Samsung announced their high-end Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra were heading to Australia last month, bringing premium hardware, the latest Galaxy AI features and the redesigned S Pen included in the box.
Priced from $2,099 for the base model, Samsung have sent over a Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Wi-Fi model with 12GB of RAM, but you can jump up to 16GB with 1TB of storage and even add in 5G if you want always-on connectivity.
Despite Samsung offering multiple colour options on their Galaxy S-series phones, there’s only one colour choice on the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra: Grey – though it’s a good look, and if you pair it with a case – like the keyboard cover that Samsung sent along – you won’t see the back a lot anyway.
The keyboard case is definitely an optional accessory to consider, when pairing with the S Pen which is included in the box, it turns the tablet into something even more capable.
It’s a big tablet, and it’s priced at a premium, so is it worth jumping onto a Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra? I checked it out for a couple of weeks and here’s how it went.
The tablet is simply enormous, with the 14.6-inch display dominating the front of the device, but it’s also surprisingly thin at just 5.1mm – with Samsung saying it’s the thinnest Galaxy Tab ever. It’s relatively light for such a large screen device, weighing in at 692 grams, making it easy to hold while watching videos or surfing the web.
The main controls, the volume rocker, power button and even the microSD card slot (or SIM tray if you have the 5G model located on the top long edge of the tablet. The USB-C port is on the short edge, making it useful for charging while watching movies – or working in the keyboard dock.
The top edge houses the front-facing camera, which sits in the ultra-slim bezels that surround the display, with a small bump the only interruption to that large, bright AMOLED display.
Samsung very much seems to want you to use the Tab S11 Ultra in landscape, the fingerprint sensor is embedded in the display just in from the USB-C port, making it quite convenient to sign-in when you pick the tablet up.
The rear of the tablet is grey with the Samsung logo in one corner, and their floating camera island in the other featuring dual sensors and LED flash.
A trio of magnetic pogo pins are located on one edge which are used for connecting to accessories like the keyboard case – which has a neat pop-up connector to easily pair and connect to your case.
Antenna lines flow from the sides of the laptop across the top and bottom of the rear panel, giving it both an interesting highlight and extending the reception.
Samsung’s large 14.6″ AMOLED 2x panel on the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is excellent, and it’s paired with quad-speakers to make watching content a great experience.
There’s a small notch in the long edge of the display to house the camera, which is noticeable at first – but quickly fades into the background when you start using it.
The panel is bright, scaling up to 1600 nits peak brightness, making it a good choice to use indoors or out. The display itself isn’t matte per se, though it has an anti-reflective coating which works surprisingly well.
The WQXGA+ (2960 x 1848) resolution display looks great for your FullHD movies, with 4K content which works excellently for movies and the 120Hz refresh rate makes for smooth scrolling and super-smooth gaming.
The quad speakers on-board have a lot of oomph behind them, but tend to lack a bit in the lower end. While the speakers can play, you’d probably be better off with a decent pair of headphones.
Surprisingly, despite the existence of their line of Exynos processors, Samsung continues to use MediaTek processors in their Galaxy Tab S Ultra series tablets; this year opting for the octa-core Dimensity D9400+ (DX4+) SoC.
There are of course two choices for the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra – 12GB or 16GB RAM – with storage also jumping. You can also opt for 5G connectivity.
The MediaTek Dimensity D9400+ (DX4+) processor handles everything I threw at it with ease. You can easily and quickly launch apps and games without stuttering for the most part, and multi-tasking works similarly well.
There’s a RAM Plus mode which uses unused internal storage as virtual RAM, letting you go up to 12GB of additional ‘RAM’ to smooth out any performance bumps you may encounter.
In terms of performance, it did quite well on both 3DMark and Geekbench:
The tablet includes Bluetooth 5.4 and supports up to Wi-Fi 7, so it’s fast to connect wirelessly to your network – and you can of course jump up to a 5G model if your budget extends.
The camera setup on the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is fairly lackluster compared with their Galaxy S-series phone offerings. There’s a 13MP main camera and 8MP ultra-wide camera with an LED flash on the back, and a 12MP selfie camera on the front.
The camera takes a decent shot in both good and low-lighting, with the ultra-wide able to deliver decent quality shots. Taking a 14.6” tablet out for a photo shoot is an interesting experience, however the saying goes – the best camera is the one you have in your pocket, er, backpack in this case.
While the sensors are only standard wide and ultra-wide, there is technically a ‘zoom’ function offering digital zoom out to 8x.
The size of the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra means you get a decently sized 11600mAh battery, which Samsung says can last up to 23 hours on video playback.
In terms of usage, the tablet went a shade under 12 hours on video rundown tests, even though the display was at full brightness. Using the tablet for a mix of work and play, gave me a couple of days of usage before I was needing to charge but of course playing games ran down the battery quite quickly.
The tablet supports 45W fast charging, but just like their phones, there’s no charger in the box. Charging of that large battery is surprisingly fast, with a 45W charger able to get it back to 100% in just over an hour and a half.
The inclusion of the S Pen in the box is a big plus, with the stylus adding a lot of utility and fun to the tablet. You can use it to work through documents, selecting, moving and repositioning text, images and more, or simply writing notes or drawing – precisely what the kids who got their hands on it did.
Samsung has redesigned the S Pen for ‘comfort and control’ while writing and drawing. It’s definitely quite natural to hold, feeling like a plastic pencil when working with it and the redesigned nib makes it easier to maintain control of the pencil. The S Pen also stores quite neatly at the top of the display when not in use, attaching with decently strong magnets – though you can easily remove it to start using it whenever you want.
The S Pen offers features like Air Command, a floating tile that pops up when you have the S Pen near, you can also hold the pen and tap the screen twice to quickly launch into notes mode – which can use OCR to translate (even my awful) handwriting with a little cleanup.
For the review, Samsung sent across their Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Book Cover Keyboard, a slim and light keyboard accessory.
At 9, it isn’t the cheapest accessory, but it does add a lot of utility. The rear panel is bi-fold, allowing it to prop up your tablet and attach magnetically so you can slip it on or off. There’s holes which align with the camera sensors, though you can slip it down to position the tablet more to your liking.
The cover provides both protection for the tablet, and a handy keyboard – though no trackpad, so you spend a lot of time going back and forth touching the display and then back to the keyboard – however a Bluetooth mouse works like a charm if you have some work to do.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra ships with Android 16 and Samsung’s One UI 8.0 – with the August 2025 security patch installed and no Over-The-Air (OTA) updates available.
Samsung is right up there with Google when it comes to support for their devices, including the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra which Samsung lists as eligible for ‘up to 7 generations of Android OS upgrades, along with 7 years of security updates from the date of global launch’.
The usual Samsung and Google apps come pre-installed, with Samsung’s News, Game Hub and Kids Space also installed. The apps are ‘installed’ however do need to update via the Samsung App store before you can fully use them.
On the bloatware front, Spotify is there as well as Outlook, M365 CoPilot and OneDrive apps from Microsoft, so you can keep or remove those as per your preference.
Samsung incorporates Galaxy AI into all of their devices, with features including Gemini, Circle to Search and all the photo features in Google Photos, as well as some generative AI and photo editing in the Samsung Gallery App. Samsung also allows you to highlight text and then select the Galaxy AI button to access summaries, as well as pen responses using Writing Assist.
One feature I do like is the Samsung Now Brief – a summary of your day that pulls in data from all your services for an overall look at your day. It changes too as you go through your day, and ends with a summary of your day which is kinda neat.
If you wanted the best Android tablet out there with a big, bright and responsive display, plenty of battery life and great performance with the bonus of a healthy accessory eco-system, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is definitely one to look at.
There really is only one sticking point which is the price. At
The top edge houses the front-facing camera, which sits in the ultra-slim bezels that surround the display, with a small bump the only interruption to that large, bright AMOLED display.
Samsung very much seems to want you to use the Tab S11 Ultra in landscape, the fingerprint sensor is embedded in the display just in from the USB-C port, making it quite convenient to sign-in when you pick the tablet up.
The rear of the tablet is grey with the Samsung logo in one corner, and their floating camera island in the other featuring dual sensors and LED flash.
A trio of magnetic pogo pins are located on one edge which are used for connecting to accessories like the keyboard case – which has a neat pop-up connector to easily pair and connect to your case.
Antenna lines flow from the sides of the laptop across the top and bottom of the rear panel, giving it both an interesting highlight and extending the reception.
Samsung’s large 14.6″ AMOLED 2x panel on the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is excellent, and it’s paired with quad-speakers to make watching content a great experience.
There’s a small notch in the long edge of the display to house the camera, which is noticeable at first – but quickly fades into the background when you start using it.
The panel is bright, scaling up to 1600 nits peak brightness, making it a good choice to use indoors or out. The display itself isn’t matte per se, though it has an anti-reflective coating which works surprisingly well.
The WQXGA+ (2960 x 1848) resolution display looks great for your FullHD movies, with 4K content which works excellently for movies and the 120Hz refresh rate makes for smooth scrolling and super-smooth gaming.
The quad speakers on-board have a lot of oomph behind them, but tend to lack a bit in the lower end. While the speakers can play, you’d probably be better off with a decent pair of headphones.
Surprisingly, despite the existence of their line of Exynos processors, Samsung continues to use MediaTek processors in their Galaxy Tab S Ultra series tablets; this year opting for the octa-core Dimensity D9400+ (DX4+) SoC.
There are of course two choices for the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra – 12GB or 16GB RAM – with storage also jumping. You can also opt for 5G connectivity.
The MediaTek Dimensity D9400+ (DX4+) processor handles everything I threw at it with ease. You can easily and quickly launch apps and games without stuttering for the most part, and multi-tasking works similarly well.
There’s a RAM Plus mode which uses unused internal storage as virtual RAM, letting you go up to 12GB of additional ‘RAM’ to smooth out any performance bumps you may encounter.
In terms of performance, it did quite well on both 3DMark and Geekbench:
The tablet includes Bluetooth 5.4 and supports up to Wi-Fi 7, so it’s fast to connect wirelessly to your network – and you can of course jump up to a 5G model if your budget extends.
The camera setup on the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is fairly lackluster compared with their Galaxy S-series phone offerings. There’s a 13MP main camera and 8MP ultra-wide camera with an LED flash on the back, and a 12MP selfie camera on the front.
The camera takes a decent shot in both good and low-lighting, with the ultra-wide able to deliver decent quality shots. Taking a 14.6” tablet out for a photo shoot is an interesting experience, however the saying goes – the best camera is the one you have in your pocket, er, backpack in this case.
While the sensors are only standard wide and ultra-wide, there is technically a ‘zoom’ function offering digital zoom out to 8x.
The size of the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra means you get a decently sized 11600mAh battery, which Samsung says can last up to 23 hours on video playback.
In terms of usage, the tablet went a shade under 12 hours on video rundown tests, even though the display was at full brightness. Using the tablet for a mix of work and play, gave me a couple of days of usage before I was needing to charge but of course playing games ran down the battery quite quickly.
The tablet supports 45W fast charging, but just like their phones, there’s no charger in the box. Charging of that large battery is surprisingly fast, with a 45W charger able to get it back to 100% in just over an hour and a half.
The inclusion of the S Pen in the box is a big plus, with the stylus adding a lot of utility and fun to the tablet. You can use it to work through documents, selecting, moving and repositioning text, images and more, or simply writing notes or drawing – precisely what the kids who got their hands on it did.
Samsung has redesigned the S Pen for ‘comfort and control’ while writing and drawing. It’s definitely quite natural to hold, feeling like a plastic pencil when working with it and the redesigned nib makes it easier to maintain control of the pencil. The S Pen also stores quite neatly at the top of the display when not in use, attaching with decently strong magnets – though you can easily remove it to start using it whenever you want.
The S Pen offers features like Air Command, a floating tile that pops up when you have the S Pen near, you can also hold the pen and tap the screen twice to quickly launch into notes mode – which can use OCR to translate (even my awful) handwriting with a little cleanup.
For the review, Samsung sent across their Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra Book Cover Keyboard, a slim and light keyboard accessory.
At $399, it isn’t the cheapest accessory, but it does add a lot of utility. The rear panel is bi-fold, allowing it to prop up your tablet and attach magnetically so you can slip it on or off. There’s holes which align with the camera sensors, though you can slip it down to position the tablet more to your liking.
The cover provides both protection for the tablet, and a handy keyboard – though no trackpad, so you spend a lot of time going back and forth touching the display and then back to the keyboard – however a Bluetooth mouse works like a charm if you have some work to do.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra ships with Android 16 and Samsung’s One UI 8.0 – with the August 2025 security patch installed and no Over-The-Air (OTA) updates available.
Samsung is right up there with Google when it comes to support for their devices, including the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra which Samsung lists as eligible for ‘up to 7 generations of Android OS upgrades, along with 7 years of security updates from the date of global launch’.
The usual Samsung and Google apps come pre-installed, with Samsung’s News, Game Hub and Kids Space also installed. The apps are ‘installed’ however do need to update via the Samsung App store before you can fully use them.
On the bloatware front, Spotify is there as well as Outlook, M365 CoPilot and OneDrive apps from Microsoft, so you can keep or remove those as per your preference.
Samsung incorporates Galaxy AI into all of their devices, with features including Gemini, Circle to Search and all the photo features in Google Photos, as well as some generative AI and photo editing in the Samsung Gallery App. Samsung also allows you to highlight text and then select the Galaxy AI button to access summaries, as well as pen responses using Writing Assist.
One feature I do like is the Samsung Now Brief – a summary of your day that pulls in data from all your services for an overall look at your day. It changes too as you go through your day, and ends with a summary of your day which is kinda neat.
If you wanted the best Android tablet out there with a big, bright and responsive display, plenty of battery life and great performance with the bonus of a healthy accessory eco-system, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is definitely one to look at.
There really is only one sticking point which is the price. At $2,099 you’ve strayed well and truly into laptop territory, so your use case for a tablet needs to be solid – though adding in the keyboard case, touch display and S Pen and you have some real utility here.
The preference between the utility of tablets and laptops comes down to individual use cases. The Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is super thin and light, so carrying it around while in use, or holding it up to watch movies on is a far more attractive option.
When it comes down to it, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is a premium tablet, with a premium price. It flies through playing games and launching apps,
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
The preference between the utility of tablets and laptops comes down to individual use cases. The Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is super thin and light, so carrying it around while in use, or holding it up to watch movies on is a far more attractive option.
When it comes down to it, the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is a premium tablet, with a premium price. It flies through playing games and launching apps,
Daniel has been talking about, learning about and using tech since he was able to toggle switches and push buttons. If it flashes, turns on or off or connects he wants to use it, talk about it and learn more about it. Like this article? Buy me a coffee!
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