Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra review
Introduction
The next flagship Galaxy tablet is here, and it is huuuge! The Tab S9 Ultra is among the largest slates on the market, and it encompasses everything Samsung has to offer in 2023 for design, screen, hardware, and pen input.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is actually part of a trio of tablets (S9, S9+, S9 Ultra), which differ in size and camera count. They all have OLED screens, the latest hardware, aluminum unibodies, and bundled S-Pens.
So, the Tab S9 Ultra is based on a 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen and runs on the most powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip for Galaxy. It is wrapped in a classic aluminum unibody, one that is IP68-rated for dust and water resistance.
This tablet has the most cameras among the Tab S9 generation. It has a 13MP primary and an 8MP ultrawide cameras at the back. And then it packs a 12MP standard and a 12MP ultrawide imager at the front. The latter is responsible for the controversial screen notch.
The specs sheet is well-rounded with four powerful speakers, a large 11,200 mAh battery, 5G connectivity, a microSD expansion slot, and a UD fingerprint scanner. There is also a bundled S-Pen, IP68-rated at that, which rechargers magnetically on the back of the tablet. The Tab S9 Ultra comes with Android 13, One UI 5.1, and DeX support.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra specs at a glance:
- Body: 326.4×208.6×5.5mm, 732g; Glass front, aluminum frame, aluminum back; IP68 dust/water resistant (up to 1.5m for 30 min), Stylus, 2.8ms latency (Bluetooth integration, accelerometer, gyro).
- Display: 14.60″ Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz, HDR10+, 1848x2960px resolution, 14.42:9 aspect ratio, 239ppi.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM8550-AB Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (4 nm): Octa-core (1×3.36 GHz Cortex-X3 & 2×2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 & 2×2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 & 3×2.0 GHz Cortex-A510); Adreno 740.
- Memory: 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 1TB 16GB RAM; UFS; microSDXC (dedicated slot).
- OS/Software: Android 13, One UI 5.1.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 13 MP, f/2.0, 26mm, 1/3.4″, 1.0µm, AF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2.
- Front camera: Wide (main): 12 MP, f/2.2, 26mm; Ultra wide angle: 12 MP, f/2.4, 120˚.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps.
- Battery: 11200mAh; 45W wired.
- Connectivity: 5G; Wi-Fi 6e; BT 5.3, dual-SIM (nanoSIM, eSIM).
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); stereo speakers (4 speakers); Wireless Samsung DeX.
We think the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is packing everything a tablet these days should offer. In fact, it could have spared us a camera or two, and we would have still said that.
Unboxing the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra
The retail box of the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is incredibly thin, and there is a reason for that – it contains only the 5.5mm tablet, an S-Pen, and a USB-C cable. There is nothing else in the box.
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra supports 45W fast charging, so if you want to make use of that – you will need to shop for either Samsung’s or a third-party USB-PD/PPS fast charger.
Design, build quality, handling
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is a large tablet, alright, but impressively thin and well-balanced. There is little to experiment with the tablet design, understandably, so Samsung has been sticking to the basics for a while, and we do think it has found a rather timeless classic it can continue to safely use in the generations to come.
The Tab S9 Ultra uses an aluminum unibody with rounded corners and flat sides. The huge 14.6-inch AMOLED is covered with a Gorilla Glass sheet, while everything else is metal with a matte surface.
The frame, which is a part of the unibody, is also flat and incredibly thin – it’s 5.5mm only! Its rather sharp edges do help for a comfortable and secure grip no matter the tablet’s orientation.
The Tab S9 Ultra is IP68-rated for dust and water resistance, which is not expected from a tablet but is always nice to have. You can work, read, browse, game, watch or listen to multimedia in the tub or by the pool worry-free.
The S-Pen that comes bundled with the tablet has a dedicated charging bed on the back, with strong enough magnets to properly hold it there. You can also stick the Pen to either of the long sides, but it cannot charge there.
By the way, Samsung has improved the S-Pen, and it is now IP68-rated for dust and water resistance. It is an active one and supports low-latency input (2.8ms).
And now, a quick tour around the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra.
The front has the 14.6-inch AMOLED screen with high resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ support. Unlike the other Tab S9 models, it features a small notch on one of its longer sides. Here are the two front 12MP cameras with a wide- and an ultrawide-angle lenses. We can argue that this was entirely unnecessary, but it is what it is.
There is also an under-display fingerprint scanner near the bottom if you are holding the tablet in portrait orientation, near the USB-C port. Most tablets these days lack a fingerprint scanner.
The Tab S9 Ultra has four speakers, two on each of the short sides. Also, on the short sides – one has the USB-C port, and the other one has a microphone.
The power/lock key, the volume control, the SIM and microSD bed, and two microphones are on the long side that serves as a top if the Tab S9 Ultra is in landscape orientation.
Keeping this orientation in mind, the keyboard dock connector is at the bottom / the other long side.
Remember that both long sides have hidden magnets to hold the S-Pen.
Finally, the back is flat, with a visible spot for the S-Pen’s charging bed. The two rear cameras are around with jutting out metal rings. There is also a single LED flash.
The Ultra supports 5G connectivity, among all sorts of other connections, so you can clearly see its antenna around its body.
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is a massive device, no two ways about it. It’s wonderful for movies and browsing, great for working with a wireless keyboard, too. It is not that easy to handle and operate even with two hands, but if you must have that size – you will eventually get used to it, just like we did after a couple of days.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra has a 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display of 2,960 x 1,848 pixels or 239ppi density. It supports dynamic 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ streaming.
The panel has a small notch, which is a rare sight on a tablet and a controversial one, too.
The display protection is handled by a piece of Gorilla Glass, though the exact revision is unclear.
While the screen does support a wide color gamut, there is no 10-but color depth and hence the default 16.7 million possible colors. Samsung has no 1B display so far, and we didn’t expect it to premiere one on this tablet anyway.
Let’s start with our display measurements.
This generation of tablets introduces Vision Booster, which improves the text and photos, and other content, under bright light. It boosts the screen brightness and uses contrast improvements, and it can offer up to 1,750nits of peak brightness.
We measured 353 nits of maximum brightness when controlling it manually from the slider. The screen can go up to 642nits in Auto mode when faced with bright light. These are solid numbers for a tablet. The screen goes brighter when the white surface goes smaller, so we do believe it will go way over 1,000nits in a small area when needed.
The minimum brightness at point white was just 1.7nit.
Max display brightness test
White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)
- Manual mode
- Auto mode
Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra
Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
Galaxy Tab S7 FE
iPad mini 6
Xiaomi Pad 6
Huawei MatePad 11
Galaxy Tab S7+
Color accuracy
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra offers two color modes – Vivid (wide color, DCI-P3) and Natural (standard color, sRGB). The accuracy of both is consistently good across both models.
The Vivid mode has a slightly cooler color temperature compared to the Natural one, but you can tune the temperature via a dedicated slider and get similar results.
You can also tune RGB saturation to your liking if that’s your thing.
Refresh rate
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra has two Motion Smoothness modes – Adaptive and Standard. According to the description, the Adaptive one switches automatically between different modes and can do up to 120Hz, while the Standard one does the same but only goes up to 60Hz for longer battery life.
According to the device hardware scanning apps, the screen supports these fixed steps – 30Hz, 60Hz, and 120Hz.
When using the Adaptive mode, we saw the screen use 120Hz across the interface and all compatible apps and many games (excluding those limited to 60fps). When the picture is static, then the software usually dials down to 30Hz.
Video streaming and playback are done in an adaptive fashion, too, depending on the actual video. For example, 24fps and 30fps videos are shown at 30Hz refresh, while above 30fps clips use 60Hz.
When using the Standard mode, the refresh rate behaves as in Adaptive but with a cap of 60Hz. Meaning it uses 30Hz, where applicable.
Streaming and HDR
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra displays support HDR10+, which is recognized by all popular streaming apps. And thanks to the Widevine L1 support, they all stream 1080p HDR10 content hassle-free.
Display options
Battery life
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is powered by a large 11,200mAh battery. It supports 45W fast charging.
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra clocked 7 hours and 45 minutes on our web browsing script, which is an alright score for a tablet. Many of our pages have bright backgrounds, which usually affects the test significantly, given the large OLED screen that needs lighting up.
When it comes to video playback, the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra did 10 hours and 28 minutes before its battery dropped to 10% when playing looped videos in fullscreen view.
We don’t calculate tablet endurance ratings as our formula for phones takes standby battery draw into account. Applying the same formula for tablets with their larger batteries doesn’t make sense because their standby power draw is minimal, so we focus on the active screen-on tests instead.
Charging speed
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra supports up to 45W fast charging. There is no adapter supplied with the tablet. We used Samsung’s 45W PD+PPS charger for our test.
The 45W adapter recharged the empty 11,200mAh battery to 17% in 15 minutes and up to 32% in 30 minutes. A full charge took 2 hours and 8 minutes.
Charging speed
- in 30 min
- Time to full charge (from 0%)
OnePlus Pad
Huawei MatePad Pro 11 (2022)
Xiaomi Pad 6
Huawei MatePad Pro 12.6
Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra
iPad 10.2 (2021)
iPad 10.2 (2021)
The battery options include features like Power Saving mode, Adaptive Battery (puts some apps to sleep automatically), enable/disable fast wired charging. There is also the Protect Battery option, which limits the maximum charge of the battery to 85% for prolonged maximum lifespan.
Battery options
Speakers
The Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra has four speakers with suppor
