Samsung's 2026 tablets start at $1,400 and $1,200, both run a Dimensity 9500 chip, and the Ultra now begins at 256GB. Here's how the two compare.
Samsung's new Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra keeps its huge 14.6-inch screen and 11,600mAh battery, but drops the cheaper 128GB model. It now starts at $1,400 (£1,399 in the UK) with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM.
The Tab S12+ is the bigger change. It replaces the two-year-old Tab S10+ and gets a 12.6-inch screen, up from 12.4 inches, for $1,200.
Reviews praise the screen, speed and battery life, which lasted more than 19 hours in one video test. But the upgrades over last year are small, so a discounted Tab S11 Ultra may be the better deal.
Samsung’s biggest tablet didn’t get bigger this year. It got more expensive to get into. The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra keeps the same 14.6-inch screen and the same battery as last year’s model, but Samsung dropped the cheaper 128GB version, so it now starts at $1,400 with 256GB of storage.
If you’re shopping for a premium Android tablet, that matters. Samsung is now close to the only company making a true high-end rival to Apple’s iPad Pro, and the Tab S12 Ultra and Tab S12+ are its two answers. The question is whether the changes, mostly a new chip and a slightly larger screen on the Plus, are worth paying for over last year’s models, which are now cheaper.
The Ultra is bigger and has a better camera setup; otherwise the two are close. Here’s how they line up:
Both are IP68 rated, meaning they’re protected against dust and can survive being dunked in fresh water, and both come with an S Pen stylus in the box.
The Tab S12+ display grows to 12.6 inches. Samsung’s Plus tablets have used a 12.4-inch screen since the Tab S6+ in 2020, so this is the first size change in years, though it only adds about 3% more screen area.
The Plus also skipped a generation. Samsung alternates its standard and Plus tablets, so the Tab S12+ replaces the two-year-old Tab S10+, not a Tab S11+. That means a bigger jump in performance from the old Dimensity 9300+ chip. The battery rises slightly, from 10,090mAh to 10,600mAh. One oddity: Samsung removed the 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera the Tab S10+ had.
Samsung hasn’t explained the change, but the effect is clear. The cheapest Tab S12 Ultra now has 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Last year’s Tab S11 Ultra offered a 128GB option, which was the cheapest way to get an Ultra.
The other upgrades are modest. Besides the chip, the changes over the Tab S11 Ultra amount to new shades of gray. Even the chip isn’t MediaTek’s newest. Samsung used the Dimensity 9500 rather than the newer, more efficient Dimensity 9600 Pro, possibly because it wasn’t ready in time. MediaTek says the 9500 still offers 32% better single-core and 17% better multi-core performance than the previous Ultra’s chip.
Reports differ on whether the new tablets have a microSD card slot, so check the spec sheet before counting on cheap extra storage.
Reviewers have been impressed, with caveats. In one battery test that loops video, the Ultra lasted 19 hours and 39 minutes. A reviewer who flew from London to Hawaii, a trip of more than 18 hours, never had to plug it in.
It’s fast too. In the Geekbench 7 benchmark, it posted a multi-core score of 9,403, ahead of a Dell XPS 13 laptop. Samsung’s DeX mode adds a desktop-style layout with a taskbar and windows, and you can run three apps on screen at once. Photoshop now comes preinstalled.
The complaints: only one USB-C port, 12GB of RAM rather than 16GB at this price, and an S Pen that clips to the outside instead of tucking inside the tablet.
Both tablets also lean on AI. Galaxy AI’s Writing Assist tidies up documents, Drawing Assist cleans up sketches, and Google’s Gemini assistant and Circle to Search are built in. Samsung is adding free trials as a sweetener: Photoshop comes with a few months free, and the note-taking app Notability arrives on an Android tablet for the first time.
The Tab S12 Ultra costs $1,400 in the US and £1,399 in the UK. The Tab S12+ starts at $1,200. Samsung’s Pro keyboard cover costs £399 in the UK, which takes an Ultra with keyboard past £1,700. Canadian pricing wasn’t included in the reports we reviewed.
For comparison, an 11-inch iPad Pro also starts at $1,200, and the 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,500 with a smaller screen than the Ultra.
The money-saving tip is the old model. Because the S12 Ultra is an evolution rather than a big leap, last year’s Tab S11 Ultra offers most of the same experience. In the UK it has been found for under £1,199, a saving of about £200. Unless you need the newer chip, a discounted S11 Ultra is the smarter buy.
The Tab S12+ has a 12.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED display, slightly larger than the 12.4-inch screen on earlier Plus models.
Both have the same chip, so pick the Ultra for the biggest screen and extra camera, or the Plus for a lower price and a more portable size.
Yes. Both the Ultra and the Plus include an S Pen in the box, and it doesn’t need charging.
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