Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra review: The apex Android tablet

The Android tablet market is a bit weird. There are countless budget options and plenty of midrange models, plus there are a number of niche offerings for specific purposes — like gaming. However, when it comes to true top-of-the-line premium Android slates, it feels like all the major manufacturers have abandoned the category (especially now that OnePlus has left the US), leaving Samsung as the only company making a proper rival to the iPad Pro. Yes, $1,400 is a ton of money to spend on any tablet, but if you're looking to get the best one on this side of the Android/Apple divide, the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra is it.

There's no getting around the feeling that a tablet with a giant 14.6-inch OLED display is kind of absurd. However, the S12 Ultra's super thin (5.1mm) and light (just 692 grams) design makes its chassis feel even more ridiculous, but in the best way possible. Samsung's aluminum frame is surprisingly strong, only allowing a hint of flex even when you really try to bend it. Its bezels are nice and slim while still giving you just enough room to hold it without accidentally tapping its screen.

Then there's the display, which is the centerpiece of the entire device. It's big, it's bright and it's dazzlingly colorful. It also has a peak brightness of 1,600 nits and a 120Hz variable refresh rate to help make games and apps look super smooth, plus an under-display fingerprint reader for quick and easy biometric authentication. The one quirk to the S12's design is that its bezels are so thin that there's a small bump out where the tablet's selfie cam lives.

My main gripe with the S12 Ultra is that for something meant to be a laptop replacement, it could use some more ports. The only one you get is a single USB-C jack. On phones, device makers have long said that there simply isn't enough room inside to have more, but on a gadget this big, even with its supreme slimness, another USB-C slot or a microSD card reader would go a long way towards making this feel more like a proper productivity machine.

The Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra features a MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chip, 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Put that all together, and this kit is pretty speedy. Part of that is due to the S12 running mobile versions of apps like Photoshop which are less demanding than their desktop counterparts. But that's more of a limitation of the OS, and in Geekbench 7 (which is a cross-platform test), the S12 Ultra posted a multi-core score of 9,403. Compare that to 7,879 for a Dell XPS 13 laptop with an Intel Core 5 320 chip. For how much it costs, I wish Samsung had included 16GB of RAM instead of 12GB as that might help prevent the tab from closing too many background apps. But, given how scarce memory is these days, I get it. Plus, even when flipping between apps or playing games, I had no issues with lag or stuttering.

Of course, the real feather in the Tab S12's cap is Samsung's DeX mode. This lets you switch from the standard Android home screen into a more desktop-like UI complete with a taskbar and windowed apps whenever you want. This is the lynchpin that allows the S12 to rise above much of its competition when it comes to being a laptop replacement. And even though DeX hasn't changed a ton over the past few years, this device wouldn't make sense without it.

As for cameras, while they aren't nearly as important as they might be on a phone, they're about as good as you can get from an Android tablet. Unlike the smaller and slightly cheaper S12 Plus which only features a single cam, the Ultra offers both a wide and ultra-wide lens in addition to its 12-megapixel selfie shooter. At 13MP and 8MP, neither of its rear cameras are super high-res, but they get the job done.

Thanks to its 11,600mAh cell, the Tab S12 Ultra offers better battery life than most laptops its size. On our local video rundown test, it lasted 19 hours and 39 minutes. Granted, that isn't the most demanding routine, but when I used it for an entire day while streaming movies, gaming, running benchmarks and even doing some photo editing, I still had more than 40 percent left in the tank. Longevity simply isn't a concern with the Tab S12 Ultra and it's closer to something that needs to be charged once every two days instead of nightly — even if it's your primary device.

Both versions of the Galaxy Tab S12 come with an included stylus that looks like the exact same pen that came with the previous model. It features a hexagonal shaft so it feels like a good ol' #2 Ticonderoga, just made out of plastic and with a removable nib instead of graphite. There's a handy button for erasing and other functions, and you can clip it to the side of the tablet magnetically when it's not in use. And since it relies on EMR to communicate, it doesn't need to be charged, which is kind of nice because that's one less thing to worry about. It even has IP68 dust and water resistance like the rest of the tablet, so you don't have to fret when an errant splash or rain hits either device.

That said, if you want the full laptop replacement experience, you'll need to buy one of Samsung's keyboards. The more affordable option is the Book Cover Keyboard Slim, which wraps around the S12 to protect its screen while in transit. It then unfolds to reveal a somewhat cramped 60 percent-style layout for typing. However, if you're serious about using Samsung's latest tablet for both work and play, you'll probably want to get the Pro Keyboard, which adds a dedicated touchpad along with a more typical key layout and even a small kickstand for extra stability. When combined with DeX mode, the Tab S12 Ultra with the Pro Keyboard really does make it easy to forget that this is merely an Android slate. I just wish the Pro Keyboard has a wider range of angles, as it often feels like it needs to be titled further back than I'd really like.

Finally, to help sweeten the deal and make on-the-go productivity just a bit easier, the S12 comes with free trials for a bunch of big name apps: four months of Adobe Photoshop, six months of Google AI Pro, two months of Lightroom, a year of Goodnotes and more.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra can be a difficult device to wrap your head around. Its 14-inch display is absolutely massive and the only thing bigger than its screen is its price. And that's before you factor in critical accessories like a keyboard. This makes it significantly more expensive than some similarly sized laptops like a $1,000 Dell XPS 13 or a $800 MacBook Neo. Plus, it offers fewer ports and a more limited OS, at least when it comes to productivity.

But on the other hand, the S12 Ultra's OLED panel is stunning, it comes with an included stylus and its super sleek design defies expectations. It's no slouch when it comes to battery life either, and Samsung's DeX provides a UI that comes rather close to replicating what you get from traditional PCs. In some respects, the basic existence of this device feels somewhat preposterous. But I guess that's kind of what you get when you have a device that's bigger, faster and fancier than practically all of its competition. Even though it doesn't really have a proper rival, the Galaxy Tab S12 Ultra is the apex Android tablet.