewing experience over design, which means the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra isn’t anything special to look at. I like the clean design, but otherwise it’s just a big slab, much like every other Android tablet I’ve seen.

Like the Tab S10 Ultra, the S11 Ultra has four direct-firing speakers hidden around the edges to provide full stereo stage audio when the tablet is in landscape mode for movie watching. During testing, the audio sounded clear and full-bodied, and was loud enough to fill a medium-sized room, and I never felt like I had to reach for my headphones or hook the tablet up to a portable speaker.

The tablet now has just one front camera instead of two from the Tab S10 Ultra, which in turn reduces the notch size. The camera is still in the centre of the Tab S11 Ultra’s long side to favor landscape orientation for video calls, providing a natural head-on eyeline. Apple’s iPads, on the other hand, have cameras on the short side (meant for vertical or portrait orientation).

The Tab S11 Ultra retains the same button layout as the S10 Ultra, with power and volume on the top edge in landscape mode (or the right edge when in portrait orientation).

The S Pen attaches to the Tab S11 Ultra on its edges magnetically instead of having a dedicated strip on the back like on the S10 Ultra, similar to how an Apple Pencil attaches to iPads. However, I would recommend buying Samsung’s back cover if you want a more secure way to store the stylus via a recessed groove to cradle it — I found the magnetic attachment wasn’t strong enough and the S Pen would invariably come away when traveling with it in my bag.

As mentioned, the Galaxy S11 Ultra can be used as a laptop replacement thanks to its large screen and Samsung sells keyboard cases that will cost you extra. During my testing, however, I paired it with a wireless keyboard (Logitech MX Keys Mini) and used a laptop stand to prop it up and it was fine, but hardly a setup portable enough to bring to a cafe.

• Design: 4/5

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review: software

• The best tablet software for multitasking
• Now has more gaming-specific software

Samsung’s One UI software, running on top of Android 16, is packed with features that shine on a big tablet compared to a smaller smartphone display. I found multitasking to be a breeze, with up to three split-screen apps (one large, two small) running at the same time, and five pop-up windows can be layered on top of these. That’s a total of eight active apps all at once! Tiling and arranging windows are as easy as dragging them where you want them to go.

Like other Galaxy Tabs, apps and conversations can be opened via pop-up bubbles, and the S Pen enables pop-up notetaking when you just need a quick. I used it for work research and taking notes in Samsung Notes, and the process was easy and comfortable.

To test the multitasking, I joined a video call on one side while playing a game on the other, and also had a YouTube video in a floating window. The Tab S11 Ultra handled all applications well, with no crashes or slowing framerates.

While Samsung’s operating system is great, I couldn’t really think of too many Android apps that would truly maximize the large screen. I downloaded the drawing and painting app Krita, and the display accommodated the extensive menus and the canvas well to make it look like the app’s desktop version. I also downloaded the video editing app LumaFusion, and the tablet’s screen was able to display a longer timeline, although this really isn’t the best example for recommending an expensive tablet as I think most people would find an app like LumaFusion would be fine on a smaller screen too.

It’s evident that Samsung also made this tablet with DeX (desktop experience) in mind, where you can either use the mode on the device itself to emulate a laptop-like interface or with an external monitor plugged in. DeX looks like a hybrid of Windows and macOS, with both a persistent taskbar and a floating dock with app icons available at your disposal. My favorite feature is being able to snap windows to the side to take an entire half of the screen, or a corner to automatically resize into a quadrant.

DeX runs the tablet’s apps in windows, which can result in some weird ‘stretching’ when you maximize some apps that aren’t fully supported. One workaround I found is to forgo the apps altogether and just open their web version with the Samsung Internet browser (instead of Chrome) to load their desktop versions. This extra layer of friction takes points away from the Tab S11 Ultra as a true laptop replacement, and you may be better off getting the real thing.

One UI 8.5 now provides a real dual-screen mode on DeX while you plug in an external monitor, where the cursor can move through both screens, and windows can be dragged and dropped from one display to the other. Some apps now adapt depending on the screen, defaulting to desktop mode on the external monitor, then reverting to the touch-optimized version when the window is moved to the tablet.

As someone who finds that a single display just doesn’t cut it anymore for productivity, this mode made the Tab S11 Ultra a viable work machine during my testing.

When Samsung said this tablet was aimed at gaming enthusiasts, it sure meant it. One UI 8.5 introduced new gaming software in the Tab S11 Ultra, including per-game CPU and GPU tuning, native controller mapping and High-Performance mode. There’s also MediaTek HyperEngine to customize ray-tracing and variable rate shading, as well as some AI-powered features to let you skip game intros and automatically mute ads found in free-to-play games.

I tested several of these features and, while they didn’t improve my experience with the games I tried, I can see them being potentially beneficial for competitive multiplayer gamers.

Of course, there’s the full Galaxy AI suite, headlined by a dedicated button found on the Samsung keyboards to activate Gemini or Bixby. A few Galaxy AI features maximize the Tab S11 Ultra’s size, like Sketch to Image (which converts sketches to an AI-generated image), Note Assist (cleans up handwriting) and Math Solver (more room to show complex equations and graphs).

Like most of Samsung’s phones and tablets, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra has 7 years of support, which includes 7 generations of Android/One UI upgrades, security patches, hardware support and self-repair. Since tablets are usually replaced less frequently than a smartphone, long-term support like this is welcome indeed.

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review: performance

• Decent for Android, but nowhere near the iPad Pro
• I wish this had a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset instead

As I’ve already mentioned, Samsung has once again used a MediaTek chipset in the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, which puts it at a disadvantage over the iPad Pro with its desktop-class Apple M5 chip — which is more powerful than many Windows laptops. While the Dimensity 9400+ is a decent mobile processor and a meaningful upgrade over the Tab S10 Ultra’s Dimensity 9300+ (Samsung is claiming a 15-20% CPU boost), the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra doesn’t come close to the M5’s performance.

The MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ is designed for gaming and marketed to gamers, and while it wins some benchmarks on the graphics side, it falls short on processing performance compared to even Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon CPU being used in Samsung’s phones. Again, given its high asking price, it’s hard to justify the S11 Ultra for gamers only and I question why the South Korean tech giant didn’t use the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset from the Galaxy S25 Ultra handset instead.

Geekbench rates last year’s S25 Ultra higher than the Tab S11 Ultra in three out out of four benchmarking tests, beating the tablet in single-core (2,847 vs 2,633), multi-core (9,408 vs 8,633) and even the GPU-focused Vulkan (23,871 vs 22,023). The only test the Tab Ultra wins is in OpenCL, which also measures GPU performance, with a score of 20,468 versus the S25 Ultra’s 17,871.

And that was evident in my testing. A resource-intensive game like Asphalt Legends ran very smoothly at max settings. However, its on-screen controls felt unwieldy and it’s better used with a third-party controller — so it’s good news that Samsung has improved external controller support with the S11 Ultra. The flip side to this is that you would have to lug around an additional item if you want to play while on the move.

With a tablet being able to dissipate heat better than a phone, I can only imagine how much better the Snapdragon 8 Elite could have performed in the same tests without the same thermal throttling it has to deal with in a smartphone chassis. Samsung could have also considered the laptop-class Snapdragon X processors found in the Samsung Galaxy Books if the company wanted to match the tablet up with the iPad Pro. Instead, the Tab S11 Ultra remains a mid-range tablet with a giant screen like the Tab S10 Ultra.

Even taking the M5 iPad Pro out of the equation, it’s hard to justify the S11 Ultra over a similarly priced laptop with better specs, like the Lenovo Legion Slim 5 powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU and an Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU ($1,249 / £1,150 / AU$2,199). Not to mention, the Lenovo includes a keyboard, while the Tab S11 Ultra needs the $349.99 / £329 / AU$599 Samsung Pro Keyboard to become a serious contender as a true laptop replacement.

• Performance: 3/5

Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review: battery

• More battery life than the Tab S10 Ultra despite the slimmer chassis

Battery life on the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra has improved a little from its predecessor, thanks to an extra 400mAh in the new pack and the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ being a more power-efficient chipset. I tested the battery by streaming a 1080p video with the screen at full brightness, and it took 11 hours for the Tab S11 Ultra battery to drain. In comparison, the Tab S10 Ultra lasted 9 hours in a similar test done by our Future Labs last year.

The 45W fast charging also topped up the battery just as quickly, with the Tab S11 Ultra reaching 20% in 15 minutes, 35% in 30 minutes, and full at just 1 hour and 45 minutes. The Tab S10 Ultra has the same 45W rating, while the M5 iPad Pro is officially rated at 40W, (though Apple claims it can support up to 60W fast charging with higher-wattage power adapters like a MacBook power brick).

• Battery: 4/5

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How I tested the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra

I used the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra for two weeks as a work tablet and my main device for watching content and gaming outside of office hours. I also brought it with me on a holiday to watch movies and play games while in transit. I loaded it with my work accounts and apps, including Slack and Google Meet. I also downloaded SimCity Build It, Age of Empires Mobile and Asphalt Legends — as well as streaming games via Steam Link — to test the gaming features. I paired the tablet with an 8BitDo controller via Bluetooth to complete my gaming setup for this review.

To test the tablet’s durability, I dunked it in my kitchen sink filled with water and rinsed it repeatedly. I did not get the Samsung keyboard with trackpad cover as a test unit, but I paired it with my Logitech MX Keys Mini keyboard and a Logitech MX Anywhere mouse to test it as a laptop replacement. The Tab S11 Ultra was also connected to my ZSUS portable USB-C monitor. I independently tested and benchmarked the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, using software like Geekbench and a battery test for video playback.

First reviewed May 2026