Following in the footsteps of Samsung’s phones and watches, the new Galaxy Tab S10+ and S10 Ultra bring a heavy helping of AI-powered features to what’s long been one of the best tablets around for Android users. The question is, do you actually need all that stuff?
The Galaxy Tab S10 series joins the new Galaxy S24 FE smartphone and recently released Galaxy Watch FE as part of Samsung’s push to give even more people access to its suite of AI tools designed to help you do things like write, translate, create and just goof off. Samsung’s new tablet and phone are up for preorder now ahead of their Oct. 3 release date, and based on our early hands-on time, have plenty of compelling selling points — even if AI isn’t necessarily one of them.
The new Galaxy Tab S10+ promises improved performance and loads of Galaxy AI tricks within a rich, vibrant 12.4-inch display.
For an even bigger 14.6-inch display and up to 1TB of storage, check out the beastly Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE looks like a serious budget phone contender, with a slick design, a flagship-like display and plenty of features.
The same great Samsung tablet, now with AI
The Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra doesn’t look or feel terribly different from the Tab S9 Ultra I reviewed last year. Despite the fact that its gargantuan 14.6-inch display is more canvas than most people need, the big slate still felt lightweight in my hands as I swiped and doodled around. I’m a fan of the almost bluish Moonstone Gray color I got my hands on, though like Apple’s Midnight-colored products, this finish was very prone to fingerprints.
All of the things I expect from a Galaxy Tab are accounted for here: a rich, vibrant AMOLED display; an included S Pen (a key advantage Samsung slates have over iPads); and snappy performance as I split the screen between multiple apps. The big story here is the arrival of?Galaxy AI, and much like what I experienced on the Galaxy S24 earlier this year, it’s a mixed bag when it comes to usefulness and reliability.
One of the tablet’s marquee AI features is Sketch to Image, which lets you doodle something in your Notes app and ostensibly have Galaxy AI turn it into a nice-looking piece of art. I started testing this out by making a quick doodle of a baby hippo (yes, I’ve got Moo Deng on the brain), which Galaxy AI successfully recognized and turned into a series of surprisingly nice-looking virtual paintings. Not only did Samsung’s AI use the correct colors and details to fill out my messy outline sketch of a hippo hanging out by some grass and water, but it also created some alternate interpretations that got up close on the creature’s face while giving me both photorealistic and watercolor-esque takes on it.
Galaxy AI also lets you make doodles on top of existing photos to add funny new elements to them, like a hat or pair of glasses that wasn’t there before. I tried this out on a photo of my dog, and the results ranged from amusingly bad to downright horrifying. I thought I’d turn my rowdy little French bulldog into a hooper by simply drawing a headband on her head and a basketball near her feet. For some reason, Galaxy AI took this as a cue to give her a completely different face, resulting in photos that straight-up spooked me. Hilariously, Samsung’s AI assistant also gave my dog a top hat after I drew a baseball cap on her head, though at least it kept her face intact. I still had some fun with Sketch to Image, and do appreciate that all of the photos I made had a clear “AI-generated content” watermark. Just don’t expect to become the next Picasso with these tools — and if you don’t like nightmares, maybe steer clear of making AI drawings on your loved ones’ faces.
AI upgrades aside, Samsung says to expect an 18% bump in CPU performance and 28% better graphical chops compared to the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, which itself fared very well in our tests. The company promises up to 16 hours of video playback when it comes to battery life, as well as speedy 45W recharging. You’ll have your choice of a 12.4- or 14.6-inch display, both of which have a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling and drawing.
The Galaxy S24 FE seems like a legit iPhone rival
The Galaxy S24 FE is being positioned as an affordable AI phone, but that’s not why it stands out. Those comparing phones without any brand loyalty might actually see reasons to choose this phone over the iPhone 16.
For example, Samsung’s S24 FE is $149 cheaper than the iPhone 16, and unlike Apple’s phone, actually packs a 3x optical zoom (in addition to its 50-megapixel main camera and ultrawide sensor). Meanwhile, the iPhone 16’s 48MP main camera packs a 2x optical-quality zoom that can pass for optical. I looked pretty accurate in the selfie I snapped at the press demo.
Samsung’s 6.7-inch S24 FE felt nice in my hand. But while its Blue and Mint color options definitely dazzle more than the Graphite black and Gray (which is more of a white), the iPhone 16’s punchy pink, teal and Ultramarine colors are still more striking.
The S24 FE’s display looked good in my time with it, from the bright blue-and-pink background I chose for the home screen to the glowing red lasers in Marvel’s “Thunderbolts” trailer. This panel’s got one key advantage over the iPhone 16: a 120Hz display for the kind of smoother scrolling and animations that Apple makes you pay more for with the iPhone 16 Pro.
As for performance, the S24 FE’s Exynos 2400 chipset seemed to overperform against my lack of expectations. Everything moved smoothly enough, especially for a budget phone.
While the big story Samsung’s pushing is that Galaxy AI is “for all,” I’d argue that this stuff is still of beta-testing quality, which Apple isn’t shying away from. Apple’s own Apple Intelligence features will be marked as “in beta” when they go live next month.
It took me two tries to doodle a tie that Samsung’s Sketch to Image feature — which lets you create digital overlays of objects on actual photos — could actually interpret as a tie. That second time, I’ll admit, looked pretty decent, but I still wondered why anyone would use this. In the presentation to the press, Samsung VP of mobile project management Drew Blackard espoused the feature as something his kids can’t stop using. That makes sense for the silliness and quality at hand, as I still don’t find this juice to be worth the squeeze.
I also had mixed results when I tested the transcription, translation and summarization features in the voice memos app. First, I mixed English and Spanish in the same monologue to see it transcribe “como te llamas” as “comotayamas,” and “me llamo” as “miyamo.” In another attempt, it transcribed my voice as coming from two different people (Speaker 1 and Speaker 2), which was really amusing. That said, straight-up translation of English to Spanish worked more accurately. So, consider the S24 FE as a value buy, not because it’s offering a lower barrier of entry to Samsung Galaxy AI.
The takeaway
The Galaxy Tab S10 series and Galaxy S24 FE both look like solid refinements on products we really dig already, even if we could take or leave the myriad AI stuff that’s packed into them.
The Tab S10+ and S10 Ultra could be a very strong contender to the best tablets throne for the Android crowd, particularly if you need a large and speedy slate that can do some desktop-esque tasks. Likewise, the Galaxy S24 FE is shaping up to be a strong midrange phone that punches above its weight so well, it could prove to be a legitimate alternative to true flagships like the iPhone 16 or an older Pixel phone.
Your mileage may vary on how useful Galaxy AI ends up being for you, but even if you don’t care about having an assistant that can reword your text messages or summarize long essays, you’ll still be getting a slick, reliably fast phone or tablet for your money. We look forward to putting both the Tab S10 range and Galaxy S24 FE through our full review gauntlet, so stay tuned for more thoughts.
