Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Review – Slim Flagship Tablet Tested

Launched alongside the Galaxy Tab S25 FE and the Galaxy Buds3 FE, the Galaxy Tab S11 series this time around skips the Plus variant. Instead, Samsung has only issued the new line-up with two models in the form of the base Galaxy Tab S11 design and the massive Ultra model. 

We got our hands on the latter. After using it as my primary work device in lieu of the usual work laptop for the better part of a month, here’s my Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review where I get down to brass tacks as to whether this massive flagship slate is worth what you pay for.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Review – Build and Design

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is the successor to the earlier Tab S10 Ultra. Not only is the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra lighter, but thinner too at just 5.1mm and weighing in at just 692g; its predecessor was 5.4mm thin and weighed 718g.

Even with the reduction in size and thickness, the tablet still maintains a robust IP68 dust and water resistance rating while retaining the same 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.

The new display is brighter too with 1,600 nits peak brightness for better clarity under sunlight conditions while retaining HDR10+ support and an anti-reflective coating that mitigates harsh glare.

Like its predecessor, our Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review sample has a chassis made of Armor Aluminium, which offers a measure of increased resistance to minor drops, nicks and scratches.

The layout is similar to the older model with a volume rocker and power button emplaced on the left edge of the top portion of the tablet while a microSD card tray is placed on the opposite right edge. Both sides of the tablet are flanked by a pair of speaker slits while a USB-C slot is parked on the right side for charging duties. 

There’s also a magnetised portion up top for you to park the bundled S Pen stylus. You also get an under-display fingerprint sensor on the right quadrant which is ideally placed for right-handed users. Southpaws will just need to get used to using their offhand to unlock the tablet.

In terms of build and design, the tablet feels both slim and sturdy and is almost light enough to wield one-handed. Up front, the display has a tiny teardrop shaped notch to house the single 12MP selfie camera. The backplate is otherwise unremarkable save for the oblong-shaped camera housing on the rear that houses a 13MP and an 8MP ultra wide angle camera.

Rather than selling it separately like the competition, Samsung has bundled the wireless keyboard case with the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra itself which adds a measure of value to its price tag. 

The keyboard case is a straightforward design that features both a Galaxy AI as well as a DeX mode shortcut key though it lacks a touchpad. Having a touchpad at the base would have been nice and would have made it look and feel more like a laptop replacement but it’s not a deal breaker.

Like all Samsung flagships in the past several years, our Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review sample lacks a bundled charger though it does come with the USB-C charging cable.

The keyboard case itself latches on magnetically to the tablet’s backplate with the bottom half swinging out to fit into an angled groove just above the keyboard when deployed which cants the tablet at about a fixed 35-degree angle.

This angle makes it ideal for usage on a standard table as it matches an average user’s eyeline. Unfortunately, this limits its ability to be deployed at other angles like on your lap where you need a gentler incline.

That quibble aside, the bundled S Pen stylus now has an octagonal grip which prevents it from rolling around and has the same 4,096  levels of pressure sensitivity as its predecessor. However, this current generation is a passive, unpowered design so it lacks Bluetooth-connectivity and the ability to trigger Air Commands and gestures from a distance so it can’t act as a remote camera shutter release or to scroll through the interface from a distance.

Build quality overall is excellent and Samsung hasn’t skimped on features or materials with every aspect of the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra looking and feeling premium on top of having IP68 dust and water resistance in keeping with its status as Samsung’s premier tablet design for 2025.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Review – Performance and Benchmarks

Our Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review unit runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ processor across all regions. For the Malaysia market, it ships with 12GB RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of expandable storage with WiFi only and 5G-enabled versions. 

The highest end, tricked out version with 512GB storage and 5G connectivity sets you back RM6,499. Our Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review unit is the base configuration with 256GB storage with WiFi only connectivity and retails for RM5,499.

If you need more storage, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra features a microSD card tray that lets you slot in a card up to 2TB in size which is more than enough to store an entire season of Game of Thrones with space to spare.

On paper, the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ outpaces the prior Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra’s MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ processor by up to 24% while featuring a more robust NPU. Under the hood, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra runs the latest Android 16 with Samsung’s One UI 8.0 overlaying it with the latest Galaxy AI features including Audio Eraser. 

Connectivity is top notch with fast WiFi 7 with Bluetooth 5.4 and a USB-C 3.2 port that supports fast data transfers and 45W fast charging. Here’s how our Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review unit stacks up on paper:

 

Price	RM5,499 (256GB, WiFi), RM5,999 (512GB, WiFi), RM5,999 (256GB, 5G), RM6,499 (512GB, 5G)
Display	14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 1,848 x 2,960 pixels resolution, 120Hz, 1,600 nits peak brightness, HDR10+
Processor	Mediatek Dimensity 9400+
OS	Android 16 w/ One UI 8
Memory	12GB RAM / 256GB or 512GB storage
Cameras	13MP f/2.0 + 8MP f/2.2 [rear] / 12MP f/2.4 [front]
Battery	11,600mAh w 45W wired
Size/Weight	326.3 x 208.5 x 5.1mm / 692g

Of note is that Samsung supports 7 years of OS and security updates, ensuring that the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra remains up to date and secure for a longer time than many competing tablets. In terms of synthetic benchmarks, we got the following:

3D Mark Steel Nomad Light	2,438
3D Mark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	2,372
3D Mark WildLife Extreme	6,039
3D Mark WildLife Extreme Unlimited	5,648
3D Mark Solar Bay Extreme	795
3D Mark Solar Bay Extreme Unlimited	767
Geekbench 6 Single Core	2,504
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	8,766
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	20,945
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	22,361
Geekbench AI (CPU quanticised)	2,955
Geekbench AI (GPU quanticised)	1.585
PCMark Work 3.0 Performance	16,077
PCMark Battery Life	16 hours 26 min

Objectively speaking, we were issued the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus last year rather than the Tab S10 Ultra but it otherwise utilised a similar Dimensity 9300+ chipset, with an identical 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.

When compared side by side, our Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review unit and its Dimensity 9400+ chipset show marked single, multicore and graphics improvement across the board including improved battery life in benchmarks at 16 hours and 26 minutes.

When put to the test, the tablet did not disappoint and it was able to blaze through normal tasks like word processing, web browsing and other general computing tasks in a wonderful smooth fashion. It was a treat in gaming as well and playing Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile on a screen this large is certainly a unique experience. 

On the audio front, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra’s quad speaker setup flanking the display was a pleasant surprise, offering loud enough volume and a measure of detail for entertainment and gaming duties alike. Even when cranked up to maximum volume, the speakers were still up to the task for music and gaming duties with minimal distortion.

Gaming aside, the large display comes in particularly handy for spreadsheets, comparing documents side by side, video editing on CapCut and heavy multitasking. With One UI 8, you’re able to reposition apps, adjust their window size and run up to five of them onscreen at the same time. Samsung’s popular DeX is also on hand and users are able to wirelessly cast the tablet’s screen to a compatible monitor.

Perhaps the only quibble here is the fixed angle of the keyboard case and while it is ideally angled for use on a work desk, the lack of angle adjustability means that using it on my lap on the train was a less than ideal experience.

Your mileage can and will vary depending on what apps you are reliant on for your tasks but for what I need for the day job, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra proved to be a very competent laptop replacement.

In my usage period over several weeks, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra I made liberal use of CapCut, TikTok, Facebook as well as Microsoft Office and Google Docs as part of my regular workflow. As mentioned, multitasking was a joy on the tablet, limited only by the fact that only up to five open windows and apps can run simultaneously onscreen with older apps being closed when you open new ones.

The provided S Pen stylus was an added advantage over a standard laptop, and proved to be useful for annotating documents. It also offered smooth and responsive input for sketching on the expansive display.

 

Where it finds the most utility is in taking down notes and then transcribing them into digital text on the Samsung Notes app especially during work meetings, something a standard laptop typically can’t do on its own.

For videocalls, the front-facing camera offered sufficient clarity and detail on Zoom while the rear cameras were able to deliver serviceable shots in brightly lit conditions. To be fair, it’s extremely unlikely to tote around something as large as this to take photos and videos.

Like Samsung’s other devices of recent vintage, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra benefits from their array of Galaxy AI tools to modify, summarise or change the tonality of text, access to Google Gemini AI Assistant and Circle to Search with Google as well as their new Audio Eraser to selectively mute out selected sounds from a video like wind, crowds and the like.

You also get their Now Brief and Now Bar feature, their live translation mode for voice or text output and even Drawing Assist to generate images into art.

In practical usage terms, our Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review sample managed to last an entire day from dawn to dusk with plenty of juice to spare for gaming and movie watching duties via a combination of word processing, social media, web browsing and video editing which is quite a feat seeing its large display. 

On conservative settings that involve a minimum of gaming and just paperwork alone, it should comfortably last two days of use. Seeing its large 11,600mAh battery, you’d reckon it’d take awhile to charge it but the provision of 45W wired fast charging saw the tablet able to get a full charge in about an hour and 50 minutes. If you keep to general computing and skip gaming and movie watching, you’ll easily last a full day and a half.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra?

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is a potent laptop replacement with a massive display, excellent battery life, smooth performance and Samsung’s refined DeX mode that offers serious multitasking capabilities.

It doesn’t come cheap but this is the largest, most powerful Android tablet currently in the market that money can buy.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review sample courtesy of Samsung Malaysia. For more details please visit https://www.samsung.com/my/tablets/galaxy-tab-s11/buy/